Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Archive - 11/25/2004 to 02/11/2005

Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

We're being baited again...
When someone writes, "I can't imagine two writers more dead then Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scot Fitzgerald. How can anyone think they have ANYTHING to say to contemporary humanity?" I have trouble imagining the statement is at all sincere. I suspect it's trolling--an attempt to rouse indignation, passion and flames.

Of course, humanity doesn't change from one generation to the next, and great truths remain great truths, for all that those who first spoke them have passed away. The flipside is the humanity doesn't change from one generation to the next, and great chowderheads will aways exist to ask questions like that, just to see if someone will nibble.

Harlan, regarding the Cleveland visit--let us know if we who are just dropping in from the suburbs can bring our cards with us, okay? I was planning on getting there early and getting a seat near the front.

Perhaps, O acolyte, if you were to learn to spell and structure a sentence, one could take seriously your critique of two "overrated" authors.

Chuck

I can't imagine two writers more dead then Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scot Fitzgerald. How can anyone think they have ANYTHING to say to contemporary humanity? How can anyone actually sit there lifeless and slog through one of their over-rated books, naturally their great favorites of kinky mimetic academics.

Blogging Clarion '77 - and a certain Writer-in-Residence
Harlan --

The recent Clarion online auction reminded me that I hadn't written on my main blog (or indeed any of them) about my experiences at the 1977 Clarion Workshop. I therefore regaled my readership of dozens with stories of same. (I appear to have omitted the cafeteria guerilla theater set piece, but you weren't there for that, anyway.) One entry was called "Harlan Ellison, Matchmaker." You won't remember this, but you encouraged me to seek a relationship with the male Clarionite of my choice. Result: John Blocher and I have been married for a quarter of a century now. Thanks.

Then last night, I was expected to write about a teenaged crush on a celebrity as part of an AOL "Weekend Assignment" promulgated by John Scalzi. Honesty required me to, uh, well, (*cringe*) write about you again.

So, anyway, this is just a courtesy heads-up about the two journal entries and related postings. The first is illustrated with a series of photos of you at Clarion '77, taken by I-can't-remember-whom. The second reproduces a typed, illustrated flyer of you December, 1976 appearance at Syracuse University. The posting also links back thisaway.

Here are the two URLs:

http://journals.aol.com/mavarin/MusingsfromMavarin/entries/1549
http://journals.aol.com/mavarin/MusingsfromMavarin/entries/1523

Other, non Harlan-centric Clarion anecdotes can be reached from those two pages.

Hail and, um, whatever,

Karen Funk Blocher

Cleveland in March


Harlan,

First, 2 boxes arrived safe and sound yesterday at casa Ingersoll.

Second, RE: the up-coming visit to CWRU and Cleveland. I will be attending MegaCon in Orlando during the weekend before you come to Cleveland. Because of idiosyncracies in plane fares, it turned out to be cheaper for me to fly home on Monday February 28, and at at 6:30 p.m. flight. So, I won't be hitting Cleveland until 8:30 p.m. or so that day. But not to worry, I can still get the books to you in time.

I will be in town all day March 1. I've already extended my vacation through Tuesday, so I can get the books to you first thing and be available to be with you and Susan during the day, should you need anything.

On Wednesday March 2, I have a morning appearance before the Supreme Court of Ohio. I'll be appearing in one of three different cases scheduled for oral argument that morning. In the past I wouldn't know which of the three arguments mine would be until I arrived. Now I can check the Ohio Supreme Court web site.

Mine is the second of three arguments. It will run from 9:30 until 10:00. Assume a half hour to pack up my stuff, get back to my car and get on the road. (Shouldn't really take that long, but I want to err on the far side here). Assume another two and one-half hours to drive up I-71 to Cleveland and I should be back around one in the afternoon. In time for a lateish lunch. (Or course that time estimatess presupposes the weather cooperates and there are good driving conditions.)

That's what my schedule looks like at that time. I hope we can get that schedule and yours and Susan's to coincide sufficiently that we can see each other some.

Bob

Harlan:

Amazon.co.uk has the new release of _A Boy and His Dog_ in stock for 11.99 sterling. They have no problem selling and shipping to the US; shipping is reasonable and takes about a week to ten days for arrival (unless one wants to pay extra for speedier service). Additionally, no value-added tax is charged on items shipped out of the UK, so the price drops to probably about 10 quid each plus shipping.

Your account info and password for Amazon.com will work on the UK site as well. Their cutomer service for overseas orders is excellent; I've had two glitches with them in three years, one a boxed set that arrived with an unplayably damaged disc and one order that never arrived (a US Post Office screwup, not theirs) - and in both cases I was shipped a replacement within 24 hours of notifying them, with a note from them asking that I find a good home for the undamaged discs (or the lost shipment, had it arrived while the replacement was in transit) rather than spending the money to return the items.

(And if you go there - you might want to browse around a bit. The British Film Institute has been releasing some brilliant items from '60s-'70s BBC; in your case, I'm thinking particularly of the 1966 BBC one-off of _Alice In Wonderland_, directed by Jonathan Miller and starring John Gielgud, Peter Cook, Peter Sellers and others. Also a number of the Christmas-season thrillers like _Whistle and I'll Come To You_ , _A Warning to the Curious_ and others. This of course assumes you have a Region 2/PAL-capable DVD player...but then, there are ways to acquire one inexpensively if you don't.)

Cheers!
Don Hilliard

Quick Explanations

I'll keep Barney's story choice secret, but to explain the cryptic nature of the post I mentioned the Baku, that Japanese/Chinese myth of the bear-like creature who hunts and consumes the nightmares of children, giving good fortunes and dreams in return.

In a conversation with Barney, I fired off a joke that you owned one, suggesting you keep it as a pet to keep that dragon you have from getting lonely. It seemed to me that the man who wrote "From A to Z in the Sarsaparilla Alphabet", would've picked that one off in a second.

To the Webmaster: I have read the admonition, and will not double post again.

Harlan,

Just let me know how many you want and where to post them. I'll wait a month as new DVD with no extra's are initially overpriced and then quickly fall in price as retailers realise they're not going to be able to shift many units.

Email on the above address and write something on the header that makes sure I'm not going to confuse it for a Nigerian scam artist, penis extension kit, viagra, xanax or a personal letter of congrats from Farah Palahvi (waitaminute? The last one was legit!).

On other news, UK readers maybe impressed with this but I was working with Ex-BBC correspondent Martin Bell yesterday. Tremendously nice chap, now works raising money for UNICEF. Afterwards told him the tale of how Christine Hamilton nearly got off with me but I resisted her charms. Still wears his man from Del Monte white suit.



FAQ

Robert F. on LOA
Mr. Robert, you should be In Charge Of The World. Sir.

(Would suggest throwing into Vol. 1 either "The Man Who Walked Home" or "The Women Men Don't See" by James Tiptree, Jr. tho)

*******

I think the most likely/deserving science fiction/fantasy authors to make the Library of America are Philip K. Dick and Ursula K. Le Guin. My imaginary two volume LOA of the science fiction novel (assuming those two authors have volumes/sets of their own):

Volume 1: Universe by Robert Heinlein; Wolfbane by Pohl & Kornbluth; The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester; A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.; More than Human by Theodore Sturgeon.

Volume 2: Nova by Samuel R. Delaney; Beyond Apollo by Barry N. Malzberg; The Female Man by Joanna Russ; Engine Summer by John Crowley; 334 by Thomas M. Disch.

Crap - I hit it once and too soon.

No UK DVD for me please. I have 2 VHS and 1 DVD ABAHD already. Plus I have a picture of the UK package. No sense having something with no extras that I probably can't play. - Barney

Harlan -

He just asked about the baku because it might relate to some mythology in the story I'm going to introduce on the S.P.I.D.E.R. thread when it's my turn on 3/26/05. Michael has a theory...

I'll see you and Susan in Cleveland. Depending on when flights come and go I "might" try and tool over to Painesville to see the house on Harmon[d?] drive. Don't know. Crashing with Doug.

Let me know if I should bring FINGERPRINTS and that other prop. Otherwise I'm going to travel light.

- Barney

Harlan -

He just asked about the baku because it might relate to some mythology in the story I'm going to introduce on the S.P.I.D.E.R. thread when it's my turn on 3/26/05. Michael has a theory...

I'll see you and Susan in Cleveland. Depending on when flights come and go I "might" try and tool over to Painesville to see the house on Harmon[d?] drive. Don't know. Crashing with Doug.

Let me know if I should bring FINGERPRINTS and that other prop. Otherwise I'm going to travel light.

- Barney

A Boy and His Dog
The DVD was released four days ago, and I believe the cheapest way for Americans to mail order it is at play.com: http://www.play.com/play247.asp?page=title&r=R2&title=565127
A press announcement is here: http://www.r2-dvd.org/article.jsp?sectionId=2&articleId=6874

My own Hour 25

Recently read and now recommended by yrs. truly:

HUNGER by Knut Hamsun

POST OFFICE by Charles Bukowski

HAM ON RYE by Charles Bukowski

CHARLES BUKOWSKI by Howard Sounes

THE LOTTERY AND OTHER STORIES by Shirley Jackson

MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE by Thomas Ligotti

MICHEAL:

I possess a fine baku, given to me by Ed Bryant,

I also own netsukes and other Chinese figural sculptures.

?

-he

FAISAL:

I tried to cut/paste that URL for the UK release of A BOY AND HIS DOG (from which I shan't see a farthing) but Susan's PC continues to say "I don't recognize that entry, try again," which I did, more than several times ... but only got the same idiot response.

Can you please verify for me.

And then...if we can figure a way to do it conveniently, I would take it as a great favor if you could buy a couple of copies for me (unless there's an easy way for me to do it from here, in which case, all the better). I need the copies for my files, and at least one for Tim Richmond, not to mention one for Barney.

Please advise. And manymanymany thanks for the heads-up.

Oh, and best wishes as the Moslem holy days approach.

Yr. pal, Harlan

A Heads Up For Harlan

Good Sir:

Could you confirm for me that you are an owner of a Baku? Either that, or you've remained in fine fellowship with one of the Japanese/Chinese creatures?

I've just had a small conversation with Barney concerning small details and whatnot. He can tell you the story's title and the details of our correspondence if he likes.

And
Jack Chalker.

Death of a Playwrite
Damn. Arthur Miller just died. Damn

---Peter

Harlan,
Ya'll have a safe trip.

:)
Cindy

Second Post : Like ships, passing in the night . . .
Belated thanks to Rod Williams for the welcome. Cheers cobber.
Would you, by any chance know if any of these DVD'S :

Dune ( Director's Cut Special Edition ) Box Set Region 1 [ 2000 ]
The Twilight Zone Season 1 [ 1985/1986 ]


are avialable (or available to order) from any major (or minor) retail outlets in good ol' OZ ?

hopefully,

Dougie.

A Boy & his Dog has finally been given a Region 2 DVD release. Unfortunately, its with no extra's. It's times like these that I think I should have gone into DVD distributions. Grrr!

Review of the DVD at:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=56109

FAQ

Hmmm.. some fave movie bits/lines....(some paraphrased)

"Ronald Reagan the actor? Then who's Vice President...Jerry Lewis?" from BACK TO THE FUTURE

"Aristotle was not Belgian, the central point of Buddhism is not 'Every man for himself,' and the London Underground is not a political movement!" from A FISH CALLED WANDA

Darryl Hannah's death scene, no wait, ORGASM scene (LOL) at the end of BLADE RUNNER

"Good Mo-o-o-orning Vietnam! from the eponymous; The San Francisco Chronicle (try www.sfgate.com) just reported on Robin Williams' visit to Iraq to entertain the troops - it was like he was living that role!

David Byrne whacking himself on the face in the Talking Heads film, STOP MAKING SENSE (I listened to the soundtrack incessantly, for years before I actually saw it)

The *opening* scenes of CITIZEN KANE

Most of the lines in PRINCESS BRIDE

And so on....

Harlan : Sounds like a really *interesting* lecture coming up. I wish I lived in the Midwest. Um, are you gonna make sure, before answering a queation, that whoever wrote it down is actually present in the room? No cowards! Everybody play fair!

Stuck 60 miles south of San Francisco,

Kristin

Library of America and Modern Library are publishing Lovecraft because he got an endorsement from Joyce Carol Oates. Sorry, but that’s the way it works – you don’t get into the club without a recommendation from a member. It would be nice if someone would reissue the Lovecraft readings David McCallum did for Caedmon.

I think the most likely/deserving science fiction/fantasy authors to make the Library of America are Philip K. Dick and Ursula K. Le Guin. My imaginary two volume LOA of the science fiction novel (assuming those two authors have volumes/sets of their own):

Volume 1: Universe by Robert Heinlein; Wolfbane by Pohl & Kornbluth; The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester; A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.; More than Human by Theodore Sturgeon.

Volume 2: Nova by Samuel R. Delaney; Beyond Apollo by Barry N. Malzberg; The Female Man by Joanna Russ; Engine Summer by John Crowley; 334 by Thomas M. Disch.

Back when Harlan was hosting the Hour 25 show he used to take out a few minutes from each program to mention what he’d been reading or watching or listening to. He put the listeners on to a number of good things that way. If he had the time and the inclination to do that here it would be wonderful.

A hearty second for the "Superman" line from Iron Giant. I also tear up.

"The whole town needs an enema." Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Always makes me laugh.

Did Hunt Bowman ever triumph over the Voltamen?

FINDER/DOUG: I've seen Jorg Ihle's adaptation of "Paulie Charmed the Sleeping Woman." I have a copy. It's a few notches better than okay all right. Not a great film, but a nice piece of work with some rich moments in it. I was more or less contentedly pleased at the way it turned out. Heaven knows the producer and actors and Jorg kept me in the loop pretty much; and they worked hard at it. So on sum, I am okay with it.

KEITH CRAMER: I've decided to work the upcoming Case Western Reserve gig totally on the fly. I'm asking the apparat in charge to get people to type out questions on 3x5 cards, some prior to the event, others engendered at the door and shuffled together for me before I go on. This way, the audience will totally program my presentation. The Forbes Auditorium holds about 700, if I'm not overestimating. As it is free, CWR expects a packed house, which is swell. I work best to a jammed venue. No telling what will ensue.

Also, while Susan and I are there, we'll be going out to the cemetery to take a moody photo of me at the gravesite of my Mom and Dad. Been wanting to do that for a long time.

Bob, Tony ... if you drop in and read this ... I am planning for us to see us all. Got to work out when, how, where, etc.

Cleveland at the end of February. Oh, gawdamighty...!!!!

Been there, done that.

With chilled expectations, I remain,

Yr. pal, Harlan Frozensicle

RE: movie moments

From the musical front:

Danny Kaye and Vera Allen dancing to "The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing" from White Christmas

The musical zing when Cyd Charisse's enormous scarf flies straight up in the air in the Broadway Ballet from Singing in the Rain.

(Also from Singing in the Rain: The shot of Gene Kelly hugging the lamppost, sopping wet.)

Gene Kelly on rollerskates, dancing to "I Like Myself" in It's Always Fair Weather.

Astaire dancing on the walls/ceilings to "You're All the World to Me" in Royal Wedding.

[worst movie musical moment: Every second of My Fair Lady that features a poorly dubbed Audrey Hepburn instead of Julie Andrews. Gaaah.]

Harlan's lecture
Well, my husband and I just decided we're going to do the 2-hour trek to Case Western to see Harlan - I can't miss that opportunity! Keith, hopefully we'll see you there. Anyone else from here planning to go?

Dima

Coming to Cleveland!
I talked a friend of mine into coming to Cleveland with me to hear Harlan's lecture at Case Western Reserver University on March 1st. I'm going to loan her a couple of Harlan's books prior to that, so she can get some idea of what to expect.

Harlan, do you have a topic picked out, or will you wing it?

-Cramer

Memorable Movie Moments
The most frustrating thing of having fun with this is that you know that there will be a dozen or more that come to mind the moment you press SEND. With that said, or typed, here's what's sticking to the corners of my mind this moment:

** The "all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain" speech from BLADERUNNER

** Dave dismantles Hal in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

** Michael smack the kiss'o'death on Fredo in GODFATHER II

** The Vincent plunges the adrenaline into Mia's chest in PULP FICTION

** Captain Willard asks who's in charge at the Do Long (not sure of spelling) Bridge, and the response given in APOCALYPSE NOW

** Jack backs Wendy up the staircase in THE SHINING

** Chattin' at the soda machine about our fluids in DR. STRANGELOVE

** Father sets free his imprisoned birdies in HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART ONE (if you've seen it 100 times, and the snot still squirts when you do, then it's fucking funny. A favorite of Debbie's as well).

** "It's just a flesh wound" in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL

** Woody dances with Death in LOVE AND DEATH

** The mashed 'tater Devil's Tower and Roy's son's tears in CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND.

** Harry Lime first appears from the shadows in THE THIRD MAN

** That strange, short, grey-haired psy-cop makes an appearance in BABYLON FIVE

I gotta million of them, but alas, I grow weary.

-TODD

Favorite Movie Moments
Just a couple as I rob my employer of a couple minutes at the end of the day...

Benjamin Braddock's run to the church at the end of THE GRADUATE.


"Killer Kane" coming to the forefront of Stacy Keach's personality during the barroom fight in THE NINTH CONFIGURATION.

I love this sort of thing.

Being short on time, I'll dig into my files and come up with a list of quotes I assembled last year:

“What she’s got you couldn’t spell. And what you’ve got you used to have.”
(Jerry in The Barefoot Contessa, written by Joseph L. Mankiewicz)

“When I spike you you’ll know you’ve been spoken to.”
(Danny in Withnail & I, written by Bruce Robinson)

“Detriments you call us? Detriments? Well I want to remind you it was detriments like us that built this bloody empire, and the Izzat of the bloody Raj. Hats on!”
(Peachy in The Man Who Would Be King, written by Gladys Hill and John Huston)

“I'll send you a love letter. Straight from my heart, fucker! You know what a love letter is? It's a bullet from a fucking gun, fucker! You receive a love letter from me, you're fucked forever! You understand, fuck? I'll send you straight to hell, fucker!”
(Frank Booth in Blue Velvet, written by David Lynch)

“That's one of the tragedies of this life - that the men who are most in need of a beating up are always enormous.”
(John D. Hackensacker III in The Palm Beach Story, written by Preston Sturges)

“A man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.”
(Dryden in Lawrence of Arabia, written by Robert Bolt)

“The point is, I run this dump and I don't know the technical mumbo-jumbo. Why do I run it? I've got horse-sense, goddamnit. Showmanship. And also, and I hope Lou told you this, I’m bigger and meaner and louder than any other kike in this town.”
(Jack Lipnik in Barton Fink, written by Ethan and Joel Coen)

“Here’s your head. What’s your hurry?”
(Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success, written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets)

“It’s my head! It’s my head! I will see you in court!”
(John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich, written by Charlie Kaufman)

“Keep your lovin’ brother happy.”
(Frank in Once Upon a Time in the West, many writers, English dialogue by Mickey Knox)

Film Bits

"The Conversation" - When Harry stands in the hotel room next to where the murder is being committed, and mentally and physically chasing his panic over not acting to stop it.

I also love the scene of his panic in tearing part his apartment trying to ascertain whwre the bug lies. As the rooms themselves, harry is as much left in shambles.

"Citizen Kane" - The destruction of the bedroom. Then, the pan shot at the end of the film passing over the piles upon piles of belongings being fed to the fires. Somehow it apppears to me as a massive city laid to waste by either natural or man-made causes.

"The Bicycle Thief" - The scene where the boy saves his father from the mob.

"Last Tango In Paris" - Brando's confession scene. Pure violence and self-hatred, and not one physical act.

"The Guns Of Navarone" - Watching the ordinance lift go up and down, closer and closer to the detonator, as the British fleet moves closer into the gun's range...

I haven't read any of Jack Ketchum's work, but stumbled across this while ignoring the ringing phone here at work.

http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/squib/79.html

It's the second part of an interview with him, but probably the most relevant to this board since there's some good tips in there for fledgling writers.

HPL
I think that the Herbert West story had to be there simply because the movie [for better or worse] served as a pointer to a generation of reader/viewers who were never going to find Lovecraft via Arkham House. A concession to commercialism but no great crime. For instance, I never really minded when they flog a movie association for a Philip K. Dick story as long as the publisher is selling you the story and not some bastardized novelization. I suppose there might be room for a second HPL Modern Library volume based on your argument and I certainly wouldn't have a problem with that.

I would be curious to know how enthusiastic ML was about this volume. Is this a cash cow for the built-in Lovecraft market or are they really interested in this stuff? Is Robert E. Howard being considered? I think a volume of Howard's best stuff would be a great thing. Harlan once described Rex Miller's writing as stuff "that really pulls the plough" and I think in some weird way Howard is the grandaddy of that style.

Is Modern Library looking at any of the other pulp writers? C.L. Moore, Jim Thompson etc.? Fill in your own favorite. I could have stuck 30 in there. Is Bradbury a possibility? I know Vintage or Viking or somebody did a big retrosoective back in the 1980's but I suspect that's well out of print.

On a related front - I finally got around to reading the key Futrelle story in the ML edition that Harlan edited. I read Harlan's material the week it came out and then it got misplaced until yesterday. Quasi-SPOILER WARNING / the bit involving the writing on the cloth was quite a disappointment. My solutions were far more interesting, if a bit grotesque. I have to remember this was written in 1905. I'm going to have to space these out.

Harlan very kindly soft-pedalled the one trick pony aspect. Doing these in one setting would not help their cause. On the other hand, Harlan's intro. alone is well worth the cover price.

Waiting for my Modern Library and Library of America editions of Harlan Ellison. I am a very patient man.

- Barney

Silverfishbait, PA.

Sorry if this is flogging a dead shuggoth, but now that I've had a chance to take a look at the LOA Lovecraft volume I must say I have to wonder about some of Peter Straub's editorial choices. He gets it mostly right; the BIG stories are all here. But you sure do have to wade through a lot of junk to get to the good stuff. It's almost a third of the way into the book before you get to "Call of Cthulhu".

Now I would certainly keep "Outsider" and "Erich Zann", but why include crap like "Statement of Randolph Carter" and "Herbert West--Reanimator"? Where is "Dream-Quest", or what I consider HPL's finest story "The Silver Key"? Does Straub really prefer "Horror at Red Hook"?

I would have even ditched "Charles Dexter Ward" for HPL's great essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature". And just for fun why not find room for HPL's faux history of the Necronomicon?

Just for the record, I love HPL. As long as people aren't comparing him to Poe or claiming that he is some kind of great literary artist.

Ok Ok I'll shut up now. Guess I shoulda returned Peter Straub's phone calls huh? heh heh heh

Twin Falls not Twin Peaks
Mild brain fart. It's TWIN FALLS IDAHO, and it's a stunner: an almost unbearably powerful, and passionate, love story between a call girl and "Mr. Right" -- i.e. the Right member of a pair of conjoined twins.

While we’re in film mode…

Harlan, have you had the chance to view Jorg Ihle’s 1999 AFI thesis film adaptation of “Paulie Charmed The Sleeping Woman”? I haven’t myself (my tendrils reach, but not that far), but I adore the dark magic of the story, and am curious if you have a take on Ihle’s attempt at translating it to the screen.

Adam-Troy: "Twin Peaks Idaho" -- now _there's_ a movie I'd like to see!

With Apologies to True Art
The very first scene I thought of when the question of favorite movie scenes was brought up (and the one I can’t get out of my head now.)

National Lampoon’s Vacation - John Candy approaches the Griswolds and says “Sorry Folks. Park’s closed. The moose out front should have told you.”

I don’t know why, but I role on the ground every time I hear it. If I notice the movie is on, I will wait for just that scene. It is nothing compared to the examples most of you have shared. But there is something about the timing and the situation that just works for me.

Mike

A couple more come to mind...

The "I am not a gun" parts of IRON GIANT, followed by that final word "Superman." Makes me well up every time.

The great shot only of Gint's feet straightening out as he walks down the sidewalk in THE USUAL SUSPECTS.

The shot of Joe Morton and S. Epatha Merkerson as the Dysons, watching the Terminator cut off his arm in TERMINATOR 2; I just love how she naturally freaks at the sight of the metal arm, while Dyson starts freaking and then has the most wonderful expression of "wait...I know that."

Thoughts on teenager-speak (and college speak)
Chris (and Harlan) - I have often wondered why it is so mandatory for young people to feign stupidity. "Like, no one will take you seriously or believe you're really a student unless you like, totally say like, totally every other word!"

Well, some of them really are stupid, but even the bright ones talk that way!

I have seen things like film reviews and letters to the editor written by teenagers proving they can be perfectly articulate when and if they want to be, but how often do their conversations reflect this? I went to one of the higher-achieving (good SAT scores and many college-bound students) high schools in the country, and if I remember right the Valley-Girl fad hit us just as hard as anybody!

Bewildered,


Kristin

HOLY MACKREL! DA SIN CITY MOVIE, LAWD ABOVE!!!
Follow along folks...
I work close to eighty hours a week, have a jones for vintage hot rods and pre-1960 m/c's, drink too much beer and try my level best to find music, books and movies that enrich my life and challenge my intellect (while doing my best to maintain healthy relationships w/ family, friends and society at large)- the point you may ask? I've little time to spare and sometimes I'm a little late in getting the word, 'kay? I just stumbled across the preview for "Sin City"!!!! Wow, am I hard!!! And before any of you Aw-my-gawd-anyone-in-the-know-has-known-about-this-ten-years want to post your shitty, snide remarks I'd like to add: Not only have I saddled my ass on a '49 Vincent Black Shadow as well as the driver's seat of a boat-tailed Auburn, but I'll be parking it in the seat of the nearest theatre that has the good sense to be playing Sin City on opening night!
Stay Sick,
Edward King

Some but by no means all memorable scenes that come to mind:

Searching for Bobby Fisher – scene near the end when the boy offers a draw in his game versus his arch nemesis.

The Killing Fields – Scene in which the protagonist discovers the bodies in the rice paddies.

Four Wedding and a Funeral – The reading of Auden’s poem. “He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.” etc.

The shooting of Old Yeller.

The act in The Lion in Winter with the brothers hiding behind the drapes.

Reservoir Dogs – Cutting off of the ear.

Jaws – swapping of stories between the police chief and other’s on the ship out at sea.

Altered States – At the end when the professor is saved by his wife.

PERSONAL "GREAT CINEMATIC MOMENTS" (AS OF 2005):

The dream sequence of Bruce Banner remembering his mother’s death in HULK.

Charles Kane's rampage through the bedroom near the climax of CITIZEN KANE.

The scene of Tilda Swinton becoming a woman in ORLANDO.

Klaus Kinski’s eerie monologue to the camera in AGUIRRE.

The basset hound scene at Batou’s home in GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE.

Gary Cooper’s physical/mental collapse on the railroad in THEY CAME TO CORDURA.

The shot of the exploded gas station from above in THE BIRDS.

Ray Milland’s public humiliation at the five-star restaurant in THE LOST WEEKEND.

"I seemed to have died. Is that OK?" The MST3King of OVERDRAWN AT THE MEMORY BANK.

Unicron’s transformation into “humanoid” mode in TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE. (Bite me, film snobs.)

Robin Williams’s breakdown near the end of SEIZE THE DAY.

The scene where the Porter is demoted by his boss in THE LAST LAUGH.

Bruce Campbell having his ass handed to him by miniature versions of himself in ARMY OF DARKNESS.

The “dinner” scene from THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1973).

Jack Lemmon’s violent fit in the greenhouse in DAYS OF WINE & ROSES.

The “shower of arrows” sequence from THRONE OF BLOOD.

The shot of the townspeople emerging from their hiding places at the finale of HIGH NOON.

The final ten minutes of both the 1932 SCARFACE and its 1983 remake.

All of ERASERHEAD.

TZ
Harlan, I have finished watching your four episodes (soon I have to check out the NACKLES script as well). One of your audio commentaries completely made my day (PALADIN), and the others were marvellously insightful, funny, moving and/or entertaining as well. Those are the kinds of audio commentaries DVD's were invented for. Being interested in filmmaking, I have listened to my share of them, and these were the best. Thanks! (Not that I didn't expect them to be good, but they were also unusual in many positive ways.)

I discovered the show around 1992(?), it seemed very special to me, and I always watched it alone. I had to tape it at night and play it the next day after school. Often something went wrong, so I only saw a very limited number of episodes. I vividly remember watching my first episode, it was the one about the little creatures haunting the writer. PERSONAL DEMONS. I'm looking forward to seeing that again, too, to see if it holds up. It was scary as hell and I didn't understand what this was, I didn't know there was such a thing as an anthology show.

Film moment

DAS BOOT *** spoiler warning ***

While planes strafe by, the captain stumbling out of shelter to watch his submarine sink down below the dock.

Rubber suits, Cigars and Tomahawks. .
Kieth Cramer:

BLAARRGGGHHH! Roland Emmerich's Godzilla! Not worthy of the name! Not worthy to scrub Toho's toilets! An insult! A slight! A travesty! Worse than root canal surgery, worse than Mariah Carey, worse than a paper cut on the prostate, an enema, a brick in the face, a sharp pencil up the nose! A deliberate, intentional, cynical misinterpretation of all that makes Monster Movies great.

Godzilla was the Mohamed Ali, the Bruce Lee, of Monsters. That featherless chicken running around Emmerich's film couldn't take on the Staypuff Marshmellow man.

Now that we're on the topic, here's my great, unforgetable scene:

Godzilla vs. Gigan: After taking a serious beating, Big G gets up off the ground, dusts himself off and kicks the ass of his enemies, to the sound of Akira Ikufube's amazing score (borrowed from a serious war film). Triumph against adversity. And giant alien robots.

Others?

"Last of the Mohicans", Chingachgook (Russell Means) slowly shakes his head before doing in Magua (Wes Studi), as if to say "You mother-fucker".

And anytime Groucho seduces Margaret Dumont. It's worth getting slapped to use those lines. . .

Scenes I never get tired of:

Skipping the obvious example(s) of numerous scenes from 2001:

Two scenes from STROSZEK - first Bruno S. standing in a long shot, back towards the camera, as they take his mobile home away. As the mobile home is removed, the scene, dominated by the home, now opens out onto a vista, a shot across the plains stretching off to the distant horizon. Herzog holds the shot for a full 45 seconds longer just watching a tiny Bruno standing and staring into infinity. Second: the "dancing chicken."

Staying with Herzog, from FATA MORGANA, the scenes of the bizarre "night club" singer -the guy with goggles on the drums singing that strange, strange song. It's the most memorable sound from a movie ever.


The joust in Bresson's LANCELOT DU LAC (a miracle of sound design.)

"Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from LIFE OF BRIAN.

"All work and no play..." from THE SHINING

That creepy, monkey with the human eyes from the beginning of BARAKA.


The basketball game in "ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST"

CHRIS SEGGERMAN:

You cannot know what pleasure and satisfaction and smiling joy your post brings me!!!!

Thank you thank you and again thank you.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Ezra: "It keeps me from pissing of Jan by asking him which shirt he owns, the blue one, the gold one, or the red one?"

Gee thanks.

MARCI:

I have absolutely NO IDEA in what NeverNeverLand Mitch Hurwitz resides, whereat he finds writers "treated with respect."

Kindly get me the address. I'd like to emigrate posthaste.

With Judge Crater, Amelia Earhart, Kasper Hauser, Peter Pan and the Easter Bunny as neighbors, I presume.

Falling down with spasms of laughter, I remain,

Harlan Ellison, a film/tv writer who lives in the Real World

Just a few scenes, promoted by the previous post:

The murder of the family at the beginning of _Once Upon a Time in the West_. Two moments especially: when the camera moves around to reveal who the lead murderer is, and the tolling of the bell when he gazes upon the surviving kid as he prepares to shoot him.

The ball at the end of _The Leopard_.

Orson Welles as Falstaff, facing Hal's rejection, in _Chimes at Midnight_. It could be his finest moment as an actor.

Sean Astin carrying Elijah Wood to Mount Doom in _The Return of the King_.

Nearly every frame of _Ran_.

Scenes I Never Get Tired Of
Oh boy, lots.

Elsa Lanchester reacting to Boris Karloff with horror in THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN.

Harold Diddelbock professing his love in MAD WEDNESDAY. Indeed, a dozen scenes from that film.

Buster Keaton's fight with the pirate in SPITE MARRIAGE.

"Get Away From Her, You Bitch!" in ALIENS.

The engine of the PHOENIX finally catching, in FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, singing horribly badly in GEORGIA.

"No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!"

Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, telling Brigid he's turning her in in THE MALTESE FALCON.

Schindler on the hilltop, watching the ghetto slaughter.

The banker, in BIG HAND FOR THE LITTLE LADY, telling the stunned gamblers that he will back the lady's bet.

Diane Keaton, in GODFATHER 2, telling Al Pacino that it wasn't a miscarriage, but an abortion, "just like our marriage."

One-armed Spencer Tracy, beating the crap out of Ernest Borgnine in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK.

Elsa the Lioness making her first kill in BORN FREE.

The last scenes of TWIN PEAKS IDAHO. "It's not over."

Dustin Hoffman, in LITTLE BIG MAN, triumphantly giving General Custer the advice to go down into Little Big Horn.

Roberto Benigni, fooling his next door neighbor into thinking he's a midget, in THE MONSTER.

Inspector Dreyfus losing his mind, several times in the PINK PANTHER series (much funnier than Closeau himself).

The closing speech of Michael Douglas, in THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT.

The closing duel in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.

Eli Wallach, racing through the graveyard in THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY.

William Peterson, suddenly realizing how to find the killer in MANHUNTER.

Orson Welles, addressing the jury at the end of COMPULSION.

Burt Lancaster, angrily admitting his complicity in war crimes in JUDGMENT AT NUREMBURG.

More to come, those just off the top of my head.

Harlan's ferocity makes a difference!
Hello,

I saw Harlan speak a few years ago at Arizona State University West. Prior to that, I’d seen him on Tom Snyder talking about someone wanting to build a tennis court that encroached on his property.

Having just heard him decry the dangers of television, I didn’t want to admit I’d been watching it. When I asked him about this, I got nervous and started to embroider every sentence with “like”—though I never used “rilly.”

After a few painful sentences, Harlan said “If you say “like” one more time, I’m gonna hit you with this microphone! Neither your mother nor myself brought you up to talk that way!” He further cautioned me not to talk like a Valley Girl and remembered the incident when I ‘fessed up to seeing him on Tom Snyder.

While some folks would get horked off at being corrected—the student paper even said someone who curses so much shouldn’t pick on “poor students”-- I realized that I had sounded like some illiterate peasant instead of an English Major—which I was! Because of that, I reevaluated my speech and life. I also read every book or short story of Harlan’s I could acquire. Things have improved so much since then.

Most recently, “Incognita, Inc.” grabbed me. It just nails that bittersweet sense of loss and optimism I keep trying to beat into my friends’ heads.

Thanks, Harlan!

Memorable movie moments.
Two moments really; one of terror, the other of sadness.

I can vividly recall the most powerful image in cinema from my youth. Sitting at home one night with the family as a young boy and watching The Magical World of Disney and encountering their take on that classic Russian Tale, Peter and the Wolf. There's this one moment in that, in the midst of the Disney lightness, that has stuck with me all my life. Two images from youth seared onto my young brain like a branding iron; the moment when the camera pans away from Peter and his grandpa and heads out into the whirling snow, and makes mention of the Wolf that first time, the blowing snow sliding over a large, ominous pawprint, and the moment when the Wolf is on the branch with Peter. That creature was the first real impression my young mind got of Very Bad Things. The Wolf visited me on many a night in the dark.

The other moment that moved me is the death of John Coffey in The Green Mile. I couldn't make it through that sequence without breaking into tears. John is a simple, caring soul that doesn't deserve his fate at all, and that moment is just the most painful thing I've ever seen. A movie has never managed to get past my defenses quite like that film did.

Stacy

Movie Moments - the scene that you never forgot
It was never in the movie. I anticipated the movie, from this ingenious trailer, for over a year. The movie sucked so bad I went into a depression afterward which lasted weeks, and I'm normally a very happy guy. My nickname as a child was Sunshine, and our neighbors were not sarcastic types.

Picture this:

Interior, New York Museum of Natural History. Far shot on a group of 6th graders slowly following their Ben Stein-like teacher reading mechanically from a card, as they proceed into a glass domed room, dominated by a T-Rex skeleton. Teacher's monotonous voice echos in the space. The procession stops short of standing at the ropes around the display, as the teacher turns to the students and gestures at the statue as he continues his droning. "Tyranosaurus Rex was the most fearsom predator of his age..." Then there is a distant, and almost imperceptible, boom. Instructor goes on. "Six-inch fangs..." yada yada, another boom, closer, which makes him pause, because the skeleton of the T-Rex shook, shaking dust loose. Suddenly there's a wide angle on the T-Rex skeleton in the center of the room, the dome, and then a huge MONSTER FOOT crashes through the dome and squashes the T-Rex skeleton, and then leaves. There is a sound like a fog-horn mated with a doomed train squealing its brakes down a mountain pass, and a long green tail passes above the dome.

Yes, it was Godzilla. The Emmerich version. Poop. They should have just had a big pile of shit crash through the dome and squash the T-Rex skeleton.

Groundhog Day: Bill Murray's character futilely trying to save the old, homeless man. Tears every time.

LA Story: The two main characters become children walking down a verdant garden path, to a soundtrack from Enya's Watermark Album. And the end, when the plane can't take off because the weather goes freaky. In fact, that whole movie is awesome. Steve Martin amazes me.

Good thread.

-Cramer

The "magic moments in movies" thread (he avowed alliteratively) is a good one. It keeps me from pissing of Jan by asking him which shirt he owns, the blue one, the gold one, or the red one?

Anyway, one such moment that immediately comes to mind is when Boris Karloff is first awakened from his endless sleep by the hapless and doomed young archeologist, reading the spell of Thoth, in the original MUMMY from 1932. His eye flickers open, he flexes his fingers and the mummy dust trickles down his chest in complete silence. "Come out under the stars of Egypt."

But the best such moments come from books. One image that still buzzes around in my head like a bumblebee in a mason jar is this from Borges' "Library of Babel,"

"Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite."

I remember when I first read that story in college. Man I couldn't get that out of my head for days. Still can't obviously.

Chuck,
I honestly was never a big fan of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD so I've only seen it a couple of times, but your recounting of the conversation between Scout and Jem is a fine example of excellent writing and direction. As Judge Smails would say, "Top notch, top notch!"

I'm going to have to look at it again just to see that scene.

Tracy: "tepid, mediocre "Star Trek" tie-in novels. A veritable banquet for some undiscerning woodpecker. My question is, how does someone become committed to a project like that? Did the writers actually have to buy thier way into the franchise or are these the efforts of bullpen hacks?"

The Pocket Books novels are written exclusively by people who know the shows very well and want to write for the line. Some of the writers may be hacks, others aren't. I figure it's good practice to write the novels, they're relatively easy to do (you have all the usual chess pieces at your disposal, you hear the voices in your head), you get paid, and you have a built-in audience. I read lots of the early books in my teens, and they varied *wildly* in quality and approach, although to the naked eye they may appear to be all of the same cloth (perhaps today they are). Even though the majority of hard sf books are written by men, a lot of the better Trek books were written by women and they often had a decidedly female perspective. I had an exchange with Diane Duane once and she had no problem being associated with the Star Trek novels, although she certainly never "needed" to write them. Few people did. Greg Bear didn't, Vonda McIntyre didn't. None of the writers deserve to be looked down upon just because they contributed a few novels. That's called writing for a market; these are books for teenagers. The novel assignments are handed out based on prose samples and story outlines; the editors get more requests than they can handle, so they can pick relatively good writers. The only problem is the approval process and the need to respect established facts. I believe, the books have been selling less and less, and (as with the tv shows) the output was way too big for too many years. Certainly there was a drop in overall quality/creative freedom sometime around 1989 or so.

To Resurrect a Stillborn Thread

Specifically, rich's.
Quote:

"So what movie scene(s) gives you guys the goosebumps or never gets old no matter how many times you've seen it?"

I can think of several from TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.

There's the one between Scout and Jem, in bed for the night, talking from one bedroom to another as Atticus is on the porch overhearing their conversation:

Scout: How old was I when Mama died?
Jem: Two.
Scout: How old were you?
Jem: Six.
Scout: Old as I am now?
Jem: Uh huh.
Scout: ...Was Mama pretty?
Jem: Uh, huh.
Scout: Was Mama nice?
Jem: Uh, huh.
Scout: Did you love her?
Jem: Yes.
Scout: Did I love her?
Jem: Yes.
Scout: Do you miss her?
Jem: Uh, huh.

The camera concentrates almost entirely on Atticus' expression as they talk.

- or when the lych mob confronts Atticus in front of the jail, and the kids run to his side. Scout recognizes Mr Cunningham, a neighbor and begins talking to him:

Scout: I said, 'Hey,' Mr. Cunningham. How's your entailment getting along?
[He turns and looks away]
Scout: Don't you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I'm Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one early morning, remember? We had a talk. I went and got my daddy to come out and thank you. I go to school with your boy. I go to school with Walter; he's a nice boy. Tell him 'hey' for me, won't you? You know something, Mr. Cunningham, entailments are bad. Entailments...
[She suddenly becomes self-conscious]
Scout: Atticus, I was just saying to Mr. Cunningham that entailments were bad but not to worry. Takes a long time sometimes...
[to the men who are staring up at her]
Scout: What's the matter? I sure meant no harm, Mr. Cunningham.

The men are shamed into giving up their little necktie party and go home.

These scenes could have been schmaltzy, cloying, but there's a direct honesty in them that gets to me every time I see this movie. I can never watch it without becoming teary-eyed.

Chuck

Harlan, thoughts on the writer's Eden?
Harlan,

Having read about your years in working for television, I thought you might appreciate this quote from Mitchell Hurwitz (creator of Fox's Arrested Development):

"...television is a very writer-driven business, and it's one of the few parts of entertainment where writers are treated with respect."

Is this accurate? Have times changed so much since your verbose columns on the horror of writing for television? Certainly excellent show-runner/writers like Joe Straczynski (and many others) have been able to climb fairly high in the television game, but this seems rather like pointing to Spartacus as an example of the fine life enjoyed by a Roman slave.


The full interview being at the link below.

http://www.theonionavclub.com/feature/index.php?issue=4106

"The Wagon Train Got Chucked"
Hello everyone,

I wish I could feel funereal about the demise of Trek--my black suit covered with schmaltzy tears and Kleenex dust--but as it is, I'm underwhelmed and without condolences. I feel nothing but jack, and shit, and I just ran out of jack. Too much has transpired--too many clone shows; too many warp core breaches; too many bogus--and arrogant--homilitic endings. Perchance Counselor Troi can sense my sadness. I sure can't.

At the local branch of Barnes & Noble, there is an entire semi-gondola filled with tepid, mediocre "Star Trek" tie-in novels. A veritable banquet for some undiscerning woodpecker. My question is, how does someone become committed to a project like that? Did the writers actually have to buy thier way into the franchise or are these the efforts of bullpen hacks?

Here's a real "star trek" for you: A website chronicling everything currently known about all the extrasolar planets discovered so far, complete with a few fanciful paintings that take you there. A great resource for any writer wanting to put characters on a newly discovered world, and just fun to read. Check it out!


http://www.extrasolar.net/

Harlan & Barney: On Kersh and then a digression...
Ixnay on the offer for "Jews without Jehovah". While I was aware of people swiping photos from other listings and fraudlently trying to pass them off as being for sale, I was more than a little dismayed to find out these shuck & jive artists can make a "second chance offer" for something they had never listed (legitimately and under the egis- or is it egest- of E-bay)! How fucking odd! It is as if E-bay is putting their profit margin over fair and ethical trading standards. The lady who had the book for sale e-mailed to let me know the dipshit (otherwise known as ainceputparanghelia)had made a number of bogus offers to other e-bayers for the book (for the record Barney, I'm ghoulunatic1956).
Harlan and any one else reading this,
While most of the nation views Febuary as Black history month (how ever the hell you define that) it, for a handful of us, marks the passing of Bill Hicks. As a friend and ghost-writer of Lenny Bruce (and I do view Hicks as Lenny's equal-most likely the only comedian who will come within a country mile of that standard- with Carlin coming in a close third)I'd highly suggest picking up the "Bill Hicks live" DVD. OHMIGAWD, three of Hicks's best concerts and the BBC documentry on one disc. Over three hours of piss-your-pants funny social criticism and his bit about the first war in Iraq is more relevant today than thirteen years ago! Enjoy.
Edward King

Trying, trying...
I'm trying to say as little as I can about the subject (Trek), since this is not the place, but some people are totally closed-minded and freely permit their minds to be full of clichés. Star Trek these days gets put down by everyone, why can't we do better and look at what's really there? There are so many people who haven't actually ever watched the show with any attention at all, and who think their opinion is informed. (Jay, for example thinks ST2 is the only good movie, as if ST4 was never made, and ST 6 is "badly written". It's imperfect, that's what it is.) I can be cool and put down a lot of things I haven't paid much attention to. Star Trek was often fun, entertaining, it sometimes made you think, or laugh, so why shouldn't there be fans and why can't they be left alone by people who don't get it (and proud of it)? Why is there always this thing that when someone talks about Star Trek, they immedeately bring the fans into it - none of whom they know personally - and how they're supposedly wasting their time in a lifelong exclusive devotion to the show (Michael: "It's like making a life eating spam, when one can have filet mignon; like driving a Yugo when one can have a Caddy.") Enough already. Star Trek was a worthwhile attempt at doing intelligent television in a time when we had TIME TUNNEL and LOST IN SPACE. You seldom see any main character on tv anywhere, not even thirty years later, who represents intellectuals like Spock (or Picard), or humanism like McCoy. There was no organized religion on the show, no one smoked, you tried not to interfere with other cultures, you tried to understand that which frightened you and to cooperate with it, you had interracial casting etc. People talk of monsters and Spock's brains, and they don't know that the show did it's real work quietly below the surface. The show was more topical and allegorical than any other show I know of, it talked about wars, power, violence, television, and I have said before that people who have seen the shows when they were kids or who don't look closely will never fully understand what was really going on. (Thus, the opinion of some here that the show is for five year olds.) It was a good show to like and be a fan of, provided you liked watching television. Sure, it would be even better, if more teenagers read Proust and Stendhal, but that not being the case, how about a tv show that speaks to the imagination and leads them to literature? Yes, it's television, and that shouldn't be held again it or against those who worked hard to make it happen (including HE). It should be seen and *judged* as television. You should look at the acting, the direction, the writing. It was not literature, it was standards & practices, format, budget limitations, standing sets, schedules, guest actors vanishing during shooting, and the need to pull in a mass audience. I'm also tired of hearing that people on the show weren't real aliens but people with make-up and prosthetics. That's really an intelligent comment, and it shows that you have understood that the aliens were often supposed to represent aspects of humanity. Besides, Star Trek did show other types of aliens, like the Horta in "The Devil in the Dark", as well as energy beings, puppets on strings ("Catspaw") etc. They couldn't do Stanley Weinbaum on a tv budget.

Sorry, couldn't contain myself. Uninformed opinions are simply painful to me, especially when they concern minority groups. Star Trek fans are a minority group, and I guess they sure feel like one these days. I understand that we have to dismiss a lot of stuff, so we can devote more attention to whatever else we rather to occupy ourselves with. But it really does become painful when such dismissals are sold as legitimate opinions. It's like saying: "I read the first chapter of Proust in the bus once, and it really sucked, so now I'm staying away from French literature." The thing is, it doesn't suck, only you're not willing to invest some of your time, which you need to read Superman.

Finally, I just want to say I'm not a fan, and I agree that many episodes and movies weren't up to snuff. (Still, it was always interesting to see the director and actor suffer through the mess and salvage what they can.) In school I often thought it would be best if our worst marks were simply disregarded. It's easy to fail, but it's hard to succeed fully - not everyone can do it. We have to look at the best a person has done, not enumerate the worst.

Quick correction to Barney
Chip Kidd's "The Cheese Monkeys" was designed by Kidd. Ware provided hand-lettering, and maybe the cover illo of the monkeys (can't remember about that one). I concur with your critical assessments both of the design and of the story.

***Harlan/Susan*** I left a few remarks addressed to the two of you over on the General discussions/meta-thread about yesterday since it needed saying but didn't warrant a phone call. Mostly an apology to Susan. It never hurts to leave apologies lying around for Susan in multiple locations is my policy of the day.

Currently reading THE CHEESE MONKEYS: A NOVEL IN TWO SEMESTERS by Chipp Kidd, Jr. which, so far is pretty good but needs to get better. Very clever book design by Chris Ware.

Also still ploughing through WOMEN, RACE and CLASS by Angela Davis which is brilliant but some of the toughest reading I have ever done. Nobody can make me feel bad for being "whitey" faster than Ms. Davis. Harlan, have you ever met her? If you have an Angela Davis story I'd love to hear it.

- Barney

Y'know, I thought Green Acres was pretty cool back in the day and Barbara Eden looked pretty hot in that genie get-up (that Larry Hagman was a fool!), but that was a long time ago and other than stopping by when TBS or TVLand show 'em, I really don't pay that much attention to 'em anymore.

Why? I've moved on, that's why.

And A-TC's comments regarding TWELVE ANGRY MEN (which I agree with wholeheartedly) also remind me that whenever I catch DOG DAY AFTERNOON, I irritate everyone as I say, "Ok, ok, here it comes, watch it, now, lookit, here it comes, watch..." as Al Pacino does his hankie waving thing, screaming, "Attica!", and the camera cuts away to an overhead view...Gets me every fucking time. Never gets old for me. (Meanwhile, after the scene plays, the people I've badgered into watching it give me the hairy eyeball and look for the nearest exit, or all of a sudden realize they have to be somewhere else.)

So what movie scene(s) gives you guys the goosebumps or never gets old no matter how many times you've seen it?

(Oh, one more: HOMBRE---an example of a movie being better than the novel, by the way---when Paul Newman asks Richard Boone how he thinks he's gonna get back down that hill. "The same way I come up it." BANG! Damn, that's some fine wine.)

STAR BLAZERS!!!
Gary! I am also a 68er and enjoyed "Our Star Blazers!" growing up, along with Ultra Man, Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot, etc. I haven't heard of Star Blazers in YEARS! The memories come flooding back...the songs, the evil Gamelon's, the Wave Motion Gun, and all the hokey-yet-ahead-of-its-time anime animation. There was an episode of B5 in which Sheridan is in the crumbling planet that looks like Hell (never watched B5 enough to get into it, because I got into it so late...), and it reminded me of Planet Gamelon, of all places!

Anyone else trekking out to Case Western to hear Harlan speak? I'm thinking I'm going to go. It's not far by plane.

-keith

Last Thoughts on A Split Infinitive

Ezra Lb.:

I was only three to five years old when the shows first aired, if chronolgy works as it should. I've never gotten the affinity to that mundane franchise fosters in its fandom, to the point where many Trekkies see it as the soul and origin of SF.

It's like making a life eating spam, when one can have filet mignon; like driving a Yugo when one can have a Caddy.

As to cliche, sorry. A gentle jape is more what I'd intended.

Well I spoke my piece about ST so enough of that.

Kristin mentioned the James Blish adaptations and I admit I checked some of them out myself. But that led on to CITIES IN FLIGHT and A CASE OF CONSCIENCE and BLACK EASTER AND DR MIRABILIS
and now you're getting into some serious shit!

Michael, I was only 8 yrs old (and not an altar boy), so when ST first debuted my chances of getting laid were rather slim at best. The presence of so many fine female type humanoids on this very forum belies your comments. We shall consider this slip to be merely one of your rather infrequent descents into cliche.

Interminable Star Trek Discussion Continues
I've noticed that the Star Trek discussions hereabouts sound an awful lot like the words of recovering alcoholics talking about the demon rum, or reformed smokers going on and on about lung cancer.

My take:

The first reruns of STAR TREK, the original series, arrived at a point in my life when I was perfectly positioned to be have my lifelong inclinations influenced by it. I was fortunate in that my love for the show was not all-consuming, but part of a broad pop diet that already included Serling's TWILIGHT ZONE, the Universal horror movies, Abbott and Costello, the books of Isaac Asimov and Richard Matheson, Shwartz-era Superman comics, the works of Mark Twain, the music of Johnny Cash and the Beatles, and the short stories of our humble host.

I have never overdosed on the show, nor experienced the allergic reaction that some have experienced after overindulging. I embrace the original show's many weaknesses while applauding its strengths (as well as recognizing those elements that belong in both camps, like Shatner). I endured a shitload of bad NEXT GENERATIONS to find the pearls among them, downright admired DEEP SPACE NINE, and ignored VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE. I am still capable of dropping into the original series from time to time, though I have no interest in collecting it.

Trek will always remain one of the roots of my imagination. I will always have some affection for it, and imagine I'll continue to harbor affection for it until the day I die. But...if it was one of the roots of my imagination, the forest around it has grown thick. I'm enthused by too many things for it to dominate my heart, the way it dominates the hearts of so many. (Just last night I watched TWELVE ANGRY MEN again -- and I ain't putting this on, but I never, ever, EVER get tired of that moment when Henry Fonda stabs the table with the switcblade, or that later one when everybody turns their back on Ed Begley.) The backlash against Trek is based largely on the revulsion we feel for folks who have allowed their love for the show to metastasize, and crowd out the capacity to accept affection for other things.

This and that.
Well, I guess quality tends to tell. I've never purchased a single Star Trek DVD, but I am well on my way to a complete set of Babylon 5 boxed sets. Just made my way through season three/POINT OF NO RETURN. 'A Late Delivery from Avalon' is just awesome, and don't get me started on 'War Without End'. I look at the current crop of SF on television and sigh. When did all the heroes become brooding monosyllabic loners, and SF become little more than post-9/11 grim 'n gritty? Yes Battlestar Galactica 2.0, I'm looking at you. . .

Eh, don't mind me. The caffiene's wearing off after a long night shift, I'll be back to my usual chipper self in no time.

Stacy

Trekrant
Summary:

The Next Gen Trek movies are crap, produced by people barely able to handle episodic television. The other six movies have their moments, with "Khan" remaining the best. Some say "Undiscovered Country" was good, but the script was so badly written that it undermined its own coolness.

Since 1987 "Trek" hasn't really changed. The galaxy never felt like a big or diverse or mysterious place. The fate of billions always came down to decisions with the same importance of which wine to serve with what meal because everyone had the same system of values, language and politics with only prosthetic foreheads to distinguish them from humans.

The original series had the distinction of having powerful, skilled writers telling good stories. The show stood out from others and that's why it had a following. But now that it has staff writers and is produced alongside a dozen other shows, it's lost its edge and importance in modern science-fiction television.

Give me Farscape or even the new Galactica over that.

Edward - Treat the e-mail as suspect. The buyer on the "Jews Without Jehovah" auction already has the positive feedback from the seller for the transaction. Feedback was left for the buyer on January 31st.

Barney - Eyes will be appropriately peeled. And I DO know how it is, in big, clanging spades.

As to Trek - best to let it go fallow for a time. But it's too easy to bash the entire franchise with the hindsight of 30+ years and reruns so frequent that even the cliches have parodies. You have to give it points for its ambition and aspirations on the whole, even when it missed the mark badly (such as The One Where Spock's Gray Cells Wind Up In A Cocktail Shaker). EVERY series had its absurdities. Have you seen "The Man From UNCLE" segment "The Suburbia Affair"? Brrrrrrrrrrr.

Oh well, if we're ALL talking Trek...
..did you know I actually read the James Blish novelizations before I saw any of the episodes on TV? Well, at least before I really paid any attention to them - maybe I saw part of one when I was little, but I didn't get it. I got into reading SF about age 14 and I think I was closer to 18 before I seriously watched a Trek rerun. (They aired on and off in different places.)

Hmm, do you think we've scared Harlan away? Somehow I don't think Trek is his favorite subject. :-)

2nd chance offers
Ed, regarding the 2nd chance offer --

If what you got was an email only asking if you're interested but without an actual ebay 2nd chance auction number, do not reply or click on any links in the offer. I regularly get bogus 2nd chance offers following bids on items over $1,000.

I'm not saying it isn't legit, but check any offer out ONLY by logging into ebay directly and searching for the seller or auction number from the site. (Often the seller making the "2nd chance offer" won't match the original seller.)

Either way, good luck!

and that ! wasn't cynical - I'm starting a full time business by expanding my ebay hobby and find that a vast majority of buyers and sellers are friendly, honest, and fair. The vast minority, however, you gotta watch out for.

Trek (sorry, Barney...)

I was born in 1968, and presumably the Trek reruns and cartoon and such were rampant through my childhood, because most of my friends were way up on it. Somehow I never watched the show until 1985, when I was caught out as being ‘Trekless.’ I programmed the VCR to grab the late night reruns and watched them one by one, the enjoyable episodes and the stinkers alike, to catch up on my buddies.

No, my childhood space opera was an animated show from Japan called Star Blazers. It felt like magic, it awoke a sense of wonder and excitement, it prompted my folks to put Heinlein books in front of me, and the rest, as they say…

Here in the age of the DVD, I just had to catch up with the show again. The horror, the horror, the horrible science, the lack of interior logic, the clichés and bad writing… but, twenty-five years ago, it WAS one of the things that sparked my imagination.

It still pushes the twelve-year-old button inside me, and jazzes me. I suppose I’m just glad I can see beyond it.

addendumb
***Harlan/Doug*** Two large boxes containing you-both-know-whats are going in the mail tomorrow - media mail but with tracking and insurance. Should arrive in CA by early next week, Doug's will be sooner.

Sorry for the delay. You guys know how it is.

- Barney

Kershed Again
***Edward King*** That's odd, since you were an early bidder it's almost as though the seller has multiple copies, which seems unlikely OR really fortuitous. I once found an entire box of Regency PB's - long since traded away - these things do happen. Maybe he found a stash of some that should have been pulped? What was the reserve price? Feel free to contact me off-list.

***Star Trek*** I miss Kubrick. Please stop. Please?

- Barney

Confessions of A Non-Geek

I never watched Star Trek much.

I had my first sexual experience at fifteen, and have managed to get laid with regularity.

See how things work out?

I used to be a big time Trekker when I was a teen. I had most of the books, technical manuals, photonovels, Enterprise blueprints, plastic models of ships, phasers, communicaters, plus uniform insignia, etc. You name it, I probably had it at one time or another. You remember the plastic Enterprise bridge set with the little Kirk and Spock figures? I had that. I sprayed ligher fluid on it and set in on fire, pretending that the ship had been attacked by Klingons.

When I was young I wasn't allowed to have a TV in my bedroom, and my dad would always be watching something else when I wanted to watch Trek. I remember sneaking up to one of the empty rooms (my parents owned a motel) so I could catch glimpses of the show, all the while hoping that my dad would'nt rent the room while I was in there and some guest would come in wondering what I was doing in the room they'd just paid for. I figured that if caught I'd just say "Oh, I left something in here when I was cleaning," or something like that. Didn't matter, I had to have my fix.

I had a friend named Jim who was hooked worse. He had the most perfect set of Trek books (I was jealous). He got me started. One time we went to our freshman high school science class with our Starfleet Medical Manuals. Our intention was to write a term paper on Andorian anatomy. The teacher (Mr. Rapley) asked Jim what he was doing his paper on, and Jim said "Andorian anatomy." That drew a few stares (and an admonishment from Rapley). When Rapley got to me I also said I wanted to do my paper on Andorian anatomy. He looked at me and said "BUT THAT'S FICTION." I held up the book and opened it to the pages with the Andorian figure. "But it's based on real science," I said.
Rapley told me to go find another subject.

Fuckin' embarassing now that I think back on it. No wonder I couldn't find a girlfriend.

Years later I was driving to California and my car broke down while at a rest stop. Somehow I got to thinking that my car was overloaded with all my shit and that if I made it lighter I could get moving again. Looking around I started thinking that all my heavy Trek books could go. I hadn't looked at them for years and had been lugging them around for reasons I couldn't quite explain. So I ended up dumping the whole lot in the nearest trash can in that very rest stop somewhere near Shasta, Ca. I often wonder what the person who found all that stuff was thinking.

That's my Star Trek story. From total fan to trash can.

RE: Star Trek

I second Ezra's posting. TOS was very important to me when I was little(r), and it continues to be simply because it provides such a strong connection to those days. I wasn't altogether fond of TNG (hated Riker), thought DS9 was vastly underrated, and found Voyager to be one of those car wrecks that you know you shouldn't look at, but are compelled to watch nonetheless. Despite the fact that I was really looking forward to Enterprise (at least for Scott Bakula--for me, the Tom Hanks of TV) I only ever watched 1 episode. I think it just felt as though it was going to take so much time to ramp up to goodness that, having spent so much time playing midwife to the ultimately stillborn Voyager, I couldn't invest the time anymore.

Nothing that makes that much money ever goes away completely though, so I have confidence that Trek will return someday--for good or ill. In the meantime, well, we'll always have the Guardian of Forever...

Hey! I liked the salt vampire! It was a classic ugly space monster, and I LIVE for space monsters! The trouble with the later generations is they don't have enough monsters in them! That's what they needed.

-Steve E.

Star Dreck Memories
Star Trek is definitely a mixed bag. Like the little girl with the curl, with it's good, it's very very good, but when it's bad, it's horrid. "Conscience of the King", anyone?! Ditto the proto-Heavens Gate Hippies episode. Or, my favourite amongst the stinkers, the episode where Spock Gets Allergies....Or the Salt Vampire. Or....

Okay, where was I? Ah, yes, Star Trek. See, I have this theory.

**the audience snickers and begins throwing rotten produce**

You know the old saw, "The Golden Age of Science Fiction is twelve?" In my opinion, the golden age of Star Trek is five years old. Or, if you're a particularly precocious little shit, as early as three.

My first real, solid memory of a television program, was the episode "Balance of Terror". At approximately three and-a-half (cf. precocious little shit) years of age. I remember thinking to myself at the time, that's right, it isn't fair that Spock should be treated differently by the Prejudiced Red Shirt, which is pretty much something I've carried with me through my life. For better or for worse, etcetera. Needless to say, I watched it all through my formative years, thanks in part to copious reruns, even in the limited thirteen-channel universe that existed back then.

Ditto The Next Generation, and the movies, right up until First Contact. (Yeah, I'm confident enough to admit it: I was one of the relatively few geeks who whooped, hollered and cheered loudly when they did the saucer landing of the Enterprise exactly as depicted in the Pocket Books Star Trek Technical Manual. Consider it my last gasp at being a thoroughly pathetic soul. And yes, I have purged my bookshelves of most of those same Pocket Books books, save the ones by Peter David, David Gerrold, Diane Duane and Vonda McIntyre.)

After Deep Space None started running crossover fanfiction between Babylon 5 and The Young and the Restless, however, I gave up. I never even bothered with Voyager, past the first season or so (the entirely-too-libertarian themes were starting go beyond over the top, and by the time the episode supporting mercy killing came around, I was completely disenchanted), and as for Enterprise? As soon as I heard the show had a *theme* *song*, I stayed the hell away. It's worth noting that Space (Canada's answer to the SciFi Channel, complete with that gawdawful Battlestar Galactica remake) still runs Trek episodes pretty much 24/7, however.

My conclusion? Star Trek is dead. Long live Star Trek.

Velvet

World Wide Atheism
I'm an atheist out of necessity rather then inclination. And the reason is this; Every religion (or at least every Western religion) presupposes that all human beings possess an imperishable element within themselves, now while I know of individuals who seem to me to be immanently worthy of such an element I also know of individuals who are obviously nothing more then a lump of decaying matter. So religion lacks a believable qualitative discernment in relation to human beings. Such is the basis of my atheism.

Hey Harlan!! Jews Without Jehovah!
Harlan,
I was a bidder early on for the copy of "Jews without Jehovah" and bowed out when it shot passed what I was comfortable paying. I just received an e-mail from the seller, via E-bay, with a "second chance" offer for the book at his reserve price. I believe this offer to be legitimate (and if, for whatever reason, the seller didn't contact you for a pass)I thought I'd e-mail you to see if you were still interested. You can e-mail me at the above with a contact number.

Ed King

Which episode was the green woman in?
The two episodes I remember the most are two that probably don't get a lot of mention, either because they aren't that memorable or are just plain bad: "M5" (computer genius runs amok), and the "Episode Where Spock Goes Insane After Viewing A Bright Alien Who Lives In A Shoebox (precursor to the briefcase in Pulp Fiction?)."

"City At The Edge Of Forever," "Trouble With Tribbles," et al., are memorable because they are true classics. Episodes like "Spock's Brain" (among others) are memorable because they are out and out bad (although the vivid image of Dr. McCoy sweating bullets while trying to remember how to do a brain transplant was fun to watch, at least for me).

But it is some of the "middle of the road" episodes, like the two I mentioned above, along with "Turnabout Intruder," "Kirk Trying To Kill A Large Reptile On An Asteroid," or "Gigantic Firebreathing Cone Threatens To Destroy The Enterprise," that are real treats for me to view once, then put away for another couple of years.

Yes, people, someone should make Deep Shag aware that this recording exists, in case Harlan didn't give it to them yet. (If I recall correctly, Harlan gave them everything he has.) Perhaps they can use something.

Jay: I understand. I was amused by what you wrote yesterday, but at the same time a little concerned. The thing is, the obnoxious members of our society are always a little louder than the rest, while intelligent and/or sensible ones are harder to spot. One may think a particular group of students is stupid, but that's a generalization.

Ezra: No way. :-) The second season provided four near-perfect shows: "The Deadly Years", "Tribbles", "The Changeling", and "By Any Other Name". And the only decent 3rd season episode was "The Tholian Web". The Muldaur episode was a mess, and in fact they didn't have a script.

Ellison on the loose, but captured on tape

Tim Walker:

Sounds like a great find. See if you can figure out who ostensibly has the rights to this recording: did someone at the university make it, and does the only copy basically reside at that library?

If that's the case, it shouldn't be difficult for Deep Shag Records to cut a deal, with Harlan's aid and approval, to make a copy suitable for redistribution on compact disc, in whole or in part.

Harlan say hello
to MorrisDance. I'm sending him to f-bite!

Also do you know Peter Coyote? Am reading, "Sleeping where I fall"--he seems nice.

Heather ho! Thank you.

Diana Muldaur was HOT. And she was STILL hot, when they brought her in for the second season of Next Gen, to replace the boring Gates McFadden.

Then when demographics determined that they couldn't sustain the presence of a middle-aged woman on the cast, one who actually had some verve, and who didn't just wilt at the sight of the chin-of-the-week, they dumped her and brought back flakey Gates, and it become the boys club once again.

Later, Brent Spiner was promoted into some kind of Spock-like role for the movies, and so of course they flamed out, since Leonard Nimoy he so freaking ain't. Martin Scorsese made the critical error of stunt-casting Spiner for a cameo in The Aviator, just because he's a buddy of the writer John Logan. I cringed through that whole scene, memories of the death of the movie franchise at Spiner's hands still festering, and The Aviator immediately lost half a star in my ratings book.

Jan,

Don't get me wrong. I'm only talking about the proudly ignorant group of self-absorbed knobs who scoff at things they don't understand or that they feel - based on questionable experience - have outlived their relevance.

For every hundred of a generation like this, I'm happy to know there is one that will put duty before self or an idea before security or a cause above their desire for material fulfillment.

A 1:100 ratio isn't too bad, I guess. I was very cranky yesterday. Perhaps that means 1000:1 gets you an honest man, 10000:1 gets you a hero and a billion:1 gets you a Jesus or Mohammad or a Lincoln. Who knows.

I don't care so much about adults. They've written their own ticket and are out here with the rest of us playing the game. Dealing with idiots is just part of the cost of doing business. However, you have a chance to shine some light into the darkness with these kids. You have a chance to teach them understanding over prejudice or an appreciation for things they'd otherwise fear or dismiss. Not just teachers - but parents and other role-models in society. Despite the "god hates fags" and "kill em all, let Jesus save their babies" crowd, there are enough adults out here to help guide the next generation.

It seems that kids come to the classroom or into real life with the assumption that anything worth knowing is already in their head or can only be worth their time if someone like Bono or Britney say it's important, it's that much harder to try and provide the next generation with enough open minded people to try and prevent this return to paranoid demagoguery threatening to take hold in this country.

But that's a lot of tough talk from a me, a guy who hasn't put a cause before his security in many years. I'm fighting from a trench, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

STAR TREK: A Quasi-tribute
I remember very vividly as a small child seeing those first commercials about a new series called STAR TREK. The starship tracking across the screen, in orbit, whooshing through space. I could tell immediately that this was a notch above LOST IN SPACE. I was completed blown away, little mind fried crispy. I will never forget the scene as the camera tracks across what is obviously an alien world, the moaning sound of the wind mixed with the tinkling of bells. And then out of nowhere the boiling sparkling shimmer resolving into the figures of Kirk, Spock and McCoy appearing like they did this sort of thing every day.

Looking back now it's possible to have some sort of critical objectivity about the show. The original show was only really any good for part of the first season. Early in the series it felt like they were on the edge, like anything could happen. But soon out came the Nazi show, the Roman empire show, the Adam and Eve show, etc, etc. The second season was mediocre and the third uniformly awful (except for one episode that I still find very moving, "Is There In Truth No Beauty?", that features a wonderful performance by Diane Muldaur). But like a lot of you I can still quote dialog and even in the crummy episodes (were we supposed to laugh during "Spock's Brain" do ya think?) there was an apparent chemistry between the actors.

But it has been a creatively bankrupt cash cow that has been on the shelf way past it's expiration date. Pulling the plug is an act of mercy however much Trekkie dopes may howl.

But I will always love the show if only because it gave me a moment of real magic as a child. Sadly, probably the last time TV was ever able to do that to me.

Re Ward churchill. I heard about this story from Marc Cooper's blog. Cooper ain't keen on Churchill, and after reading Churchill's essay, I have to agree. Beyond the principles of academic freedom, freedom of speech, and tenure protection, this guy is not worth defending.

One of the hallmarks of bad writing is the sense of confinement. You get the feeling that the writer's mind is _smaller_ than yours. When he uses cliches, worn-out phrases, and labored irony, it's not just to appear profound: the writer really does think that the cliches _are_ profound. And when the bad writer offers an unconventional opinion or a contrary insight, it's never revelatory, and it's never liberating. It's like a club against the skull, as though the bad writer has realized that the best way to reshape other people's brains is to do it physically.

Ward Churchill's essay is one of the finest examples of bad writing that I've ever seen. It ranks alongside of those Christian screeds against abortion, where feminists are Nazis and liberals are, ironically, uncaring of the little helpless babies, and the only humane acts left involve murdering doctors. I've seen defenses of Churchill's essay, and they're usually along the lines of "what Churchill was really saying" and "he said that to make a point." Nope. he was going for shock value, because that's the finest he's capable of getting.

_Counterpunch_ (www.counterpunch.org) raises good points-- the most obvious is that right-wingers who say equally vile things get a free pass, and usually a subsidy from Scaife or a contract with Fox. That's true. But that doesn't change the fact that Ward Churchill is a fool.

Thanks for the link to the essay, Chuck. A nice point of "acts of war" was lost amid the angry rhetoric where the guy comes off as nothing more than the flip-side of Gee W: inane comments stumbling around looking for something to hold onto.

Treasonous? Hardly.

Oh. One other thing. I knew Philadephia folks weren't exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, but one would think that someone on that football team knew how to tell time.

To Benjamin
More and more it seems that free speech exists in this country only for those that agree with whatever propaganda our government is using to defend their criminal presence in other countries. We're free to say whatever we want as long as we don't disagree with the current administration when we say it.

It would be treasonous of me, for instance, to suggest that it is a tad ironic that a fellow who used his daddy's connections to ensure he never saw any kind of combat duty now sends soldiers into harm's way to fight a war that we have no business fighting. It would be tantamount to a desire to destroy the fabric of my country to suggest that our militiaristic response to 9/11 is only perpetuating the situation that led to us being attacked in the first place.

It's funny, but I don't feel like a traitor as I type these lines ...

... I just feel like someone who'd like the world to stop for a second because so I can step off for a bit until reason returns to the national consciousness.

Sorry for the ranting ... on a different note, I read that there is going to be a series of short horror films released by Anchor Bay on dvd this coming year and one of them is supposed to be written by Mr. Ellison. Has anyone heard what story it's going to be and who is directing it?

And Now For A Word From Ward Churchill

Benjamin brings up something very interesting concering Ward Churchill and out Very Own Illustrious Governor, Bill Owens.

Here is Churchill's unexpurgated essay in all it's glory:

http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?OSGNAME=KUSA&IKOBJECTID=cfee1069-0abe-421a-00d6-36463de43888&TEMPLATEID=0c76dce6-ac1f-02d8-0047-c589c01ca7bf

In my opinion, Churchill's a dick. His essay reads like the Unabomber Manifesto. But this is not treason, any more than the Rev. Falwell's statment that we were asking for it on 9/11 because of abortion, etc. was treason.

Churchill is a dick. Fallwell is a dick.

Owens is a dickless politician preening for the media.

Welcome to Colorful Colorado.

Chuck

Jay, what is your appraisal of grown-ups?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=7&u=/ap/20050206/ap_on_re_us/speaker_protest

Is it just me, or did anyone else wince at Bill Owens's use of the word "treasonous"? All of a sudden I feel like I'm living in 16th century England...

"Seconds"
To Harlan Ellison,

Thank you for recommending "Seconds," the Frankenheimer film. I haven't seen a film this frightening, this relevant to today's times, this well photographed and performed and above all WRITTEN, in I don't know when. It blows recent, but vaguely similar thrillers ("The Game," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Stepford Wives") right out of the water. It is a perfect moral tale without the trappings and panderings almost always associated with science fiction. In fact, I have noticed few refer to it as just that, either because of the more obvious technological ease in which the story could take place in our time, or because of the latent bias against the category as serious and important. I mean, as far as cinema goes, this one ranks with "The Trial" by Welles and some of the most searing emotional hysteria of Cassavetes. It's one of those rare films from which I feel I've learned something. It has a message which I feel I must urgently apply to my life.

(I feel the need to apologize again for my imbecilic and absurd behavior on this board some months ago, my rudeness and my meanness, to you, to Steve Dooner, to Andrew, to others. All of this I take back, but like I see from the movie "Seconds," there is no turning back and running from the mistakes one has made).

Take care, Mr Ellison. Live long and prosper and do not worry about your age. I wish you the best of times!

Matthew Dickinson

Thanks for the suggestions! What I am truly waiting for is a student that may take a test or quiz on I Robot. I hope that one gets the film, watches it, and then fails their test. Something about that give me a warm feeling inside.

Thanks Again

Also late, but -- oh well.

You can tell them that if they think "I Robot" is groundbreaking entertainment or if they think the world begins and ends with the thespian gifts of The Fresh Prince they should really consider surgery to have their heads extricated from their bowels.

These are the not the morons who want to burn books to keep the ideas inside them from curious minds. These are the morons who just want to see something burn.

They are the ones who voted for Bush because a war is a brightly-colored flag, cool guns and video game body counts. They are the ones who are too busy gorging themselves on easy-access pop culture to see what's going on outside the soft-focus, airbrushed, pheromone saturated multimedia glass teat. If it's old, its inferior. If something new comes along, the original is obsolete. They attend benefit concerts and hand out loose change to make themselves feel like they're changing the world. They watch reality shows to measure their own worth and righteousness. Everything is an entitlement, something they deserve for just being alive.

These are the fucking Eloi. Beautiful, carefree, well-fed and happily ignorant of the way the world works.

Sorry...that was my experience this past week talking to students .

A little late....

William,

PRINCE MYSHKIN AND HOLD THE RELISH is short, sweet and written expressly to be read aloud. Just be sure to read it with a fast tempo. It's timed that way. A slow read would ruin it.

Chuck

"A Hellishly Annoying Evening With Harlan Ellison"
Envy me.

Through the good offices of the state of Ohio's inter-library loan program, I was recently able to borrow a two-tape audio cassette of "A Hellishly Annoying Evening With Harlan Ellison", which is a recording of one of Harlan's speaking engagements, this one taking place at the Rock Hall of Fame in 2003, I believe.

The recording is riotously funny and entertaining, and I enjoyed it immensely. I was not aware that it existed, and had never heard of it before doing a search on the state's online library database of material, but I do recommend it highly to anyone who might be able to secure a copy. Mine is owned, it appears, by the "Stark County District Library", here in Ohio.

Now I see Susan's post that Harlan, hisownself, will be coming to Cleveland for another speaking engagement on March 1st, one which is not only "open to the public", but free, to boot!

Good lawd, I KNEW there was a reason I left Los Angeles to return to Ohio, after two years in La-La Land!

Thank You!
Wow! The parade would be cool, but, there are only fifteen people in the class. I have the new printings of Strange Wine and Troublemakers, so I’ll be able to read from those. I really appreciate the help on this and the presentation will be better thanks to you all.
I’m really on the line here because of what I said in class the other day. They got to talking about the “I Robot” film on Tuesday and I informed the class that anyone who paid for that sent a stream of hot urine across Isaac Asimov’s grave.
I’m not sure what was funnier, the look on the class’s face or my over emotional response to the discussion.

Sorry to ramble and thanks again,


William Rouse

Hey,DUANE, Meant to start a new paragraph after my comment about "Million Dollar Baby" (the next sentence is a rave about "Wonderfalls").
As for the ending of "Million Dollar Baby," I thought the choices made by _both_ lead characters were understandable -- and something I would do in either position.

William Rouse:

Assign them to create an entire parade down a major city street or thoroughfare, each float devoted to an Ellison story.

Yes, I'm serious.

Harlan:

I overcame my most primal urges and waited for the end of "2000X" To hear "Repent, Harlequin!,..". Fantastic, Fantastic, Fantastic. I'm dilated to have spent the coin for something I'll listen to again and again.

Now can we finally hear of your epic time spent as understudy and stunt double for the Pilsbury Doughboy? Is it true that people still poke your belly in order to receive that effusive grin and hearty giggle so cherished by millions?

William: Why not use REPENT HARLEQUIN! SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN, it's short enough to be read out in class and gives you time for a short discussion. I would guess that's the number one Ellison story used in schools. (You can find the story everywhere including, I presume, in the TROUBLEMAKERS collection (bookstore) and in the older PAINGOD collection (library).)

If you want to look at our own story discussions check out the bulletin board (link on top of page).

for William Rouse:

"Troublemakers" is a general introduction to his work. "Paingod And Other Delusions " has "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said The Ticktockman" and other good, short, intro's.
"An Edge in my Voice", "The Glass Teat" and "The Other Glass Teat" and "Harlan Ellison's Watching" show his nonfiction/opinion side.
If you want to have an audio/visual section I'd recommend renting a tape of some of his Outer Limits episodes ("Soldier", "Demon with a Glass Hand" etc.) and The just released New Twilight Zone collection (for "Paladin of the Lost Hour" and "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty.") That should do for starters. (You also might want to have a copy of the Illustrated Ellison, Graphic Version of "Repent Harlequin..." and/or his "I, Robot" script to pass around and wow the audience with the pun pictures. Just a thought.) Please post again and tell us how the presentation went, okay?

Dude, I was kidding! No one loves an old man's semen more than me. And you're absolutely right about television. Seriously, keep it up.
TV News is particularily dangerous.

-Steve E.

If It Must Be So
BRIAN SIANO:

That's similar to my experience watching an interview with Hubert Selby Jr. where his life and love and anger were all pouring through his answers, and then I looked him up on the net to see what he was up to and found he'd died not too long ago.

(Anger will take you far, at least. Considering all that Selby had been through and what a mark he'd made with his works I think he fought well.)

DOUG WOOD:

I think the mundane part of my suggestion has emotional relevance, the one where a random stranger missed it. Actually, you know what, I think I have a precis. I don't know if this is the proper forum in which to share it, though.

-Aaron Teschner

No, I've reviewed all the remarks, nostalgia and qualified defenses and I'm going to stand pat with my original borrowed quote from Warren Ellis.

Harlan has been saying for years - and I am now old enough to have witnessed this pattern for 30 years myself - BAD art displaces GOOD art. And these two genres have done more harm than good. When not actually dumb themselves, they go in leaps and bounds toward encouraging dumbness in the genre. Star Trek made money? Let's make Battle Beyond the Stars and see what happens. No, thank you.

But if I've offended anyone for beating Star Trek like a rented mule, don't feel bad. In my case it has less to do with this particular show and more to do with my new motto - Television Is The Big Fat Shit Pipe. OR TITBFSP. I would not mind if this became the new TANSTAAFL. I've been ramping this one up for some time. Perhaps since STRANGE WINE came out, but now it really is one of my core beliefs.

The cost of diminishing returns law has so completely taken over this medium that everytime I see one in a public place I feel like Kevin McCarthy at the end of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. FOX in every airport. CNN in a small monitor display as a built-in for the gas station pumps up the road. A 27 inch color monitor tuned to soap operas hanging above the cash register at the Dunkin' Donuts on Tilghman Street pointed out at the customers. And on and on and on. I see the occasional faded KILL YOUR TELEVISION bumper sticker and want to slap a fresh NO REALLY! addendum on it. Then I come in here, in this room mind you, and make fun of a nearly 40 year old franchise [by proxy] that should have been shot in the head like a Horace McCoy character and you all look at me like I just ate a live kitten without ketchup.

Television Is The Big Fat Shit Pipe. Say it with me.

But I am very sorry my previous imagery offended a MOTORHEAD fan.

- Barney

Tinfoilhat, PA.

Class Presentation
Hello! I’m preparing a presentation on Mr. Ellison for a class and was wondering if anyone could recommend any works? I only have an hour to do this in and I want to get the whole class to run out and buy his books. So, I need some help here.

Thank You,

William Rouse

GOOD GOD! A Hollywood film that WOULDN'T be a remake of a previously existing movie! Is it possible?! Is it conceivable?! Is Hollywood the Carnivore FINALLY beginning to eat some of the vegetables in the vegetable garden its been stranded in for the past decade? SAY IT AIN'T SO, JOE!!

Bring on MEFISTO!

Harlan on Film
Good to hear about MEFISTO IN ONYX - wasn't Laurence Fishburne attached to the film previously?

It's time we had Harlan up on the big screen again; A BOY AND HIS DOG was thirty-odd years ago now. I know TV has featured his work since then, but I'm puzzled as to why more of Harlan's stories haven't been taken up by the big Hollywood studios.

By contrast, however, we have Dick adaptations coming out of our ears. It seems you have to die to become a viable commodity....

Thanks
Rob

Ossie and Mefisto
I can't believe Ossie's gone too. The last flick I saw him in was Bubba Ho-Tep, but I've enjoyed him wherever he appeared. He was a consumate actor, a phenomenal talent.

Harlan: Good luck with Mefisto. As you advised, I won't hold my breath. But my inner fanboy can't resist indulging in a little fantasy casting. Maybe they can get Sammy L. to play the lead after all.

So Cal bound
Looks like I'm headed to SD for a while. Long story.

Any SD or So Cal folks up for grub & gab in the next couple of weeks, drop me a note, I'll get back to you after I hit the coast.

Peg

Some thoughts
Kris: (Hey, yer names similar to mine...Only my parents are allowed to call me Kris. Oh, and the next door neighbor who's known me since I was 6. Occasionally.)

I loove it when Harlan bites someone's head off! Even if it's me.

Harlan - best wishes for getting Mefisto made into a movie, but of course we won't hold our breaths!

Re: the college gig - today's freshmen weren't even BORN when those "On the Road" (vols1&2) recordings were made. Scary thought. ..

Kristin

I just got the Criterion release of _Do the Right Thing_ the other day, and was marvelling at Ossie Davis's performance as Da Mayor. (And okay, at Spike Lee's screenplay.)

I turn the DVD player off, go out to my friends' car, and then I hear that Ossie Davis is no more.

Coincidence is a wonderful thing. But not today.

Ummm,

I don't think Million Dollar Baby was a comedy. It was, however, one of the best movies I have ever seen.

Which brings me to a comment to whomever has seen MDB: As you know, the story gets thrown in a completely unexpected (to me) direction. Those who have seen the movie know what I mean. I won't elaborate further so as to not spoil it for those who have not seen the movie yet. Although the resolution of that twist, and the movie, was very moving, I found myself REALLY DISAGREEING with the ending.

Of course, the best movies are those that challenge the viewer in some way. But I found myself thinking that the characters could have made different choices.

But that's just me.

***

I loved the original Star Trek series for the same reasons most people loved it. The Next Generation grew on me enough to where I cared deeply about the characters and got involved with the storylines. The Picard, Riker and other characters were close to the character archetypes of Kirk, Spock, et al, and in most cases were a much needed upgrade to the really dated characters of the original series (particularly Kirk, who at times acted more like the lead character in Easy Rider than a starship Captain). After a time, I preferred TNG to the original series.

(By the way, am I the only one who would stare at the screen during the opening credits to see which dot would loom up and become the Enterprise?)

I never got into DS9 or the other spinoffs.

Corrected address for Case Western Reserve University.

www.cwru.edu

Map of directions to the university --- http://www.case.edu/visit/map/dir.html

Campus map --- http://www.case.edu/visit/map/

FUN FOR YOUR HEAD ( NEW OR OLD)
"MILLION DOLLAR BABY" is one of the best films I've seen in a looonng time -- and, for my money (no pun intended), the best of the lot now up for Oscar Awards (furthermore, Swank and Eastwood are merely dynamite in their roles). Just as with "Dead Like Me" and "Desperate Housewives," "Wonderfalls" -- now out on video -- is one of those weird, quirky, impossible-to-pigeon-hole comedies that are true rarities, and truly worth watching.

Did anyone leave me a Private Message over on the other board? If yes, it didn't make it....I see nothing since my last PM in 2003.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled death notices (no one mentioned Dean Wormer kicked the bucket over at the Animal House).

-TODD

There's a little less dignity in the world now that Ossie Davis is gone.

RIP


Boxing legend Max Schmeling dead at age 99.

Awesome palooka.

Respectfully,

Neal

Michael: "Never the idea that some other species could do things better, perhaps ultimately saving us from ourselves."

No never... except in "Errand of Mercy", "Arena", "Encounter at Farpoint", to name a few, plus lots of episodes with humans screwing up, including lots of Enterprise episodes. The premise of that series was based on Vulcans knowing better and trying to prevent humans from going out into space. Anyway, you can come up with hundreds of things Star Trek is not. That's easy, you can do that with anything, but it would be more fair if you tried to grasp what the actual intentions were and how they succeeded in realizing them. It wasn't a show about aliens ruling the universe, it was about humans (russians, chinese, afrians, americans, aliens etc.) achieving a higher goal through cooperation. Is that not worth any consideration? The show's Federation wasn't humans "ruling the universe", it was everyone, the Federation was a future United Nations. There were other ships like Vulcan ships, too, but this tv show, made for 20th century audiences on a limited budget, was about humans in space, and thus about human nature.

RIP

Actor Ossie Davis passed away this morning. He was 87.

At the moment, I've only come to know Mr. Davis through BUBBA HO-TEP, but judging from his credentials, I have a whole new world to explore.

HARLAN ELLISON APPEARANCE: CLEVELAND
"A Scattered Interlude with Harlan Ellison"

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY in the Ford Auditorium (inside the Allen Library. Corner of Euclid & Adelbert, Cleveland, OH 44106.

Tuesday 1st March 2005 @ 4:00pm.


For further information: parking, directions (to both the campus and auditorium), confirmation etc.: Call (216) 368-2414 or go to:
www.cwru.ed.

THE EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.


Hope to see you there. --Susan

Tom:

No need to renew your membership. You are up-to-date.

I wonder if Mefisto in Onyx is something Robert Rodriguez and his studio would be interested in developing over at Troublemaker Studios.

/just a thought.

Harlan:

That's good news about interest in _Mefisto_. Hope something comes of it.

All of this yadda yadda about Star Trek leaves me cold. I've seen no more than a dozen episodes of the original series, maybe three of ST:TNG, and fewer of the rest. I certainly did not come to Ellison via that route. (I have seen all but one or two of the films, though.) I'm sure there's good stuff to savor in most of them. We all have our interests and cherished forms of entertainment, and while the manic praise of all things ST (OR Star Wars OR B-5 OR . . .) does nothing for me, I am equally befuddled by the cheering for its passing.

I think next week is my turn on S.P.I.D.E.R., is it not, Jan?

I also finally got to listen to "On the Road with Ellison, v. 2" this week, and will try to find time to start a thread on that in the Forums.

>It keeps the chatterboxes like me and Eric, Rob, and Frank <

Ex-squeeze me? I post a line or two at most. Others go on for pages.

Frank is missed. Rob Anonymous...well, not really.

Yeah!
Kris,

rich speaks for me. voice of reason. nuff said. chime in when you can. Harlan is direct, but you should not take it too personally. He's no Dr. Phil in telling you why your argument is stupid, but he has just as good intent.

And unless you are a roving psycho trolling the internet for a place to expound your narcissistic ideas, you're welcome here.

Speaking of which, where _has_ Rob been? I miss his rants.

-Keith

20% Of Me

Count me amongst those who didn't watch Star Trek until my mid twenties, and didn't read Ellison until about 25. Being a farmboy meant no cable, and no satellite TV until my late teens, so like many living rurally I gave up on the unreliablilty of transmitted signal, turning instead to books.

I didn't read Ellison due to reading Dick, and all of the froofarah that had developed based on venomous comments supposed to have flown between the two writers. I bought into Dick's side, and dismissed HE until Phil's death. Then came the heartfelt comments Harlan left at Dick's passing, the honest pain in Harlan's voice leaving me impressed with the man.

In regards to Trek, I don't see any value in the science fiction equivalent of McDonald's, Trek becoming the template that has been repeated in a fair amount of televised SF. It seemed strange to me that there would be this professment of peace and harmony for the future, but essentially with Terran humanity in charge. Never the idea that some other species could do things better, perhaps ultimately saving us from ourselves. It would be interesting to see that played out in a series, that we would need other minds, other ideas alien to ourselves to show us the hypocrasy or idiocy of the logic humanity's used to defend or justify the too numerous excercises in self-destruction we've engaged in.

I'd also balked at the suggested "Kirk" model for command. The savvy, intellegent, courageous, cultured military man, more the professed wishful ideal of humanity than of any real human I know. I'd often been left wondering what would it be like to see a truer representation of military command, a Queeg/Bligh/LeMay/Patton, if you will, were to find himself at the helm of some far-flung future ship. Even better, what if this form of captain, due to or in spite of any of the character traits we profess to find repulsive; arrogance, ambition, a dismissive attitude of government containing their actions, at times terrorizing the crew; what if these types were able to succeed in the 23rd century? It would make for a more interesting viewing experience for me at least.

I'm gonna take it upon myself to speak for everyone here (and fuck you, if I'm not speaking for you)...

KRIS, YOU DON'T NEED TO APOLOGIZE.

You posted your experience that was contrary to Harlan's and that opened up a floodgate of everyone's experiences. Harlan, quite rightly, posted that we were nitpicking and looking for the loophole as we are wont to do. So what? Good for a few laughs and we moved on.

By the way, you are not "imagining" that you have a "unique personal experience contrary to Mr. Ellison". Everyone here does. You don't have to apologize for posting about it and for wasting anyone's time. Trust me, we've had plenty of time wasters on this forum and yours doesn't make the top 100.

Quite honestly, we're all wasting time on this board that could be put to better use like learning CPR, killing deer, or starting our own business. But, again, so what? I'm already at about 10 years worth of time wasting and I see no reason to stop now.

Post. Post away, Kris. It keeps the chatterboxes like me and Eric, Rob, and Frank from taking up too much bandwidth. (By the way, haven't heard from Rob or Frank in awhile. Did they get married and they're on their honeymoon?)

lurking
OK, so I'm normally a lurker who checks in now and again and doesn't post when I don't think I have anything to add -- which is most of the time. But I was also one of those sophomoric individuals who took the opportunity to sympathize with a webderlander going through a divorce a couple a weeks ago, and offer what I thought was hope...and a sarcastic, but smiley poke at Mr. Ellison while I was at it. Like Kristin, I'd like to apologize. However, I want to make it clear that I'm apologizing for imagining that I might possibly have a unique personal experience contrary to Mr. Ellison's worth passing on to a person "in recovery," as I have been. I am deeply sorry for believing that in presenting my experience in what I thought was a light-hearted, sympathetic, "hey, I've been there" thread on this board, I would not be wasting anyone's time or drawing their ire because they could just SCROLL PAST.

Again, I apologize for thinking the conversation was jovial. Sometimes the guy putting the breadsticks up his nose at the table is being funny, and sometimes he's just wasting food.

Star Trek
I wasn't watching Enterprise, but, having written or co-written a handful of Star Trek comic books and one novel, I have mostly good memories of the franchise.

I had fun working on the stories, was treated well by Paramount in so far as approvals of plots and scripts, and don't have any regrets.

It was honest work, done with clean hands, and seemed to have entertained its readers reasonably well.

I've had far less happy experiences.

Good wishes to the Trek fans on the board and, for others, for the right price, I can put together a list of the thousand other things you should be far more angry about.

Tony Isabella

Why its fair to dance on Enterprise's grave

I think its fair to differentiate between a series that was occasionally written by Jerome Bixby, Robert Bloch, David Gerrold and Harlan Ellison and a series that was written by 16 bullpen writers, three producers and a focus group.

I will also admit that I've always thought Scott Bakula was a talented guy, and so I actually watched several episodes of this show. I found it more stilted, formulaic and brainless than any previous Trek. When the producers thought they were being risque and sexy, they were actually prudish and awkward. When they thought they were being action-packed, they were inert. When they thought they were being meaniningful, they were painfully didactic. It was a show without heart and I think I earned my right to criticize it.

I never got around to watching Enterprise. I liked the original Trek but was never fanatical about it. The first season of TNG was awful, but it got better; I think the best of TNG was some of the best Trek ever done. The feature films OTOH, kept getting worse, and worse, and worse.....

Actually, I'm into Harlan because he wrote the intro to a Doctor Who novel (a British one repackaged for the US market) around the late 70s. That was when I went through the phase when I thought anything British must be better (and I'd been reading Moorcock, too.)

Kristin

Enterprise lost most of its potential audience in the first season. I think that when people give up on a show, they seldom return.

Enterprise made the worst mistake any entertainment form can make: it was boring.

Eric Martiness
ewww....dear God man, that's like saying "Pink Lady" is a gateway to the writing of Mark Evanier. ewww!! ewww!! ewww!!!!

" A Roughtly 80% of the people on this board wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Star Trek, which was and still is a gateway to Ellison. "

I can honestly claim to be one of the %20. I discovered Unca Harlan through "Prisoners of Gravity". Didn't know he wrote for Star Trek until White Wolf published "City".

I too liked Star Trek. As I get older I find I defend it from its detractors way more than I shoot it down for its accolytes.

And did you really have to share that quotation Barney?

Bathing in Proxide,

-Steve E.

Film, TV, Cleveland
Taking things in reverse order--did Susan or Harlan ever reveal the details on the Cleveland visit? It occurs to me it's a month away, and I've no idea if I can get tickets. Harlan? Susan? Anybody?

Harlan, good luck with the possible movie option. It's a mixed blessing, of course. We have a mutual friend out your way, who's been less than overjoyed with what's been happening with his own literary child. And, like you, he's experienced in the industry (and you likely know who I'm talking about). But if nothing else, an option at least means some nice, spendable option money. Never hurts, even if the film is never born.

Eric, you're right, of course. "Star Trek" is a gateway to Ellison for many, albeit not for me. Still, I remember with a lick of golden nostaglia when Harlan headed up a "save Star Trek" campaign, and even though it was one of those inane Roddenbury cons, and Harlan's good will had been abused, it fed a sense of community for me. That was a good thing, when I was a teenager. So, even though I never saw a single episode of any of the last few Trek series, I'm rather sorry to hear of this one passing.

Todd,

I have to agree with you on Battlestar Galactica, the majority of the episodes are extremely good. I just hope they can come up with a good series of pay offs with the seeds they've planted so far (And that the series won't need to run on and on and on but just finish and tie everything up in 2-3 years).

David Heyman? Can dig up details from colleagues who've worked (And some who are still working) on the new HP movies. Hope something good comes out of it.

FAQ

>This is about as much anti-Star Trek nastiness as *I* can take<

Affected posturing, with the added hope of pleasing the powers. Roughtly 80% of the people on this board wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Star Trek, which was and still is a gateway to Ellison.

OH, I'll wait patiently, Daddy-O! Hope this is one you reel in, hall onto the boat and have your picture taken with.

Mark

Got a call from my film agent, Marty. Marty the Agent. Got it yesterday, this call...from my agent, Marty. Turns out he's had another nibble on MEFISTO IN ONYX. This time it's David Haman, producer of the Harry Potter movie(s).

As always, I wait patiently, asking no questions, raising no expectations, giving it no further thought, spending no dream millions.

Hoping you are the same,

Yr. pal, Harlan

At the risk of courting the wrath of the high priest and the disdain of my fellow acolytes, I actually--GASP--liked Star Trek at one point. I have a lot of fond memories of watching classic Trek on the CBC with my uncle, then switching over to Doctor Who on the PBS affiliate. It was a chance for me to just sit and relax and enjoy an afternoon with a man I admired, who shared some similar tastes with me in terms of television viewing. Despite what others may think of those behind the art, I was taught to view the work first, and the personalities behind it second. Yes, Star Trek is hardly the apex of Science Fiction; it falls squarely into the realm of 'Sci-Fi', SF's younger, dorkier brother. But it was fun, it was light, and it had a hopeful enough message.

One of the things that strikes me about people is the need for stability, for things to always stay the same. We like our things in Box A on Shelf B in Room C and we just don't take well to someone redecorating our personal playrooms. So when fans lost Star Trek, they clamored for something to fill that void until Next Generation came along. And that was okay. But then Next Generation went away and Deep Space Nine came along, and that was cool(even if they were cribbing from Babylon 5's notes from season three onward). Then they had Voyager. . .and it was clear something was gone. There was no spark, no feeling of this being what we'd had with classic Trek, even in passing. It was McStory, packaged in cheap wrapping and presented to us week to week, as was expected.

And now that the Enterprise experiment has failed, maybe we can finally let Star Trek go. Whatever passing spark of fun it might have had in younger days is gone, the only thing that's left is a piece of property which has no value but the name. Its a sterile, dead thing now. Which is sad because despite its hokiness and cheese, I like the original Trek. I have fond memories of soda, chips, and talking with my uncle about what we were seeing and what it meant. I remember laughing like a loon with my brother when we saw 'Shore Leave' and chased each other around the basement yelling 'Fight me Jimmy!' at the top of our lungs until my mother had to come down to get visual verification that her boys had finally lost their marbles.

Sometimes its just best to let go and move on.

Stacy

So _Star Trek_ is dead? Big deal: it's not like it hasn't happened _before_.

Fans of the original show made do with seventy-nine episodes for _years_. And they did this without VCRs or DVDs. Fans of the recent shows have _four_ series to choose from, some of which ran for four, five, even seven years, and more tha half a dozen movies. And let's not forget the hundreds of Trek books clogging the bookstores.

So what's the big deal? It doesn't matter if the show was any good. It could be the greatest piece of SF drama ever committed to the cathode-ray tube, or it could have been the sodden runoff of a city sewer during a Yellow Fever epidemic. I didn't watch it. But there is more than enough Trek-stuff to keep anyone happy.

I'll stick to watching _Lost_. Anyway, maybe _Trek_ is one of those things which needs a period of dormancy, sorta like those locusts that go into hibernation for seventeen years.

Anyway, my housemate tells me they're making new episodes of _Andromeda_, so fans can get a fix of Roddenberry's _Star Trek_ and _Genesis II_ at the same time. In the meantime, if it's _really important_ to you, just grab your local Trek fans and force'em to watch _Babylon 5_ so they can see why the last few Trek shows got really good.

This is about as much anti-Star Trek nastiness as *I* can take. :-) Guys, the show was put on for commercial reasons, and for the same reasons it lasted for as long as it did (25 seasons of non-stop Star Trek shows). The people who were handed the responsibility of actually writing and producing the show despite waning interest and despite having to avoid as much as possible the rehashing plots from the immense back catalog... they have done a decent enough job trying to keep it going, although the producers have long felt that Star Trek needs a rest. Unfortunately, before anything gets a rest on tv, the quality and the ratings have to go down to prove the point. Rick Berman isn't cynical, he's a hard-working man.

That said, Star Trek was always more than people pushing buttons. When people who hate the shows talk about them, they seem to see the worst possible episode in their minds (people standing on a starship bridge, pushing buttons, sounding the alert, staring at a space phenomenon), episodes the writers would avoid at any cost actually producing. There are some people who never watch the show, or who aren't able to see below the surface of that which is simply the format or a catalyst element. Very few people (and very few Trek fans) have appreciated the social commentary in the show which is what really made it special and different. People don't notice that, not even the reviewers, who supposedly watch the show more closely than most people. I'm telling you this from years of experience. Star Trek producers had/have to take a lot of flak from general audiences and fans, although they're trying to do meaningful television... for an audience that sees only uniforms and hardware and judges the show on that basis alone.

That said as well, for years there has been a decline in quality, and Enterprise (which did produce the occasional good episode) should have been cancelled before it ever got on the air. I don't really understand what happened there or why they needed four years to find decent writers!! Somewhere along the line Rick thought he could write and concentrated on that instead of producing and hiring good people.

United States
I agree most of the time that I don't really understand why people complain alot about shows on TV when no one makes them watch them. For me, Enterprise is really the first time I've been happy to see a show cancelled.

When the show started I was determined to be a fan of it and I argued for it and defended it. However when the show started being about Tucker and T'pal giving each other back rubs in a dark room and the crew'd extreme thirst for revenge over the Xindi thingy....I stopped watching. As I've read about it though I have felt more and more that Enterprise was a slowly twisting knife in the back of the immobile body Trek has become. So this being the case,,,,I'm really happy Enterprise was canceled. I think that while Enterprise was running there was no chance of Star Trek being better.

This is painful for me to say cause I've been a trek fan for literally as long as I can remember. Luckily and happily for me I've found a lot more enjoyment in series like B5 and Farscape, so it eases the pain. :)

I can't believe how wonderful Farscape is, I actually was given the DVD's by a friend to watch having never seen the show and it is truly wonderful. Anyway!! That was all more than I meant to say.

-john

"ENTERPRISE" IS DEAD?
Well, can't pretend I care since I never saw it. Was it really THAT bad?

Let's all join hands and sing along:

"It's been a long road,
getting from there to here..."

The Woe that is Rick Berman

Was Enterprise anything other than an enterprise of the most cynical sort?

Are there really prodcuers in Hollywood who believe taking the rugs out of the same old space ship is somehow a creative act? Are there really those who believe putting actors in new uniforms constitutes telling new stories?

Are there those who believe that anything like an idea ever came near that god-forsaken mess of a retread?

Enterprise is dead! O frabjous day! Callooh Callay!

And Now For Something Fantastic...

HaHaHaHa!

Never gave a tinker's damn for Trek, or any of the offal that it's generated over the years.

Linda dropped by to show me what showed up in the mail this morning.

Blood, by Frederick Brown: Soon, Harlan, soon. Everybody find a can of lima beans and send to the author. Mark it "Merry Christmas" for laughs.

Right now Richard Dreyfuss and Richard Dreyfuss are becoming fascinating in "By His Bootstraps". Wait, Richard Dreyfuss just showed up.

Have your meagre Spock broth. I'll settle for a much richer feast.

I'm always surprised at the shouts of glee when some hated television series is cancelled; after all, you don't have to watch it. Do you think this series was preventing something of refined quality from hitting the airwaves? If so, let's see your opinion of the series that replaces it on Friday night.

In these days of 500 channels, there are plenty of hours to program quality shows. No one crappy show is keeping a good show from making it onto the air: only a network executive is doing that.

As for Enterprise, and this is coming from someone who watched all of the Star Trek series, it was an o.k. show. Kind of bland, but not eyeball-puncturing horrible. This season has been a vast improvement, but that only seems to be the case because they knew they had to go for broke or be cancelled.

Voyager was a horrible, horrible show. I suppose I kept watching it because I had some form of crack addiction that kept telling me that TNG got good after two season, and DS9 became a wonderful show, the best of all Star Trek series, after two seasons, so perhaps Voyager will find its legs. Nope....remained stumpy.

Yes, those on this board will toss bricks at the Star Trek shows, especially since Harlan loathes them (actually, I'm not sure of his opinion on the non-Shatner series....perhaps he hasn't seen them), but I will stand proud and say, Yes, I've seen almost all of the near 1000 episodes produced for television and yes it started to wear out its welcome years ago, but hell, it was better than watching another turgid episode of Desperate Housewives.

And how's that for a run-on sentence.

PS; the new Battlestar Galactica is quite good. Don't let the name fool you. Don't let the silly notion that Cylons can now look like humans scare you away. I give this show a big thumb's up.....and yes, it replaced the wonderful Farscape in it's timeslot, and it can't touch the wonderful Farscape, but it still touches and maims every square inch of Voyager!

Ta.

-TODD

"Enterprise has been cancelled."

Yeah? Well, on the bright side I bet the writers can get work through Publish America!

since you mentioned it...
I wouldn't have mentioned this anchor on the genre here but since others brought it up - Warren Ellis had this to say about a couple of imminent franchise deaths;

> "And, with the final Star Wars film on the way,
> it seems that by the end of the year the culture
> will feel peculiarly cleansed. As if the shackles
> were released from us in our cultural basement,
> and we can finally take from our mouths the
> shattered antique underpants used as gags and
> wash old men's semen out of our bum crevices."

I couldn't have said it better.

And while I'm thinking of things beyond redemption - Harlan, do you do a version of the Aristocrats? Have you heard Robin Williams' version?

- Barney

So, "Enterprise" is gone. Have you all checked out the "Battlestar Gallactica" remake on SF Channel? I've enjoyed the couple episodes I've caught.

ENTERPRISE cancellation
Saw the show all of once; saw VOYAGER all of twice. (Will cop to being a DEEP SPACE NINE viewer, though. It struck me as having many of the strengths of BABYLON 5, i.e. in that it was often really about the frailties of people as opposed to recalibrating the whatchayamacallit to sheath the thingamobob in new doubletake particles while somebody pushes buttons.)

That said --

This ain't gonna be the end of Star Trek.

Even if Paramount fails to get a new series out right away, and even if this particular well remains dry for several years, there WILL be a point, perhaps as long as a decade or two down the line, when somebody gets the bright idea that it's time to attempt a remake. It may be a stage musical and it may be a Pixar movie and it may be far removed from previous incarnations of the franchise, but it WILL happen. Maybe it'll be good. More likely it will be bad. Either way I'm not engaging in any letter-writing campaigns.

"Enterprise has been cancelled."

Ding dong, the witch is dead! Which old witch? The wicked witch! Ding dong, the wicked witch is deeeaaaaaad!

If anyone gives a rat's apertureÉ

Enterprise has been cancelled. Could this be the end of the Star Trek franchise? Stay tunedÉor not.

Dripping greenish yellow ichor
My god when you mentioned the Library of America, Earl, I thought you were joking! But no, it's true. Nathaniel Hawthorne...Mark Twain...Tennesee Williams...HPL! Now that's funny.

Ahhhh... but we must not be snobs. Who am I to quibble when so august a figure as Joyce Carol Oates has bestowed the mandate of heaven onto the gentleman from Providence?

Who's next? Edgar Rice Burroughs! After all, Tarzan is a much more famous figure in American culture than Wilbur Whately, Obed Marsh or Randolph Carter.

But wait...what's that scratching at my door...it opens...heaven defend me...it's entering my mind...the shining trapezohedron...sqaumous...hideous...the threelobed burning asshole!

Barney,
As one who is unfamiliar with the written Cyrano, and vaguely remembers enjoying the 1991 film, I thank you for posting that link. Good, good stuff, and the "no thank you" speech seems especially relevant for me these last few weeks. Thank you, sir.

Pam: Neil Gaiman mentioned the Library of America Lovecraft a week ago or so on his weblog. Gaiman noted that the edition removes many of August Derleth's emendations (especially the pervasive italics and exclamation marks), making Lovecraft much subtler in something closer to his original voice.

Cheers, Jon

Hey Loftus!

Durgin Park is indeed still in business. I ate there a few weeks ago.

Steve

Mountains of Madness
For fun and practice, I like to photocopy 'At the Mountains of Madness' and then try to line edit 5,000 words out of it without losing anything important. Try it sometime. Me, I cannot wait for the new Lovecraft collection from the Library of America! I LOVE that guy.

Cyrano - Gaining in the Translation
Here's a link to a Washington Post book review of Brian Hooker's translation of Edmond Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac". The review is by Jonathan Yardley. I don't know this fellows stuff but this is a NICE piece. I'm tempted to post the "NO THANK YOU!" speech in its entirety since I believe it's in public domain but what the hell - it's just a couple of clicks away.

As to why post it here - well, if you're NOT familiar with this work, you should be. It's one of the great moral characters alongside Jiminy Cricket and Zorro. But even if you are familiar with Rostand and the translation, re-reading language this fine can only brighten your day. I'm sayin'!

The movie is one of those things that always sucks me in like MAGNIFICENT SEVEN does Harlan. Here you go;

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55751-2005Feb1.html

- Barney

Troublemakers
I found ‘Troublemakers’ at a large book chain here in Melbourne called Dymocks.’ In the literature section.
No mistake, because I asked the girl for your name,and she said with barely a pause, “ Oh, he’s under literature.” Now that stopped me in my tracks.They goddamn finally took note. Just thought you should know this. I’m not sure that Ballard has even made it across the floor to that fabled aisle.
I have gained a respect for this bookstore. They even made sure I had the latest Le Guin in time for my mother’s birthday.
By the by, where’s Leo and Diane Dillon? I so love the editions I own with their covers.
Live on, Harlan — nurture thyself and take care. But please, no more prefaces like the one for Troublemakers. I was quite depressed to see you still addressing the terminally teenaged. I know you are expressing your anger and disappointment at a certain group who have failed to move on, but sheeesh, the ultramaroons ( actually I think it was Bugs,not Daffy, you quoted ) are always there, and situations haven’t and won’t change. Fuck ’em.
I would much rather read about you and your world than a tirade against the zed generation.
Luv,Paul

Kingdom of Madness,
Oh Ezra, how can you say such things about dear odl Howard Phillips? Some of us loved his gibbering! And it certainly wasn't mindless. That was a great imagination at work! If he was guilty of anything, it was repetition. Every story hinted at some dreadful cosmic secret that was just too hideous to describe to readers. "At the Mountains of Madness" was particularily infuriating.

HERC renewal
Susan and/or Harlan,
I'm a space cadet. Have I renewed past issue 36? Thanks,
Tom Morgan member M456
(Hey, here comes the Nate of the Station)

And would you like fries with your new asshole, Mr. Johnson?

HA!!

Fifth stupidest question

Actually, Unca Harlan, I had hoped to propose a trade...

You see, I recently won this little ebay auction...Some silly old tome by a dusty British crackpot...author's name was Gersh or Schmersh or somesuch. I think the title was "Juice Without Jehovah" or somesuch. Cost me a couple bucks (probably because of the autograph), but I just do these things to frustrate those crazy online book collectors. Heck, I don't even like books.

At any rate, I was gonna propose a trade for something Ellison. I heard somewhere that you like old things.

Alas, my old lady saw that tome on top of my stack of bathroom reading, and used it to line the bottom of Polly's cage. My wife. What a character, that woman! Loves her birds.

Do you like birds, Harlan?

Back at ya,
Neal

P.S. Czech's in the male.

United States
Hi Mr. Ellison,

I had the fortune to meet you at the Westin in Seattle last year when you were in for the Nebula Awards. I was a front desk agent and you absolutely floored me that you took the time to say hi to me when my co-worker asked you to. It really sticks out as one of the highlights of 2004 for me. Thought I'd take the opportunity to say thanks again!

-john

YOU MAY HAVE DONE IT AGAIN
Harlan, some people are not gonna understand that your remark about having TLDV on sale here next week was sheer humor on your part. You'll probably start getting orders/inquiries about it any day now. See what you started?

Any extra charge for an autographed copy?

HPL
With the publication this month of a Library of America collection of Lovecraft's fiction, I think he is safely and deservedly lodged in the canon, close to Poe.

Ezra,

The Joshi biography of HPL was wonderful. I highly recommend it, too.

The true genius of HPL will be found in his letters and other nonfiction items. His fiction is merely okay and not equal to EAP, although some is entertaining if you're in the mood for a shudder (The Colour Out of Space, for example). Old Grandpa Theobald himself thought Poe and Machen were his literary mentors and masters and did not consider his "junk" to be in their league.

Check the old Arkham House HPL Selected letters editions & books such as HPL: Lord of a Visible World from Ohio University Press and the new collections of his letters on literary criticism and more from Hippocampus Press, etc. You will find wonder within.

Boston eateries

Assuming it's still there -- and you'd probably get good odds on this one -- the other place you were looking for is Durgin Park . . . part of the Quincy Market complex, behind Faneuil (pronounced locally "FAN-ul") Hall.

The responses to Rick K’s inquiry about stylistic experimentation reminded me of once trying to explain to a talented young writer wanna-be why it might be ok for H P Lovecraft to gibber and flop mindlessly in the tenebrous vortices of outer chaos but if the young writer wanna- be did it he was going to sound like shit.

Perhaps what the world needs is a new grammar book? "HPL’s Literary Offenses"? "Turning Cthulhu on the Spit"?

For those who are interested, Necronomicon Press has republished S T Joshi’s eldritch and cyclopean biography of HPL (all 700 pages worth). www.necropress.com

As you may discern from my comments I have the classic love/hate relationship with HPL. I have read his stuff with pleasure. But when people tell me that he was some kind of great literary artist or that he was equal to Edgar Allan Poe I must laugh lest I cry. See http://www.poemuseum.org/news_and_events/events.html

To Aaron Teschner:

Well, sure, if you're going to use logic...LOL.

I see your point. The whole cause and effect thing. (Did I mention I like reading time travel stories, but get migraines when I think about writing one?) That's a good work-around, though, snagging a copy of the book just before it's thrown in the furnace.

But let me ask a question (and possibly risk worse than tomatoes...casaba melons, maybe): what's more important in a story? The mechanical logic of the plot or the emotional logic of the character? Of course you want both to work in conjunction. But let's say you want to write it so he gets the book in the bookstore because...well, for whatever reason. Can you ignore the logical consequences and concentrate on the character and his reasons for needing the book?

It seems that most time travel stories follow the "By Your Bootstraps" or "All You Zombies" mode, a snake swallowing its tail. Is it possible for a time travel story to break from that, almost mathematical, inevitability?

Look, People:

Jesus, didn't you read the sign? It's right there in front of the cage:

ELLISON, HARLAN (Reprobatius Malfeaseium Iri)

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU FEED THE ELLISON, OR ENGAGE IN ACTIONS BRINGING YOU INTO CLOSE PROXIMITY.

The limbs and heads get removed every Thursday.

Pregnant pauses are good to clear the air. I caused one just the other day, at our administration meeting. The teacher's union is coming in, despite upper management's craven attempts to thwart it, and it was floated in this pow-wow that we release, as a body, a letter to staff asking them not to vote for it, since we already provide such a worker's paradise.

I piped up that I just would not attach my name to any letter to our staff that told them not to vote for a union. There was this pause. A long pause. I then tried to lighten up the shit-mist by saying things like "come on, these are the people who brought us the weekend, who got kids out of factories...teacher's unions are the norm, this isn't the black death."

Well, we moved on, but the last few days I've been given a little more room at the bar, as they say.

Trouble? Who, me??
Can I pick which piece of you I want?? ;-)


Nah, Mr H, no need to go looking, what with dodging bullets and avoiding neighborhood sweeps for militants. We got plenty-o-trouble right here in desert city... That's a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Peg.

(okay, sorry for that last bit, too corny to resist).

Peg
(PS.. I went quiet 'cause over here it's mid-day, and I *am* supposed to be working on occasion! or at least pretending...)

Yeah...I think this is the part of the movie where you just hear crickets...

ROFL!!!
Harlan, you've made my...uh, night. (I was about to go to bed then checked back& saw all the new posts.)

Peg/Etc - I sorta think once this board went active and Harlan started typing right into it nobody paid attention to the rest of the site! The store list is oh, only one or two years old? Um, the only change I know of is that ESSENTIAL is sold out (I had an order form a few months ago that was current. I used it.)

Kristin

Hunt Bowman brings to mind Wolcott Gibbs' famous description of the house style of Time Magazine: "Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind." And later on: "Where it will end, knows God!"

gee, it went awful quiet around here suddenly


was it something i said?



timorously,

teeny me

AS FOR YOU, PEG, YOU LOOKIN FOR TROUBLE, BEECH? YA WANNA FAT PIECE'A ME, TOO?

I'LL WHAACK YA SO HARD YOUR GRAMMA'LL BLEED.

Yr. pal, Harlan

NO...SERIOUSLY...

NEAL:

Ignore all that preceding nonsense.

Here's the R E A L answer:

We actually always have ALL titles available, ALL THE TIME

B E C A U S E

we only have one title. So no matter which book you order, we always send the same one. And we have THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of >that< one. So order with confidence.

Remember our slogan:

HARLAN ELLISON
BUSTING CHOPS AND INSULTING PERFECT STRANGERS
FOR MORE THAN 70 YEARS
AT THIS SAME LOCATION!

A HEARTFELT APOLOGY

Dear Neal Johnson:

My unconscionable rudneness has been properly chastened by my good wife, who says, quite properly, "How the hell are we going to suck in these rubes to buy this crap if you keep insulting them, you moron?"

She's right. My behavior was unpardonable.

Here is a straight answer to your question. Are all those books available?

Yes.



BUT THEY'RE ALL WRITTEN IN FARSI, IN CYRILLIC SCRIPT, ON TRANSPARENT ONIONSKIN PAPER.

Yr. pal, that li'l ole bookseller, Harlan

in the line of fire??
Ummmm.... at the risk of being the next target, might I suggest it is not apparent when the Webderland online store list was last updated? Perhaps Neal, in a poorly worded manner, was trying to ascertain if the same stock were still available??? (especially since HERC has had 2 or more sale events in recent times...)

Still, it was an entertaining response, as always. ;-)

Neal - if that was your intent, then I say, join Herc if you haven't. Get the Rabbit Hole. Always includes the lastest list of available material.

Cheers...
Peg
(who knows that she is a safe distance from any real retribution although the militant clashes are another story...)

REPLY TO THE THIRD OR FOURTH DUMBEST QUESTION
EVER ASKED:

Dear Neal:

As Susan screamed, grabbed her temples with both clawed hands, and fell to the tarmac when her head exploded from the sheer cosmic stupidity of your question, she is now unavailable to answer. Between bouts of sobbing for my now-dead honey, I come to deliver an answer.

No, absolutely NONE of the books we went to all that trouble to list are available. We only make up that shit to suck in wily buyers such as yourself. In fact, none of those books even exist. We made up the titles. You'd be surprised how many ignorant mooks actually think that crap exists.

We like making up new titles periodically, to fleece even more good folks such as yourself, many of whom send us purchase orders and money from their local Arkham Asylum for the Terminally Idiotic.

Look sharp: next week we'll be offering THE LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS and Shakespeare's lost drama QUEEN CLEOPATRA AND BERNIE.

With regards to your therapist, I remain,

Yr. pal, Harlan

Mental Meanderings. . .
Possession is only distantly related to fullfillment. Sure it's fun, I love possessing stuff, but there comes a point where it just seems. . .empty?

My researches lately have brought me into contact with alot of homeless folk, and alot of low income folk. Folk who have to think twice before investing in a cup of coffee.
And my memory of blue collar work, where every dollar represented another hour at the assembly line letting braincells rot, is still fresh.

So I collect jack-all. I figure I just don't need it.

I hope I live to be 71. At that point I hope I can look back on life with some satisfaction that I did what was right, did the best I could, and didn't waste too much time. I would hope at least some of my dreams would be fullfilled, and if any aren't, it won't be because I didn't try. I hope there's time enough to do what I need to do. I hope I never sit still. I hope I can improve the world, and if not, at least gum up the works as much as Unca Harlan did.

Harlan and Duane,

Thanks for the feedback, and for confirming my initial instincts about the narration. Granted, these people of the variant speech pattern are only in the book for a brief period, and none of them give long monologues; but even so, I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of writing the narration in their viewpoint scenes the same way that they speak. I was pretty sure that if _I_ was going to find it annoying to write, so too would the readers find it annoying to read.

Still, I felt it wise to run it by some other writers, just to make sure my initial instinct to write the narration "normally" was the correct one.

Rick

the online store


SUSAN ELLISON

I plan a shopping trip to Webderland soon. Are all the books listed in the online store actually available?

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,
Neal

Where are you going, where have you been?

DOUG:

While some people on that 1st Edition Day might have tucked the book away for safe keeping so that they could, half a century later, whip it out and sell it on Ebay for the amount of money it's going to take to heal Grandpa, most people would, especially if it was a good book, read it.

At this end of time, picking up 1st editions helps exemplify your love for a book you'd met through a 38th (or whatever) edition.

Taking that first edition from someone else, though... depriving someone of it, or a WHOLE LOTTA people of it, depending on where that book travelled, might making things worse. What if a reviewer, that popularized the book and made the 38th print run possible, never chanced by it in the used book store some twenty years ago?

Or something mundane: how that book affects a single life, someone whom we'll never know, but who benefited from that book, or was emotionally crippled by it, as is the case with devastating works (I'm still hovering around my copy of Requiem for a Dream, afraid of plunging in and evoking its demons). Even if the book still makes it to the 38th, would we have a right to cut people out of the loop because of our nifty time machine?

This is a familiar battleground. I'm sure Uncle Ray would have a thing or two to say, something along the lines of "don't squish that mosquito!"

If you could figure out whether or not some of the first editions were destroyed somehow, and nab one of those, maybe you'll just be depriving the future of a half a pound of ash in some landfill.

Interesting thought, Doug. I'll take a tomato or two for you before I go down.

-ART

RICK K.'s ANOMALOUS SPEECH

Yo, Rick:

I bury my hatchet in the same advisement: strive for clarity.

Do NOT put the interior monologues in back-formation RickSpeak.

Unless the character is ACTUALLY HIMSELF SPEAKING inside his own head. The way we, you, I, everyone, does it--right now in the received world. Whatever idiomatic we speak into the air, is the same voice inside the noggin. Unless ... When it is the Author "telling" us, it should always be Omniscient Voiceover, which means you, the auctorial voice; and that means speaking normally, and with clarity. Don't go all artsy-fartsy Ah My Great Self-Expreshiyun experimental unless the story CANNOT POSSIBLY be told more conventionally. Writing should ideally be transparent, not annoyingly obtrusive and INtrusive.

I remember when I was a little kid, I used to read PLANET COMICS and there was a feature therein called, if I remember back a mere sixty-some years, "The Lost World," featuring a stalwart named, again if I remember, Hunt Bowman ... who spent most of his time trying to slaughter what I think I remember were the Martian conquerors of the planet Earth. And the aliens spoke bakwards-formation, too. Memorably, but ultimately annoyingly.

Samples: "Kill you I will, putrescent human!"

"After the grotesque air-breather we must go, finding and slaying him we will."

"My ass you will bite and die you shall!" And, er, harumph, etcetera, like.

Which is to say, in teeny doses, this kind of one-trick pony is initially interesting (if done well), but like the whistling puppy, once you've seen it, okay, what ELSE can he do? And it pales very fast. It's a gag, like the movie ELF, but once you've run out those first half dozen changes on the basic gag, it gets wearisome.

Either way, internally, it is always third-person-past-tense, the voice of the Omniscient Author, and he (you) speaks normally, not like someone who is dyslectically-challenged.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Thoughts For Rick K
Hey Rick,

For what it's worth....

Strive for clarity.

A limited third person (or as I think of it, tightly focussed third person) viewpoint can be very useful, but too tight of a focus for too long can actually get in the way of telling a story. Sometimes, just a few phrases expressed in "plain English" from your character's point of view can quickly convey a lot of necessary information, enabling you to get on with the story without a lot of extra verbiage. The point is to focus and pull back in such a way that the reader gets your point without noticing your technique.

It's like watching a scene in a movie. You have close up shots, establishing shots, etc., often within the same scene. In great movies, all you see is the story.

I'm writing this out at work, with my "writing brain" disengaged at the moment, so I hope I was able to make myself clear enough for you.

Greetings from a fellow follower of of fine fiction
If you know me long enough, you get the gift. Mind you, its not just anyone who gets it. You have to demonstrate you have a particular talent for humanity-, which is a rarer thing nowadays than I wish. But if you do it, you get the gift. Maybe a paperback a little beat around the edges, or a hard cover (sans dust jacket). You get a genuine, 100% all-natural, no preservative, good-for-your-soul Harlan Ellison book. Ain't nothing better then spreading the gospel a bit and it just doesn't seem right having those books on a shelf somewhere not being read.
Its great to find a place where some fellow admirers gather and even Harlan visits. I have been a life-long admirer ever since some grammar-school associate gave me a copy of a Daredevil comic “by some writer” back quite a few years ago, heck a real lot of years ago now that I look in the mirror and see the receding hairline. After that I found Approaching Oblivion at a used bookstore and I've been an addict ever since.
Hope I didn’t go on too long, but I just wanted to introduce myself and pass on my well wishes to Harlan. You have inspired, delighted, enlightened, comforted, chastised and heck even gave me that pat on the back I needed at times through the wonders of that mighty typewriter. Thanks for all the years so far.

And an extra hello to all the other members of the board. Its a pleasure to meet people with as fine a taste as my own. (Wife says I have a bit of an ego, I don't know where she gets the idea from)

Scott

Harlan,

I'll probably regret this, but the thing about the Kersh book might make an interesting story. Guy goes back in time to buy a book, now exheedingly rare, on it's first and only day for sale. Why would he do that, I wonder. And would it be worth it when he finally held it in his hands?

Feel free to throw tomatoes.

I love webderland
Last year I came to Boston on a business trip and queried the brain trust here about what to do and see, and where to go for good food. Harlan piped up, and Steve Dooner piped up, and many others piped up as well. Harlan suggested Locke-Ober's, and I did that. It was beyond all my feeble expectations. He also suggested Durgin Hall, but there was some confusion about spelling. I haven't done that yet. But today I finally went to Jacob Wirth's restaurant for lunch today, and I can say to Steve D., and all those other worthies who mentioned it, that it was undersold to me. The food was fantastic. I should have gone last time. I will never come to Boston again without visiting that venerable institution.

Thank you!!!

-Keith

Harlan,

Others have said this all much more eloquently, but here I go anyway…

About 20 years ago I found a copy of Medea in a bookstore in a mall in Roswell, New Mexico. One of the more vivid things I remember is reading the dedication. (Yes, we even read the dedications.) From that day forward I tried to figure out a way to let you know the impact you have had on my life. These best intentions went the way of so many others. I could contact the publisher – but it didn’t happen. I could go through F&SF – but it didn’t happen. I found the web site and it became even easier to touch base – but it didn’t happen. I could have gone through HERC – but it didn’t happen.

About two years ago you came to Phoenix, and I finally got to express my thanks. (As you said to me at the time, “I’m not that hard to find.”) I followed up the next day or so with my first posting to this site, saying the same things. But it cannot be said enough – thank you for being here.

My father is also turning 71. He just had a shoulder operation – one the doctors said they wouldn’t normally suggest, but he was far too active to let it go. I am turning 50 in July. Things all seem to hit together. Two weeks ago, a friend who worked for me died of a heart attack at 39. More than a coworker, he was a great friend to all of us here. It smacks you between the eyes. The joke about birthdays is that they are always better than the alternative. With his passing, this has lost some of the humor – but it strikes home more than ever.

Harlan, this is not about “go ahead and buy the toys you want”. Nor is this a brewski induced “I love you man” hug-fest. This is meant merely as a reminder that our lives would be poorer without you. We are glad/ecstatic/orgasmic/shit-grinning happy that you are here, and, as much as possible for people like me who barely know you, we love you.

Keep kicking us you prepubescent seven-year-old – we do love it so.

Seeking feedback on a writing-related question
In one of the novels I’m currently writing, I have a society of people our main characters meet who structure their sentences a bit differently than standard English. E.G., they would say “Visitors have we” rather than “we have visitors”, and so forth.

I’m writing the book in the limited third person POV. In other words, if Bob is the viewpoint character in a particular scene, we’re privy to his thoughts, but not those of the other characters. My question then, is this: A few scenes are from the POV of a member of this society, and I wonder, since we’re inside his head, should the narrative description be written in the same style as his dialogue?

In other words, should the narration be: "Bob studied the reports his scouts had brought back with a frown of concentration, as if by sheer force of will he could change the information they contained."? or should it be: “Study, with a frown of concentration, Bob did, the reports from his scouts...”

My instinct is to go with the former, straight-forward sentence structure; yet, we are inside “Bob’s” head. Shouldn’t the sentence structure of the narrative reflect that of his speech? Or, as I suspect, wouldn’t narration in that style, however briefly, just be annoying to the reader?

Thoughts?

Rick

Lurking in Crosswhen
DOUGIE McINTOSH said:

"P.S. Any fellow aussies lurking (or not) in The Pavilion?"

I am one; not sure how many others are out there. Welcome all the same.

Welcome, Greg
If you buy a Herc membership ($15, includes a subscription to the "Rabbit Hole" newsletter and lets you order books autographed to you, as well as tapes) you can get the CD of Paladan. (Is it still up there in RealAudio?)

I (and Rick) recommend DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH, it's available from the Herc Store (assumiing they still have it) - 900+ page omnibus for 20 bucks. IHNMAIMS/Deathbird Stories/Shatterday. (All three of the stories duscussed so far on the Forum board are in it.) THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON is sold out alas. :( My copy got mistakenly stuffed into a storage room when I was moving and now I'll never find it!!!

Have fun,

Kristin
(Everything comes VERY well packaged & shipment is prompt!)

Greg,

Also consider buying direct from the author.

A SASE to the HERC address on this site will get you a current list of what's available. Customer service is top drawer.

Greg Freeman:

Welcome to the fold, friend. A good place for you to continue your readings and become further hooked might be the short-story collection STRANGE WINE, recently reissued in trade paperback and therefore readily available. Lotsa good ones in this book.

Stuart,

If you're interested in studies of the collecting mania, I can recommend the highly interesting A Gentle Madness : Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books. Obviously books rather than comics, but it has some really cool stuff about the urge to collect and pretect and sometimes go more than a little nuts in search of the perfect collection. The HTML here is for the Amazon page:

http://tinyurl.com/46qop

Regards,
Joseph

New Harlan Ellison reader.
I had to stop by and say that I’ve heard of Harlan Ellison before. I even knew a little (admittedly very little) about him. I finally decided it was time to get off my rear and actually read some of his work because I’ve been meaning too for years. Holy Cow!! I wish I had earlier. I stumbled across this site and read “Paladin of the Lost Hour”. After ready that story I felt like I had been kicked in the gut, not because there was anything personal their but because it evoked that emotional reaction I only get when I’ve read something really good.

Of course that means I have to go to the bookstore and spend some money on more of his works. I guess I know what part of my next paycheck is going to be for.

Phil Deguerre
Broccolli Farmers For Democracy mourns the loss of Phil a democracy Warrior of the highest order. Remembering always, Broccolli doesnt die, it goes to seed!

G'DAY / FELLOW AUZZIES ?
FIRST POST

Greetings one and all.

Just a quick note to say words of thanks to everyone in this fine 'cybercommunity' for yer posts / interesting topics.

More importantly to Harlan, thanks for your output throughtout the years - couldn't have done it without you [ Live & Learn that is ]

Belated thanks to Mr. Rick Wyatt for all your hard work here.


thankfully yours,

Dougie.


P.S. Any fellow aussies lurking ( or not ) in The Pavilion ?

Jan
Some of the recordings have been reissued by Deep Shag records at www.deepshag.com.

Kershed Kollektibles
***Harlan*** Not that you need me to say this, but yes, that all made PERFECT sense. In fact, these last couple of days I've been kicking myself for even mentioning the Bosch, etc. site when these are something that I could have gifted you [one by one on my budget until your 103rd birthday or thereabouts] instead of you binging on them. Plus, I wasn't much looking forward to Susan kicking me the next time she saw me. Hi Suze!

I'm never going to get down to Diogenes and his cup but even as I take stuff in I'm looking around at how [and when] to get rid of this PILE so Lenora and Kyla don't get stuck with so much crap that the wheat and the chaff cannot be differentiated. I'm sure you have plenty of such horror stories at your disposal regarding friends and their "libraries".

The good news on the Kersh front is two-fold. Now that Doug and I know what it looks like it's just barely possible one of us will find it for a fraction of that cost. I found some 106 year old Robbie Burns last week so who knows. The other thing that you could do - and I would do this - is have your photocopy bound. Have Paul Duncan inscribe it. Stick one of your personal bookplates in it. Instant rara avis with autographs from the 2 most important Kersh promoters on the planet. I'll let you and Paul Indian leg wrestle for the world heavyweight title.

To be morbid, and I really don't wish to be - THAT volume will fetch the real bucks on eBay in the - I sincerely hope - far distant future. Or we all drive out to Cali to see the only Kersh 1st folio on display in what will probably end up as some sort of national treasure historical site. Either works for me.

- Barney

Bound, PA.

Recordings...
Does anyone know if there are any plans for reissues of Harlan's records on cd? Or do we have to wait until it's feasible to publish them on the internet in a format similar to mp3? On the other hand, companies have recently begun to release cd's with mp3 music on them, permitting them to put hundreds of minutes on one disc.

I also think production costs for a dvd of Ellison reading a few of his stories would be very low, and it wouldn't have to cost whole a lot and no major company has to be involved. I mean, someone basically just needs to visit him at home or at a public reading and put a camera in front of him. As we all know, you can have four hours of film on a dvd. Didn't Harlan say once that if he could put anything he wants on television it would be just him reading stories? Personally, I would have a lot of faith in a project like that, and I wish it could happen, but the only possibility of it happening is on dvd. When Ellison said the thing about doing television his way, it was still more difficult to produce and release something self-produced. Today we can produce dvd's on our own computers. People are slow in adapting to these possibilities.

Micheal's Post - The Sequel

Ray: Not to spoil it, but last week Thursday, Larry King did a segment on Fan 590, a local sports station and ended the interview by doing nearly the same thing. I went to see the movie anyhow and loved all three central performances. I cannot recommend it enough.

I've got to add my kudos for "The Machinist", as well.

I've little to add to the two magnificent posts by Brian Siano and FinderDoug. Thanks gents, you've given me a bit to think about concerning my Dad (78), and my Mom (77).

Back to work. I've managed to get five sizeable donations from major companies this morning; one of the better days I've had.

New York Times Spoiler Alert

If you haven't seen "Million Dollar Baby " and don't know how it ends,
stay away from todays New York Times. The front-page headline of the "Arts" section gives the ending away. To put it mildly, I am totally pissed! What morons!

I remember, many years ago, when this was one of the best papers in the world. Now, what this idiotic move, spoiling a movie for millions, shows again, is how out-of-touch the media elitists running this rag are.

Harlan - Four grand IS a silly frippery of self-indulgence for a book you read and didn't particularly like. It's crazy as a red-assed bee. I posit that if you'd never read the book, you'd have been willing to go the whole way. If you'd read it and found it to be his masterwork, you'd have dropped the dollar bomb to have it as a masterpiece worthy of such a price. But the fact is, you read and didn't care for it.

You're someone who loves to talk about his stuff. You use it to inform, to educate, to blow people's socks off by opening their eyes to what they didn't see or know or experience. I still recall your tale of revelating people with Johnny Mathis' first album. I suspect walking a first-time guest through Ellison Wonderland is a specific pleasure for you because you get to talk about everything that's on display, and the people related to it. The soul of collecting is in talking about the collection. In the case of "Jews Without Jehovah", you - a very vocal admirer of Gerald Kersh - didn't have much to recommend in it. It's no different from hanging an expensive James Bama landscape on the wall for the privledge of explaining that he's a fantastic painter of human expression. So dropping huge coin on a book so it so it can sit on a shelf, with no real reason for you to point at it except to say "And that's a set of Gerald Kersh's published books," would have gained you nothing in terms of personal satisfaction. Not at that price.

All of which has nothing to do with growing up, however belatedly. Age really is just a number, and being a kid isn't about having the most stuff, trinkets, tchotchkes, the mass of things we surround ourselves with. You know that. Being a kid is enjoying what's there. I've noticed (hell, I've experienced first-hand) that when you find something that you enjoy, you want to share it with the world, you want people to enthuse, you want say "This is fucking great!" and have people look at you, face beaming, and say "My god, Harlan - that IS fucking great!" You have a singular sense of wonder, Harlan. And THAT - not all the Bosch sculptures and Explorer mugs and books and collected things in the world - defines your inner seven year old.

All you did was have a momentary flash of reason in the eBay world before it cost you dollars better enjoyed elsewhere. That just means you're a lot smarter than many who can't let it go when the bidding goes haywire.

As for the approach of 71 - what Brian said. And I'd add that such introspection in the face of the recent deaths of friends (and all of the others previous that these dredge up fresh yet again) is normal. If there's solace to be taken, find it in the certain knowledge that they recognized and appreciated you not because you were HARLAN ELLISON(TM), award winning author and enfant terrible of American letters - but because you were Harlan, a good guy who always had their backs and never once took their friendship lightly.

Busy-ish, busy-ish ... Been a hectic couple weeks, with teaching at work, some tsuris on the homefront, snow, playoff frenzy, and my having to go to war with upper management for not honoring contracts, so bear with me as I catch up.

MICHEAL, JAY, TODD, CHRIS: Sorry, guys; I wanted a Pennsuper Bowl as well. Not that I would have been rooting for the Steelers, but ...

STEVE: I dunno; I actually LIKE shoveling. It's a workout, it's pretty, and it lends itself to enjoyable goofery. In the blizzard which broke your achin' back, we got about eighteen inches of snow. I took a slow bus to my parents to shovel them, their two cars, the neighbors' walks--then hurried over to another bus to get to my best friend's to watch the Eagles whip the Falcons. In the first quarter of what we'd expected (sorry, guys) to be a blowout AFC game, we shoveled out HIS car, buried as it was under three-foot drifts. I made sure I did almost all of the work, as he has back pain and will until he keeps losing weight. It was fun; we goofed the whole time. Walked the two miles home not sore but tight, yet happy in a snowed-in city of champions.

BRIAN: Thank you for the link to Randi's piece on Carson. My appreciation of the man just went that much higher.

KRISTIN: Speaking of the Twilight Zone, did you notice that they have the DVDs of the original show (four shows apiece) at five bucks a pop on Amazon?

KEITH: Souds like you had a blast; the anecdote of the evening spent with Harlan and Susan is much appreciated.

BARNEY: As Tom pointed out, you would do well to contact Dwayne McDuffie, since he basically created Milestone Comics and has been very active in the ongoing discussion of race in comics. Despite now being a producer and story editor for the new Justice League animated series, he's very good about answering e-mails and such.

ADAM-TROY: Cool! Jayne Mansfielsd, a cyberbud of mine, pulled a similar sting on a vanity publisher/"editing service" a few years back, and got cyberstalked for years afterward for it. Got several books out of the experience, though.

The question has to be asked, however: Is the book bad enough to rival "Eye of Argon" in probable convention bad-writing readings?

HARLAN: I wrote a good deal on your feelings towards turning seventy-one and on collecting in the view of that impending age, but then I read up a bit and saw that what I'd written only mirrored what Brian had already said, and my mirror wasn't as polished. So I'll only say that you've art, life and love, and lots left to enjoy for a good long time without the acquisition of gimcracks and geegaws (which is the title, come to think, of a Mose Allison album) necessary to the happiness you so dearly have earned and which you so richly deserve.

Art research?
I noticed that gallery being referenced for the Bosches (I believe) is in Hallandale(-ish). If anybody would like me to schlep over to the posted address to check it out, I'd be happy to. It's even closer to my work than to my house, but not far either way. Legwork can be fun. ^_^

E-dress should be included here; let me know if I can help.

Corgi
(also missing Phil DeGuerre from a fannish remove)

Harlan, My dad is 71 (will turn 72 in early April). He's still enjoying life and and complaining about being slower than before on the bicycle. I think he tries not to dwell on "Yikes, I'm OLD!" *too* much. Nothing like suddenly *believing* down deep that you are O-O-O-OLD for making yourself shrivel up overnight! Just keep, well, being you, okay?

Me, I feel old and I just turned 40! I feel I frittered away most of my time.

Adam-Troy: you have to download that sting manuscript to your own machine instead of reading it online....What a disgusting, nauseating turd of a disk-space waster! At least it's only 500K or so. I think it was a wonderful joke though!

There are just no..WORDS..for writing that...putrid.

Technology DOES seem to make the signal-to-shit ratio worse.

Are OTHER books put out by PublishAmerica really that bad? I mean, maybe not THAT bad, but bad enough no traditional publisher would have accepted them?

Kristin

Holy Crap-- For once, I feel I can offer sage observations to Harlan instead of vice versa.

I can understand why 71 seems odder, and less comfortable, than 70. has the novelty, the odd surprise, and the strange delight of being a milestone age. But seventy-_one_ is _not- a milestone, and it's only the first of nine years spent living "in the seventies." I had something like this at age forty and forty-one. Forty was kind of amusing, because I sure as hell didn't _feel_ forty. But forty-one, and next month, forty-two... well, the novelty just ain't there.

As for the sudden desire to _not_ blow much cash over a much-desired collectible, well, I'm there, too. There's lots of things I'd love to buy, but years of low salaries, big bills and home maintenance have taught me a _lot_ of restraint.

This month, my brother settled up on my mom's estate. It wasn't a fortune, and I'm not relocating to Aruba on the proceeds. But I could buy a LOT of stuff with the money-- like, a down payment on a second house. And I've earmarked large amounts for paying off bills and house repairs _first_. But, for months, I'd been talling myself that I'd take a grand and walk into a Barnes and Noble, or a Tower Records, and just go _nuts_.

I haven't done that. I do buy a few more DVDs and books than I usually would get, and I did get that _Far Side_ collecton in the wonderful cloth binding. And there is a large loan to a close friend who's in tough times-- for once, I can help someone out to a substantial degree, and it makes me feel more like a mench. But I _still_ won't let myself go complete nuts with it. Haven't bought that new laptop. Haven't started pricing cars. I did get new furniture, but that's _practical_. The restraint, learned through the experience of some lean times, keeps me in check.

I don't mean to presume anything, but I have the impression that you've been making great money for a long while... and you've always been kidlike enough to let yourself wallow and splurge in Acquiring Cool Stuff. So I'd guess that the AOL lawsuit's been kind of a wave of cold water on the party. And yeah, the Onset-of-Puberty simile you used is, well, really accurate.

But should you _worry_? No. For one thing, you've had seventy years of unrestrained candy-shop raids. You know SF fans, Harlan: you must know lots who haven't learned the restraint, and who never got the means to indulge to the degree you have. You have the best of both. Still do, actually. And speaking as someone who is entering a middle age where affluence is combined with lingering kidlike covetousness, you may decide to push yourself straight through the puberty and Serious Young Adulthood, and head for the Midlife Crisis/Second Adolescence era as soon as possible.

Collecting
The past few comments on collecting made me think of a recent article in Playboy by Glen David Gold. It's titled "Tales of Accumulation and Excess--The Incredible Adventures of the Collector." It's ostensibly about collecting original comic art but looks into the whole crazed phenomenon of collecting--the insatiable hunger to own something. It struck a lot of chords with me as I read it, and might do the same with others here. It's in the December issue (the one with Denise Richards on the cover, which is an entirely different but equally valid reason to pick it up).

It also made me think of Harlan's own article about collecting, which was in a Wizard Price Guide, many years ago. That was a nifty piece.

Hey, Harlan, speaking of collecting, do you ever plan to collect all these odds 'n' ends (introductions, endnotes, mini-essays, etc.) that you've done over the years. One of my favorites is the piece you wrote for the final issue of Fish Police comics. That was one of your most emotionally resonant essays and I still take it out to read now and again.

Take care,

Stuart

Wond'ring Aloud

Perhaps it's that moment of posession, the seeming permanence of first "holding" the object, then melding into the perception of permanence brought on by the use of the errant word "ownership". A bit of the opiate of power, of control over something in a world that leaves us too often without any sense of efficacy over random circumstance.

This from a guy who's about to let go of about $2,000 worth of hockey collectibles, about to sell them to tell the NHL where exactly the sun don't shine.

It will mean more money for China and Nepal, some cds or movies, perhaps a few more pieces of Ellisonia. In the case of the former, anything that gets Linda and I on the road, doing the thing we like to do most when we're together tends to take on more value than any souvenir we might buy. In the case of the latter, it will mean more worlds to travel alone when I decide to shelter in the thing called home.

Has anyone a price list on those sculptures?

>for a "collector" mentality that seems moot <

My wife has been patiently waiting for that same epiphany to visit me for years, and I'm 42. It begs a question, for those of us possessed by this affliction: just when do we say enough? Even more pointed would be what are we doing?

These past few months I've been contemplating the mounds of crap I've accumulated over the years -- nostalgic, pop-culture, wondrous junk that probably is more valuable than what I paid for it, if that can somehow be trundled out as a reason for the madness, but I'm starting to hear a nagging voice in me head saying "what's the point?"

Sure, stockpiling all these fripperies gives me aethetic and emotional pleasure, but maybe my time and loose change would be better spent dusting the cobwebs of mind, improving my declining physique, or (shudder) helping my fellow man.

The Bowen sculptures of Flash and Ming on my desk stare at me as I write this. On the bookshelves sit the rare beer cans, the 1:18 cars, the 60s robots, a handful of mono Rolling Stones albums, and the Funny Face mugs (in mint condition, mind you). This is just a taste; the basement hosts the motherlode. But I wonder--maybe it's time to just stop.

Perhaps somewhere distant Kersh has rejoiced at seeing the price for one of his books go through the roof. It's one way of paying tribute to the writers we love. :-) If a book becomes too expensive for us to buy, at least we can take solace in having contributed to a price tag that comes closer to recognizing the actual value of the work. It must be sad for a writer to see if a good book of his doesn't fetch a cent. This happens to a lot of authors whose books have been readily available for years, like Stephen King.

Quick answer to direct question
Strange brain fart, that: typing my post, I must have automatically edited for accuracy when I intended none. No -- in my chapter of "Atlanta Nights," the Eiffel Tower is in Rome, the City of Brotherly Love.

Adam-Troy: Um, isn't the Eiffel Tower actually in Paris? I'm rather sure I went up it when in Paris a decade or so back.

Barney: Marv Wolfman and Dwayne McDuffie are quite easy to contact. Just check their webpages at the obvious www.marvwolfman.com and www.dwaynemcduffie.com for email links (I've no problems posting that info since it is so easy and obvious to find). Also, for online cover scans, I recommend the Grand Comics Database at www.comics.org.

Re: black characters in villainous cover poses. Occured to me a while back to wonder how many people in 1938 seeing the cover to Action Comics #1 thought Superman was the villain. Without any previous knowledge about the character, you've just got this guy in tights lifting up a car and people running from him in terror.

Dear Cindy:

What a lovely reminiscence. Yes, now that you hoist it out of storage, I do indeed recall your going with Sara to see Phil and the Dead. Somehow, and I don't know how which way, your memories of that interlude have cheered me summat. Thank you.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Barney, et al:

For those among you who may have been followinng my bidding on e.bay to obtain a first edition of Gerald Kersh's JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH, you may notice that the bidding ended at a quarter past three ayem Pacific Time, last night. I was up, I was there, I did place one penultimate bid, somewhere over four thousand dollars, and then the fever passed, and I let the other guy (who was the very first to bid, ten days ago, and who then laid-out waiting for all the other bidders to carry the water), this other guy, I let him have it. I could easily have outbid him, by jumping back within the last few sniper-moments, an amount so high he'd never have time to reach it ... but I chose not to. Yes, I wanted that book, Barney et al, but it's too soon after the AOL thing, we've paid back roughly $60,000+ to KICK supporters, it's cost us in the neighborhood of $110,000 in the hole ... and though we're hardly destitute, or even impaired, it truly is time for me to curb my acquisitive childlike desire for tchotchkes like the Kersh tome and, yes, dear Barney, even the Bosch, Escher, Arcimboldo sculptures you located.

I will be 71 in May, a kid no more, the heft of that realization much more than that of having turned 70, for some curiously odd reason. Seventy bothered me not a whit; but 71 seems Cylopean to my seven-year-old mentality. Perhaps it's the recent deaths of Will and Kelly and Phil. I dunno.

Don't want to think about it. Morbidly depressing. But ah me, somewhichway, tied into all that, was the purchase for a larger-than-comfortable sum, a book that I'd already read, a rare but unlikeable book, for a "collector" mentality that seems moot as 71 looms.

Does ANY of that make sense? I dunno.

But I thought I'd let those of you who give a white ant of a wonder know, that I could've had it if I'd wanted it; but at the final moment more than four grand seemed a silly frippery of self-indulgence. I fear this may, at core, smack of a long-belated appearance of puberty. 7, going on 71.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Harlan,
I doubt you'd remember the circumstances- it was so long ago, but I met Phil de Guerrre once. I think it was in '85. I remember, The Grateful Dead had done the theme of the resurrected Twilight Zone and those directly involved in the reprised series had been given tickets to their concert. It was in Anaheim, I think, near Disneyland if I remember right. As the Creative Consultant you were given a pair of the priceless tickets. You didn't feel like going but you gave the tickets to your Australian compadre Sara and me, cheerily bidding us away. We went. It would be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I had been in the sticks a long time and had never SEEN anything like the dead heads--some of them would have frightened the dawg out of me had it not been for Sara's self confident and clearly streetwise presence. Phil was there with other TZ people and we sat with him. I remember his disappointment that you had not come with us. It was obvious how much he thought of you. He was lovely, a consumate gentleman. A mensch. If I grasp the meaning of. the word, he was the embodiment of it. I'm still grateful to you for giving me that experience; The Grateful Dead ( Jerry Garcia was still alive), the venue, the buckets of beer, the delightful Phil De Guerre, Sara's engaging company and a trip after the concert to a bagel factory where we all but foundered on pizza bagels.

I'm so sorry that Phil is gone and your loss as his friend troubles me.

Cindy

Bosch's Inspiration

Keith,

Re: your being bothered by my suggestion that Bosch's work was "psychedelically inspired..."

First, no offense taken; I understand exactly why my observation might bother someone, and I perhaps could've explained myself a bit better.

I agree that it's easy for someone to suggest (inaccurately) that anyone who produces surrealist art must be either "crazy" or "on drugs." At first glance, it smacks of a facile, flip response that diminishes an artist's efforts to dredge extremely dark, warped, or simply surreal imagery from their subconscious. (It's similar to the -- again inaccurate -- opinion that people who write twisted, dark, horrific fiction must themselves be "sick" people, instead of simply being able to conjure up disturbing imagery with a clear, clinical eye and a steady hand -- kind of like calmly catching a viper and milking it of its venom.)

My comments weren't intended in any way to diminish Bosch's talent, and my observations could be dead wrong. HOWEVER... as a person who has done a fair amount of reading on the psychedelic experience, in both recent history (the 1960s) and the shamanic/visionary use of hallucinogens in native cultures (ayahuasca/yopo in South America, psylocybin mushroom use in Mexico), I do find that a great deal of Bosch's imagery in "Earthly Delights" absolutely smacks of imagery reported widely by people undergoing altered states of consciousness. The renditions of people crawling through glass tubes really jumped out at me as an extraordinarily unusual thing to depict during the 1500s.

I don't mean this as a pejorative dismissal; merely as an observation. For those people who've never had a psychedelic or "visionary" experience, these substances literally allow people to "think" and "imagine" DIFFERENTLY from their normal states of consciousness, or to dredge up extremely difficult/unusual imagery from the subconscious that's ordinarily not easily accessible. (There's a case of an architect who designed a new ward for mental patients AFTER he'd taken LSD and toured the existing facility, which enabled him to see its furnishings and layout in a disturbing fashion. He then incorporated what he'd learned after this experience into his new designs, which the patients seemed to be much happier with.) There are also researchers who believe that altered brain chemistry, either "naturally" produced (through extremes of exercise and stress) or chemically-produced, may conjure up -- dare I say it -- Jungian, or symbolic, imagery from the subconscious that is ordinarily suppressed (as for me, the jury's out on that speculation.)

A couple of disclaimers: I am NOT advocating that people take drugs in order to become better artists (or for any other reason), and I strongly feel that the production of any worthwhile art is almost impossible if someone's under the influence of a mind-altering substance. I have a challenging enough time producing work that I'm really proud of even when I'm utterly focused -- and at the age of 43, I've never drunk an alcoholic beverage in my life, nor have I ever smoked pot. (Some strong English Breakfast tea does help me along, though, and my favorite mood-altering substance is chocolate -- does that count?)

-- Jon

er, that's "sting" - not "stong"

Publish America sting
There's an AP article in this morning's business section that talks about PublishAmerica in a more favorable light, so I guess their PR machine is out to counter the negative press of the stong.

Some of my LiveJournal friends were part of the sting and posted links to the document as well as the contract and welcome letter. I've read parts of the manuscript and it is wonderfully bad.

"Atlanta Nights" continued
The details:



> You can read the manuscript at
>
ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/doylemacdonald/sting/StingManuscript.rtf
>
> You can read the acceptance letter at
>
ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/doylemacdonald/sting/Sting_acceptance.rtf
>
You can read the sample contract at
ftp://ftp.sff.net/pub/people/doylemacdonald/sting/Contract.pdf

The book was submitted under the pen name "Travis Tea" (say it quickly) and, the publication offer withdrawn, can be purchased by those who want an actual paper copy at lulu.com.

"Atlanta Nights"
So some of the fine folks at sfwa, irate after Publishamerica claimed to publish ONLY THE BEST p.o.d fiction, far superior to anything produced by professional writers, collaborated over one long weekend on a full-length novel manuscript designed to be as incoherent and as poorly written as possible. Nobody knew the entire plot, nobody knew the physical descriptions of the characters, nobody knew where their chapters appeared in the main manuscript, everybody wrote as ungrammatically and as stupidly as possible, two chapters were written by children, another chapter was written by a computer program, two chapters at the beginning and end of the book are word for word identical, characters who die early in the book show up later safe and sound, one character turns chinese and then black before going back to being white, I put the Eiffel Tower in Paris and somebody else put a ski resort in Atlanta, a character claims he could murder somebody with his bare hands "if he only had a knife or a gun to do it with," James McDonald added additional typos and grammar errors throughout, and the book was submitted to Publishamerica, which claimed that it had "promise" and made an offer. The first letters in the names of the characters add up to PUBLISHAMERICA IS A VANITY PRESS. The book in its entirety is available on-line; I forgot to get the URL before reporting the news here, but will return with same.

Barney and Jon
Barney,

If I'm reading all these posts correctly, your presentation will be in Washington, DC. If that's the case, man, shoot me an e-mail and I'll show you a good dinner. Might even get to eat it! DC has some very fine international cuisine, and not a few local brew pubs....

:)

Jon,

Something about your post about Bosch rankled me, and I couldn't figure out what it was. It wasn't anything personal. I read it a few times, and then it hit me. I know nothing about Bosch other than I've seen some of his work. I have never taken the time to study him or his curricula vitae, so I may be way off base here...but it struck me that you diminish his talent by suggesting he was inspired by psychedelics.

It also irks me that art historians speculate that Rembrandt had a lazy eye, and that's why he was able to translate 3 dimensional figures into 2D so well. It is as if everyone wants to "explain away" the talent of major figures.

Pet peeve. I'll get over it.

-Keith

Posing As the Enemy
***Alex*** OK, I've got Tony's contact info so that's done. If you want to shoot me Marv Wolfman's e-mail off-list I'd appreciate it. In addition to Blade, which is possibly a touchy subject with him because of Marvel's dicking him over I want to ask him a question or two about Cyborg from Teen Titans.

***Julian*** Yeah, it's ICAF and I might have jumped the gun by saying I'm definitely doing it because they're in "call for papers" stage and only take about half. BUT I've got some pretty juicy material by ICAF standards and a pretty focused argument so I think I have a shot. I had the month wrong. It seemed to come earlier in the year when it was linked to SPX instead of a standalone. Since I'm not a professional academic I'm thinking of this as my George Plimpton Paper Lion Stunt.

***Alan*** I'll check those out. Thanks for the heads-up.

I think I have most of the examples in my basement already but pulling these covers together from an internet source will make the power-point presentation easier to put together than if I have to do all the scanning myself.

I'll also be looking hard at characters like Rage from the Avengers and the entire DC/Milestone line for things like counter examples and reverses. Much [but not all] of what I'm doing is looking at black heroes and the way the cover layouts often put them in villainous poses. So if you look at the cover and you don't know who the heroes are you just say to yourself "oh, he's the bad guy. Remove the text blocks and word balloons and it becomes more overt. Not ALL the time. Just more often than I think is statisticly reasonable. It's not the Rosetta Stone - just something I noticed.

***Tony*** I'll send you a couple of questions once I get accepted and am further along with my power-point setup. Thanks.

And THANKS to everyone for responding to this. At this point I'd say just hit my gmail address if you have any more comments or cover suggestions. I don't want this pet project to take up Ellison bandwidth.

***Jon Bell*** Yeah, those suckers are huge. The other monster canvases are [many] of the pre-Raphaelites. I had the distinct pleasure of seeing them years ago at the National Gallery when they were on loan from the Tate. People would walk into a room, see these things and either gasp or make sounds like they'd been smacked in the forehead with a ballpeen hammer. Nice to see that effect on a normally subdued art crowd.

And that's all the fumble fingered typing I can manage after a Robbie Burns dinner. Harlan, you were so right to never take up the drop. Ouchy.

- McBarney

Paisleyplaid, PA.

Say my name three times...
...and I appear.

Barney, should you so desire, you can reach me at:

tony@wfcomics.com

Tony Isabella
Tony's Online Tips
http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony

Rob: You know, that guy does make a point about "I Have No Mouth" but it's One Of Those Questions You Aren't Supposed to Ask (especially around Harlan.) Are the people human or digitized? The story anticipates many, many others about uploading people. Readers at the time wouldn't ask. I suspect younger readers brought up on a later generation of SF (like cyberpunk) would have more problems with it.

My answer is Just...Don't....Ask. Hey, it won the Hugo, didn't it?

A friend of mine claimed he had once baited Harlan by yelling "Hey Harlan, where DID the Harlequin get the jelly beans?" I'm amazed - he lived to tell the tale.

Oh, by the way, I went to the site you mentioned. There are radio plots listed by show, but Harlan isn't one of the "Famous Authors" in that index. Dirty pool! (It does list Asimov, Bradbury, Poe, Dickens, Conan Doyle and many SF writers.)

Darren: Scroll down - HE got the bad news re: DeGuerre before we did. Yet another loss. :(

Micheal: Can't speak for Harlan/Susan but as far as I know you have to pay by check or money order. Processing creditcards costs money. Don't worry, they're real trustworthy. :)

Kristin

Barney

The latest issue of Back Issue is a "Black Super-Hero" issue.
It covers several black characters from the 70s. The issue has an article by Tony Isabella and an interview with Dwayne McDuffie, among others. The editor is Michael Eury. He can be contacted at euryman@msn.com if you need leads.

Um, that should be "psychedelically inspired."

Bosch's Garden Triptych

Having seen the original "Garden of Earthly Delights" painting on a trip to Spain in December of 1999, three things leaped out at me, after I stood and stared at it for a good 30 minutes:

1.) I was astounded at the size of the painting -- I hadn't realized the entire triptych was damn near 15 feet wide.

2.) The colors in this painting -- near 500 years old -- are utterly astonishing. I've never seen a reproduction, ever, that came close to duplicating the look of the original. It looks like a piece of vivid fantasy art that was painted yesterday.

3.) I find it almost impossible to believe that Bosch wasn't under the influence of some major psychedelics. Whether he was chowing down on ergot-laced rye bread, smoking opium, or eating psilocybin mushrooms, the imagery in the painting, especially on close inspection, is utterly hallucinogenic. The closest equivalent to it today I can think of is the work of H. R. Giger or Alex Gray (who started out as a medical illustrator, and his artwork is definitely psychedically inspired. I did some 3D rendering/animation a few years back to illustrate his Chapel of Sacred Mirrors project, which was a lot of fun.)

Again, prints simply don't do "The Garden of Eartly Delights" justice; you really have to go to the Prado and see it for yourself.

Anyway, thanks for posting this find, Barney!

-- Jon

Just responding to a couple interesting comments/questions ...

KRISTIN, Serendipity does exist in the on-line world. It all happens differently but it isn't gone. Note the bosch figures (mentioned above) that I never knew I needed :)

I agree that on-line shopping is killing the thrill of the hunt, though. I can't tell you how many times I've met with quizical looks when I express no sadness at not finding what I'm "looking for" to a store clerk. "Ah, the hunt continues," sayeth I joyfully! Looking for something specific has become more a challenge of funding than resolve.


BARNEY, If you haven't already, check out Gerber's The Photo Journal Guide to Marvel Comics Volumes 3 & 4 (vols. 1 and 2 being golden and silver age comics.) They won't give you the background behind each choice, but the covers themselves may help you with ideas or focus. Black Panther is another title to look out for, especially being the 1st black hero of the silver age and an African.

I did note that the International Comic Arts Festival will be at the Library of Congress in mid-October. What is your event in September?

Julian

Phillip DeGuere passed away yesterday
I wasn't sure if Harlan had heard, but it looks like Phil DeGuerre passed away on Friday, January 28th. I didn't get any specifics, but it was confirmed in Variety.

So very sorry, Harlan. I was listening to the recent Twilight Zone commentary's just last week.

Black comics, etc
BARNEY--you might want to contact Marv Wolfman, who was briefly editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, and who created the character "Blade" in his excellent comic "Tomb of Dracula." Harlan doubtless has his contact info--and so do I, for that matter. I'd be happy to put you in touch with him. And, yes, Tony Isabella would be a good resource, too. Come to think of it, the same applies to him. I daresay Harlan's got his contact info. So do I. If you need help, just gimme a shout.

RICK -- welcome back, m'man!

BBC - I have no mouth....
Rob,

Thanks for the re-post on the BBC adaptation of "I have no mouth...". I'm writing a radio play for the BBC and just realised I can ask to listen to "I have no Mouth..." by requesting it from their archive.

FAQ

Delta Sly Honey + Crazy elephants
ROB:

Delta Sly Honey was a short story by Lucius Shepard, apparently.

COOL SCULPTURES:

I was hoping the Arcimboldo collection had "the librarian," and it does. Also, the Dali collection has those elephants with the crazy-long legs, which I always loved/was creeped out by.

I can't tell if these are unique, though, or if they're mass-produced. If they're for that many Euros, probably the latter.

BARNEY:

Re: Marvel's treatment of black characters during the 70's, I'd say your best - and quickest - resource would be Tony Isabella. He's been known to drop by here from time to time or you can reach him through . He wrote and edited for Marvel during the 70s (before going on to create Black Lightning for DC) and was quite interested in the treatment of black heroes. Good luck; sounds like an interesting presentation.

Scott

Pish, Posh, Hieronymus Bosch

I've sent an email to the address listed, to see if there's a .pdf file version of the catalogue. I can't figure why they wouldn't have online ordering.

In a related vein, Harlan, does Killimanjaro Corp. take Mastercard for ordering goods from HERC?

Rob Ewen: So my gently leaking head did hold that one right. Thanks for the info, at least I can keep an eye out for it should the item become available. If you heard it, was it any good?

Missing digit
Shucks. I thought a reverse phone directory would help, but it didn't, much.

Based on what I found, my best guess is that you need to phone Professional Humor Inc. at (954) 455-8866, even though it's listed as being Hollywood, FL rather than Hallandale. Why? Because it has the same street address as listed on the Mouseion site, and because the doubled "66" was likely to have a numeral dropped.

Professional Humor Incorporated
400 S Dixie Hwy
Hollywood, FL 33020-4914
(954) 455-8866

Full results of my search, with the caveat that web-based phone directories often contain stale data:

(954) 455-8869: 2000 Atlantic Shores Blvd, Hallandale
(954) 455-8866: 400 S Dixie Hwy, Hollywood
(954) 455-8865: (no street address), Hallandale Beach
(954) 455-8864: 4001 S Ocean Dr, Hollywood
(954) 455-8862: 473 Golden Isles Dr, Hallandale

Micheal,

'I Have No Mouth...' was dramatised for the BBC radio series CHILLERS in 2002, and featured David Soul, with Harlan as AM (whose voice was recorded, I was told at the time, in Ellison Wonderland itself). The other stories in the series were:

CORONA by Samuel R. Delaney
DELTA SLY HONEY by ?
WHO GOES THERE? by John W. Campbell Jr.

None of them are currently available on commercial release.

The following website has this to say about the production of IHNM...:

http://www.otrplotspot.com/BBCplots.htm

********************************************

I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream (2002)
30 min

Following Humanity's destruction at the 'hands' of a conscious super-computer, five people are kept 'alive' in its belly for its sadistic amusement. Story by Harlan Ellison.

Produced for the short series Chillers.

Reviews:
Very confusing as to just what is going on here. It's never explained whether our characters are still human or whether their consciousnesses have been somehow patterned and imprinted within AM's circuits. They seem to be unable to die, yet somehow do anyway. This is supposed to be one of Ellison's best, but the whole thing came across as vaguely nauseating, and rather pointless, really. - Webmaster

********************************************

Each to his own....

Thanks
Rob

Rick's got your back
*Harlan* I couldn't find anything Rick hasn't already posted. My FAX is DOA and I'm helping someone move this weekend and speaking at a Robbie Burns dinner tomorrow night so my plate is full until at least Monday. Sorry.

If you talk to a human being see how much the
PIETER BREUGEL THE ELDER pieces are. Warts and all, he's my guy.

Now I'm gonna ask you one. I'm working on a paper I'm going to be delivering this at the Library of Congress in September. It's called POSING AS THE ENEMY - COVER LAYOUTS AS RACIST PROPAGANDA.

This isn't blue-sky. I will absolutely be doing this and am researching my presentation now. I already have all the cover evidence I need. What I'm wondering is if you know of any editors from Marvel and DC [possibly retired] who may have been part of the decision making process for cover layouts involving black characters during the 1960's through the 90's. I'm thinking about characters like The Falcon, Luke Cage, Black Goliath, Rage, etc. Someone at DC/Milestone would be good also.

Very specific remarks about use of black heroic characters in non-heroic poses. Not women. Not latinos. Not "yellow-menace". This is 20 minutes and very focused so a paragraph or two of material is really all I'm still looking for.

- Barney

HARLAN: For those sculptures, their American contact is:
Mouseion USA
400 S Dixie Hwy, Unit 2
Hallandale, Fl 33009 Tel 1- 954 455886 Fax 1-954-4558811 Email: sales@3dmouseion.com

In the UK, it's James Winchester Export Limited
Falcon Mews
Oakmead Road
London SW 12 9SN
Tel. +44(0)208 675 5416
Fax. +44(0)208 675 4366
e-mail:mail@jameswinchester.ltd.uk
Market served:United Kingdom

I found it under a single button on the Dali page. Yer right, they don't make it easy to contact them.

A search on "Mouseion" found a museum selling the Bosches for roughly 15-25 Euros. http://www.apartline.de/catalog/default.php/cPath/75

We also have the Collector's Guild, at http://www.thecollectorsguild.com/shop/index.php

Contact info for the sculptures:
Mouseion USA
400 S Dixie Hwy, Unit 2
Hallandale, Fl 33009
Tel 1-954-455-886
Fax 1-954-455-8811
Email: sales@3dmouseion.com

Obviously the last digit is missing from the regular telephone number but there's only ten possibilities.

FYI I am back but my e-mail has been under an irregular but concerted spam attack over the past month that sometimes had me receiving over 2000 messages a minute. I should be in shape to deal with that and start resuming normal operations in a few days.

BARNEY:

You damn skippy I want these; too many of these:

ALL the Bosches.

ALL the Eschers.

ONE of the Arcimboldos.

But the site isn't too user-friendly for a computer-illiterate like me. No matter how many screens I pull up, no matter how many "contact" or "home" breadcrumbs I follow, I cannot find a place where anyone will advise me how to buy these items, or what they are, or where they come from, or how much they cost, or how available they are, or where they ship from...

You'd think these internetnuts, who design all this crap, would make it as easy to price and buy this stuff as it is for some little fruit&vegetable stand operator to make buying a peach or a tomato.

Can you help, Barney...having opened this Pandora's Box...?

Yr. pal, Harlan

Alive and Well and On a Friendless Voyage
The story is also available in the collection SHATTERDAY, in ebook form at www.ereader.com

Bests to all

--tr

I'm not telling - just hit the damned link.
NEVER in my life has the HARLAN NEEDS THESE alarm bell gone off louder.

http://www.3d-mouseion.com/engels/bosch_eng.htm

- Barney

continued
And, oh...that story is easily accessible within THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON (at least, the 50-year retrospective).

Story Discussion
I've alluded to not having a heck of a lot of time for getting involved in these discussions, and that situation has gotten worse (more to my enrichment) but I did promise to do it once, so be apprised that I have selected "Alive and Well and On A Friendless Voyage." My own initial comments will be posted in the General Forum within the next day or so. A-TC.

The Thrill of the Chase
Here are my feelings on "the thrill of the chase."

When I first read Mr. Ellison's "No Doors, No Windows" (the Ace paperback with the figure coming out of the brick wall, made of brick, with eyes tightly shut), my best friend said "Yeah, I knew you'd like Ellison." I figured I could just saunter down to the same bookstore that stocked NDNW, and pick up the rest of the catalog. Failing that, I could get to a used bookstore, and find the rest there.

That was in 1983, or so. Imagine my surpise when Ellison books proved remarkably hard to acquire. That was when I started "collecting" (I'd say "reading," but since I've kept virtually all I ever had, we'll have to compromise).

Occasional travel - Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans - would always contain a perusal of the local yellow pages for used bookstores. Then I got the bright idea of going to the library (back when libraries were actually open reasonable hours, and contained a section of telephone books from out of town) and getting names of bookstores from other cities, sending a form letter to each of the likely ones, with a self-addressed, stamped envelope so that they could send me what they found. Scored a few there, always loving the feeling of opening the package to see if their definition of "VG" matched mine. Most of the time, yes.

Moving to southern California, and discovering the odd amalgam of cities, all of them with bookstores. Getting into an interesting discussion about Ellison's work with a (there's really no other word for this gentleman) grizzled fan, who then sold me a virtually perfect copy of "Gentleman Junkie" for a quarter of what he listed it for. I guess I passed some kind of test. Next time I see Mr. Ellison at a signing, I'll ask that he autograph it for me. Chatting with Barry R. Levine on the phone, and discovering that he had first editions (!!!!) of "The Glass Teat" for sale, and he could have them signed for me. I nearly fell on the floor when that one arrived.

Getting into computers, and finding out about this new thing, called the Web (this was in 1995). I talked my boss into getting a screamingly fast....fractional T-1. To share among the 65 people in the office. If you have broadband internet access in your home, you have more bandwidth than we had to share. At any rate, noting that there were bookstores on this thing. Some of them had Ellisonia. There were also rational people online in those days, and you could freely give them your email address, and they'd correspond. One woman sent me, gratis, a copy of the second version of Ellison's Bibliography, along with a photo of Ellison with Fritz Leiber. I chatted with another guy in Germany, who sold me a copy of Rockabilly.

While there was less of the 'Eureka' moment in my searches on the web, there were many more discoveries, and, like Todd, I'm not getting any younger. Both of the search methods still have their elegant moments, and they are both appreciated. With wife, kids, job, athletics, housework, PTA, etc., I don't get to go to many of my old haunts. I do miss the smell of a good used bookstore, though.

various
David Loftus: yet another good piece of writing. Thanks!

Lord Tobit: The only copy of Harlan's autobiography is in the trunk of my car marinating in jaberwocky gibbets. It's unfinished save for the unique finish. I'm under strict instructions from The Man to bind it in fresh Dingbat skin, and I've been looking around for it for some time. However, thanks to the glorious web (despite the lamentations of my fellow webderlanders of late), you have now found your way here. Please post your home address so that I can send the White Coats ASAP. I promise it won't hurt much, and your family will appreciate your sacrifice.

-Keith

Yes, the thrill of finding something you have been hunting for ages is certainly notable, but hell, I'm getting old and I no longer have time to wait two years to finally hit paydirt just so I can get a little orgasmic tingle: if I want it, and I find it on the net, then that sucker's mine and now I don't have to worry about dying before I finally strike gold. Of course, I can die before it reaches me by mail, but I'll take that risk: I want it now, dammit, and thank you Internet for making that possible.

-TODD

To whomever is qualified to answer:

I would like to know when Harlan Ellison's autobiography is going to be published; and I hope it is at least in the 800 to 900 page range.

I would like to know when The Last Dangerous Visions will be published; including a signed (by all the contributors) limited edition bound in Iguana Skin. This edition should be fully annotated by Ellison with a lengthy introduction and sub-introductions for each story, fully illustrated with color plates from world famous fantasy/science-fiction/horror artists (H.R. Giger, Michael Whelan, Frank Frazetta etc), and sold for a little less then a Pasha's weight in rubies.

Thank you.

the thrill of the hunt

Those of you who are bemoaning the ease of info and book location these days might enjoy an essay I wrote about hunting for difficult-to-locate volumes, some time ago:

http://www.david-loftus.com/Books/codex.html

A Bit of Light Against Dark

I gots some new plastic, and took it out for a test drive by buying "2000x" at AmmyzoneSee-Eh in CD format. I'd heard a few of the episodes on radio through NPR, very much liking what I'd heard, but more delight comes from finally getting to hear the series. "Martian Time Slip" got thrown in for laughs, as my copy was quite damaged.

It brings me around to a request for info. I seem to recall that somebody somewhere produced a radio play of "I Have No Mouth...", and was curious to find out who's responsible and how one might go about getting a tape or CD of it. No pirate copies, please.

I'm sorry, Harlan.

We should start doing more things like this to honor the folks who got us to look up from our own cluttered lives and into something greater than ourselves.

Asteroid Named for Douglas Adams
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire2005/index.php?category=0&id=30275

The universe, macro and micro, belongs to all of us, but we should lend the names of those who inspired us to the bodies we find there.

My useless thing for the day....

Harlan, I'd also like to give my condolences. I hope knowing there are people around you who care will take some of the edge off.

Chuck

Harlan: I'm sorry. The terrible thing about growing old is watching others die around you.

Brian: Somebody really hit the nail on the head there. Online shopping is killing the thrill of the hunt, the pleasure of meandering around on the road to finding something, which may not actually end in that particular something, but always ends somewhere you like. The object of one's quest may be attainable, but at the price of killing the quest itself, a loss that leaves empty places.

You can look things up quickly in an electronic encyclopedia, but you won't learn amazing new things simply en route to looking up other things. You can buy what you had in mind online, zeroing in on it instantly, but you won't stumble on any new treasures you didn't know you had needed all along.

My friend John took me along to six different bookstores once, looking for some volume none of them had available, saying "It's not the book - it's the chase!"

Some things are best done analog.

Kristin

De Guerre
Damn it. And condolences.

Okay, I have my culture cut out for me: watching both _Seconds_ and the _Twilight Zone_ DVDs.

In the meantime, Harlan turns up in the Village Voice, sorta. At http://www.villagevoice.com/books/0504,essay,60397,10.html, a writer tells of his quest to find a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's first collection of short stories, _Canary in a Cat House_. At one point, the writer reports asking Harlan about buying a copy... but Harlan had only one copy himself. (I recall hearing that Harlan had _edited_ this collection, but this article doesn't mention that.)

The writer descriebs a sense of dissatisfaction over finding the book, "Most of all, it's because of how I came across the collection not by discovering it in some forgotten bookstore, but through the clinical precision of the Internet. There was nothing tactile or serendipitous about it; I just visited a website, and there it was. Thirty years ago, all I had was my own wanting, the sense that if I hung in long enough, I might have a small epiphany. On the Internet, though, epiphanies become prosaic, since nearly anything is within electronic reach. What does it mean that, in the end, I got Canary in a Cat House with so little effort, without having to leave my home? Maybe that in gaining a thing, we may lose it also, in regard to the open-ended possibilities of desire." I think I posted something like this here a long time ago-- that while the Internet helps me find what I'm looking for, it's not very good at providing those serendipitous discoveries that used bookstores provide so well.

All I can say is I'm truly sorry for your loss, and know it's of little condolence by comparison.

Thank you, Harlan. Thank you for being you.

H

Clarion Auction
For the collectors in the group, if you haven't checked out the great assortment of goodies going up for auction to benefit The Clarion Science Fiction Writer's Workshop, get over there. Included are copies of the deluxe edition, second printing of _All The Lies That Are My Life_ signed by HE and quite a few Neil Gaiman rarities.

And, you'll be helping Clarion stay alive.

You can find the preview at http://www.msu.edu/~clarion/auction/auctionpreview.html .

Phil
He was definitly someone who touched me. I loved that resurrection of the Twilight Zone. It came out about a year after I started reading Harlan's work; a strange and wonderful juxtaposition. Phillip de Guerre's name is burned into my retinas, and I recall fondly his TZ, like warm chocolate chip cookies in mom's kitchen when I got home from school. Never again, and never forgotten.



-Keith

Condolences
Harlan,

My condolences.

Susan,

You're more than welcome. If you've misplaced the address, let me know.

Bob

Harlan,

My heartfelt condolences to you. Sad days, indeed.

Regards,
Ray Carlson

Bob--

Yes please. Many, many thanks!

Susan

Alan Brennert just called. Phil De Guerre has died. Cancer.

For those who don't know: he was my Executive Producer boss on the 1985 revival of THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Terrific, unique, maddening guy. I was very fond of him. Memorial at the end of February.

Will Eisner's memorial April 7, New York City, a shul on the lower East Side. I'll be there.

Sad days.

he

>I just can't decide if that was coincidence or a genuine slap <

Neither. Cars in the water produce air bubbles. This trope is only in about 15,000 movies. Beware solipsism, it's the mother of paranoia.

Dredging up I, Robot again, after it's been rotting on the video shelves for months, is like tearing at healed-over hangnails.

just a follow-up
Off list someone wrote me last night and said that they had the same thought when they saw the bubbles. I only mention this because it's nice to know I'm not the only one seeing these things. I'm not mentioning who wrote me ONLY because if this becomes one of the many things I should just leave the hell alone there's no point in two people being yelled at and I've been in that barrel before and will someday hang curtains. This other person allowed for the possibility of homage although I don't think they believed it.

I responded that there is so much winking and irony in this culture that homage, in order to qualify, has to be somewhat clever. And this was anything but clever. In my **nudge nudge, wink wink**, humble opinion.

- Barney

Enuffalready, PA.

BARNEY,

I'd probably have less of a problem with I, ROBOT in the same way I'd probably have less of a problem with the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake, if it hadn't called itself DAWN OF THE DEAD. By its own, it's a decent little action/horror flick, but the fact that it names itself after an infinitely better film (a masterpiece, in many circles) entirely ruins the whole experience for me. For all I know, I, ROBOT is an above-average action thriller, but sadly, it comes ripe with the stench of what could have been. It's a Will Smith vehicle. It ain't Isaac Asimov. If the filmmakers had dropped the pretense and simply called it HARDWIRED, I might even have liked it.

Harlan: "I do NOT have a copy of that Clarion lecture. By all means, please do send me a good copy; we might include it on the next ON THE ROAD album."

In it's entirety, please, Mister Ellison. We need a whole, entire meal of Ellison public address. Excerpts are fine, but they don't replicate the live, concert experience, the epic scope, the span that injects an adrenaline rush to the audience.
That needs to be documented for the masses.

The last time I attended one of your lectures was at Ferris State College in Michigan and was buzzing for a week afterwards.

Everything Old is New Again
I stopped by my local comics shop yesterday, hoping that the last issue of RISING STARS had finally arrived. I was disappointed in that hope, but smiled to see that the Flaming Carrot has returned! After being gone for too many years, he's now on Image's new Desperado imprint, and is as odd as ever, with a new baloney gun. There's a zombie singing pop songs, pigmies building a giant ear or belly button, and old FC in the middle of it all, living his life of blissful Zen stupidity (that's what Bob Burden calls it in his editorial). Life is good in Iron Town.

Ut.

Clarion Lecture
Harlan: Will do. Please give it a couple of weeks. I'm handing the tapes over tomorrow to a tech friend who said he can turn them into a CD. I'll have him burn you one. I don't know how long this sort of thing takes, so I figure two weeks is a good window. Will send it once he's done.

That cinema thing calling itself I, Robot.
OR, less fun than a Proyctology exam...

What can I say. Against all good sense I used my Netflix account to watch the Proyas... I don't even know what to call it - it's really just a cartoon with Will Smith product endorsements.

Most of this has been worked over but I must say that even if I didn't have 2 dogs in the hunt, this is a really BAD film. Except for a few moments of 2004 state of the art CGI [now dated] it really has nothing going for it at all. In fact, if I had to teach a course in the Hollywood film as being ANTI-story and I were choosing a syllabus, this is the piece of cinema-excrement I would start with. This thing makes Sky Captain look deep and meaningful. Blecch.

And for those of you watching with your Ellison screenplays turned to page 1, the opening of the movie, the Spooner [?] nightmare sequence has a whole bunch of cascades of bubbles. This instantly made me flash on Harlan's reference to bubble memory - which was YEARS ahead of its time when Harlan originally wrote it in the 1970's. Of course in the movie it resolves into the dumb, car trapped underwater backstory done as dream sequence, thus establishing that we are going to be SPOON!-fed nothing but pure cliche for the next 90 minutes. I just can't decide if that was coincidence or a genuine slap in the face to Harlan. If so, what an incredible dickhead Proyas must be.

I would normally say de gustibus but really, you'll hate it just as much.

- Barney

>why not contact him thru eBay and explain that You Are Who You Are,<

My suggestion as well. Xenogenesis has a flipside. Use the name, get the book.

Kersh book tactics
Harlan, as one who has been on eBay since it was just a couple of pages of computer parts and PEZ dispensers, I would offer this advice if you are worried about getting outbid on the Kersh book: all eBay sellers are allowed to end auctions early and declare the current high bidder the winner, provided that there are not less than twelve hours remaining in the auction. Now, since the seller already has met his reserve and you are in fact the current high bidder, why not contact him thru eBay and explain that You Are Who You Are, that you knew Kersh personally and have been looking for the book for some time, and yes of course you would be happy to honor your current bid and maybe even . . . oh . . . I dunno . . . toss in some rare and potentially valuable item of Ellisonania (Ellisania? Ellisonia?) to sweeten the deal if he would just be kind enough to push the button now and end your many years of search, which in turn would insure a karmic upswing and bring about many ejaculations of happy juju upon his kappautz.

Appeal to his good side, in other words. Such tactics have worked on me.

Can’t hurt, and the guy might just be filled with sufficient awe to agree to such a thing. Or he could say no. Might be worth a shot. I mean, I’d fall for it, and I’m as ruthless an eBayer as ther ever has been.

Mark
eBay ID: captainlarrydart (buyer/seller of bongos, hot cars, phony IDs, manure, quality blackmail photos, nails, velvet black-light Elvis art).

REGAINING LOST REMARKS
PAM:

I do NOT have a copy of that Clarion lecture. By all means, please do send me a good copy; we might include it on the next ON THE ROAD album. Send it c/o HERC. PO Box 55548. Sherman Oaks, CA 91413 ... and ever so many genuine thankyous.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Peter David

I feel bad saying this, but I was disappointed with Peter David's first issue back with the HULK. I'll give it some time though.

I always enjoyed PD's work. As a snotnosed kid years ago, I dropped a mountain of books before him at a New York convention and the guy was good enough to sign every one. I didn't deserve it but he did it anyway. Good guy.

And do I need to mention F.O.E.?

Masters of Horror?

So, what's the buzz on "Masters of Horror"? Is this an adaptation of a classic Ellison story? And who's directing?

Steve Dooner

Book Drop for Your Upcoming Visit

Harlan and Susan,

Although I'm going to MegaCon, I will be returning to Cleveland on February 28, so will be in town on March 1, when you come to talk at CWRU. If you want to use me as a shipping book drop again, as you did when you came to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a year or so ago, please feel free.

Hope I get a chance to have visit or have dinner with you two, when you come to town.

Bob Ingersoll

Various
John G. - I have been travelling like a madman. After I left LA in Dec, I went to San Diego to visit my friend Bren, and then I was off to Baja California, to a small town called Loreto, where I was whisked away to a resort about 45 minutes away. Had a great time. SO, I started writing my Harlan Dinner adventure in Mexico, and trashed the first few versions outright. Then I got back and was slagged down with work. Then, a friend of mine invited me to go to Costa Rica, and since I've wanted to go there for about 10 years, and had never actually made the time for it, I said yes. So on January 16th through the 23rd, I was in CR. I recommend it to anyone interested in outdoor activities and adventure. So, now that I'm back from that, and catching up with everything before going to Boston this Friday for 5 days, I figured I should post this Harlan story before it got too old. It's not the version I would have posted if I had my way (too jagged, I think), but it'll do, and I'll be able to participate here again without the guilt. Plus, I want to start in on Jan's story discussions.

I'll probably be in Edison the 2nd week of February, so I might be able to take you up on your offer!

Jan - I intend to participate in the Deathbird discussion as well as all the others. Just have to re-read the stories, which will be easy since I'll be in a lot of airports in the next few weeks. Thanks for starting a worthwhile effort here. AND, I'm glad you liked my post.

Mark - I have been putting my observation to good use, as well, and I must say that people are a lot friendlier towards me. I realize it's a perception thing, but I enjoy being on the "A" side. I feel free!

Kristin: I was there when Harlan was signing your book, after the main signing, and he took special care and put extra effort into it, using different pens and playfully messing around. What lucky girl you are! Also, you do know that I was joking about the alpaca and llama meat at Mongo's? The food there was great, but I had the chicken and lamb. It is a memory I will treasure and reflect upon for life.

Infomite - thanks for the update. That'll be one to watch.

-Keith

Want lecture?
Harlan, do you want a copy of the lecture you gave at Clarion in 1992, or do you already have one?
tnx

Keith, thanks for the travelogue; the ride sounded like a 2d version of the cab rides in "Fifth Element". What better way to see LA?

You ever get back to the Edison NJ area, I owe you a bag of monkey nuts...errr....a sausage sandwich guaranteed alpaca free, and a 2 MPH drive(standard rush hour speeds) down Rte 1.

Hey Mark, I haven't read New Frontier, but if you can, try to get the WHO KILLED CAPTAIN KIRK? graphic novel (1993, out of print), which collects some of PD's early interconnected comics for the series, later unmatched in quality. Peter has written some of the funniest and cleverest Trek comics ever, as well as the best or second best TNG novel called IMZADI, which was hard to put down.

(Keith, thanks for that entertaining and insightful report.)

Keith: Great post. The section on Harlan's driving was wonderful. And I agree with your assessment of Harlan's interaction with people. I've noticed that, since starting teaching, I have a tendancy to strike up conversations with strangers in public in a similar manner for exactly the reason you put forth.

I'm not a big fan of Star Trek novels, but have any of you read any of Peter David's _New Frontier_ series? I just read the first paragraph and I'm sold. One of the finest writers we have.

Mark

Harlan A Master of Horror?

According to Ain't It Cool News, one Mr. Harlan Ellison is a participating writer in an Anchor Bay produced series entitled "Masters of Horror" a series of 13 one-hour movies to be shopped to HBO and Showtime, as well as the potential "Horror Channel".

This link:

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=19246

provides details...

informationally,
the mite

Films, Meeting Harlan, etc.
Steve: John Frankenheimer directed Seconds; Rock Hudson was the star. (At least if it's the same movie...1966, right?) I found it (on dvd) in the Movies Unlimited website/catalog

www.moviesunlimited.com

on sale for $12.74 plus shipping!!

(Most Internet searches on "seconds" bring up "Gone in 60 Seconds," since it's a better-known movie. Of course.) I've seen their (Unlimited's) paper catalog too - 800 pages!

Keith: You are the luckiest guy in the USA. Talk about being in the right place at the right time! Man, I think I would have fainted or something. That story about the driving (and Harlan's delicious insults for rude drivers) is PRICELESS! And the restaurant bit (Alpaca meat? Llama meat? I thought they were beasts of burden mostly, in Latin America. I dunno, maybe somebody in LA raises them for meat?)

Didn't HE total his old Camaro (and write about it in LA Weekly?) And his 89 Geo? (that was in Rabbit Hole) - but walked away both times - I'm sure he's better at protecting your life than, say, air bags.

Neon-green with envy,

Kristin

I'm aware that some stories must end on a tragic or brutal note, in order to get its message to the reader or viewer all the more aware of what must be done. If a happy ending is supplied, the reader/viewer automatically becomes contented, and takes no action. Harlan's THE WHIMPER OF WHIPPED DOGS, as emotionally scarring as it was for me during my first read, forced me to confront the loathsome monstrousness behind the mass mindset that had doomed individuals such as Kitty Genovese to a cruel, petty death. WHIMPER taught me that one of the most valuable contributions one could make towards the worldwide progress of absolute evil is blissful apathy.

I can't really categorize stories like SECONDS or WHIMPER as "entertainment", but they do teach certain lessons that should be taught. By not giving away a happy ending in the fictional realm, the choice is left to us to determine a different outcome in THIS realm.

... with mention of the HE-AOL settlement:

http://www.betanews.com/article/AOL_Pulls_Plug_on_Newsgroup_Service/1106664611

Seconds to none. . .
So who directed "Seconds"? Sounds fascinating, though I should probably save it 'till after they remove my dog's tumour. . .

Brian:

While Harlan said almost everything necessary about _Seconds_, he left out one thing - *the* one thing - that can best determine when and if you should watch it (though that one thing is perhaps implicit in what he _did_ say).

That one thing is: _Seconds_ resembles no little of Harlan's fiction. It pulls no punches, it whips around and bites you when you least expect it, and the ending will give you the screaming meemies for at least a day. Easy answers it has none - but there _is_ a point to the story, and while it's certainly uncompromising it's not the "depressing" one that people who can't see past the surface latch on to.

If you can handle "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" - or even more apropo, "Jeffty Is Five" - without your mood circling the drain, you can handle _Seconds_.

About the only other things I'll say:

1) Get the DVD - there are still old copies of the videotape release floating around the rental stores with a certain amount of footage snipped out of them. (Not minor, either - a brilliantly subtle scene, kneecapped for years by censors who couldn't see anything but the occasional flash of a bare tit.)

2) When you get the DVD, _DO NOT_ look at the back cover until after you've seen the movie. The blurb is idiotic, the picture is badly Photoshopped and both of them are spoilers (and plain wrong on multiple levels).

3) To paraphrase Heinlein on Ellison, have a whiskbroom handy.

Cheers!
Don Hilliard

Dinner with Harlan - Finally
I promised. I now deliver. As some of you may recall, last month I went to the "Strange Wine" book signing at Dutton's Books in California. This is what happened to me.

(DISCLAIMER: I did not record or take notes of any conversations. ALL QUOTES are APPROXIMATIONS. I am trying to be faithful to what was said, but I’m not a reporter, nor do I have a good memory for conversations, so please understand that if Harlan sounds like Keith, it’s not because he was clubbed like a baby harp seal by greedy capitalists, but by my imperfect memory).

I wanted to write something witty, urbane, and insightful, but I should stick with what I know. I have come away from this brief encounter with a heavy feeling of gratitude to Harlan, and a deeper understanding of myself. John DeChancie said something at dinner back to Harlan’s quip that he was being too quiet, which reflected my own feelings. John said, “I’m much more talkative when I’m not around YOU.”

Questions will be answered. What questions? I’ll tell you so you’ll know. Who was a “bag of suppurating monkey nuts?” How does Harlan thwart the TSA? What is nicer, a lama or an alpaca? Who is Mongo? Why did Jesus cross the road? Does Harlan drive too fast? To whom did Harlan expose himself on the sidewalk? Is this how rumors get started? How does HE get away with being himself?

There is a bit of hero worship to that. I’ve been reading his work since I was 15, finding meaning in more of it rather than less of it since about 30, and loving all of it. And since I enjoy his work, I have come to deeply respect his talent. This is the mind-set I had as I geared up for my trip to California to start a very unique vacation. This is what was hunched up like a 400 lb. bundle of dynamite in the left hand corner of the cavern of my skull. I was going to dinner with a guy whose work I admire, who could verbally swing dance all over Mel Torme and Dorothy Parker, and who could arguably hold his own in verbal duals with Isaac Asimov and Robin Williams. Dinner. Conversation accompanies dinner. After all is said and done, if John DeChancie felt a bit stifled around Harlan, I was probably catatonic. I think fellow Webderlander Lynn had to stab me with a skewer a few times just to keep my eyes moist and blood flowing into my extremities.

Dinner was memorable for the company and conversation. It was fun. Fellow Webderlander Lynn was there (hey Lynn, I’m not reporting your last name because I don’t know if you want it out here), as was her husband Bill (hey Bill!), and I spoke with them during the later part of the signing at Dutton’s Books. I sat next to Lynn at dinner that evening. Those in attendance were, going clockwise around the table, starting at the head: Harlan, Susan, John, Bill, Lynn, myself, Christine (the first attorney on Harlan’s lawsuit against AOL), and Len Wein (husband of Christine, creator of Swamp Thing, Wolverine, and writer extraordinaire). The dinner crew: chock-a-block full of talented, respected creators of dreams, entertainments, and defenders of the American Way. And me.

I’m getting ahead of myself already. I thought about starting my story from the beginning, but that’s not nearly as engaging. However, it is necessary.

Here’s a beginning: (Verbatim exchange on Webderland):

****************

Keith Cramer
Arlington, VA - Sunday, December 5 2004 10:1:28
Is anyone going to Harlan's Strange Wine book signing?

I have 2 weeks of leave to use or lose by EOY, and I've finagled my vacation schedule so that I'll be able to attend the book signing at Dutton's Books on the 11th. How super-cool is that? Are any other Webderlanders going to be there? If so, maybe we could hook up for dinner that night after the signing... I'm visiting a friend in San Diego from the 13th to the 16th, so I'll basically have the weekend to do whatever the heck. I'll be staying, while in LA, at the Universal Studios - Hollywood, Holiday Inn.

-Keith

HARLAN ELLISON
- Sunday, December 5 2004 12:28:7
STACY DOOKS:

I've had a small, but nice, gift for you sitting here since we matriculated at the Odyssey Workshop. Please send me a current, valid address so I can get it off in the mail. My dilatory behavior has at last nauseated even me.

KEITH CRAMER:

Hell, y'damn skippy, son; anyone coming all the way from Virginia shouldn't trek all that way without the Ellisons maybe including him in on whatever dinner plans they have for after-signing. Least we can do is expect a phone call from you when you hit L.A. We won't chaperone you, but chances are decent we can all throw some groceries down our necks.

To you both, all well otherwise,

Yr. pal, Harlan

**************

Also, here’s a beginning: I got Harlan’s number from Rick Wyatt after that Webderland exchange, and I called Harlan from the Avis Car Rental parking lot after arriving in LA. I stared at my cell phone for a number of long minutes prior to dialing. Anxiety is hard to avoid when you have an active imagination. I pictured a hectic Harlan answering the phone, agitated, not remembering the dinner invite, annoyed with me for calling in the middle of the day when he only had 3 (3!!!) hours to book-signing. Or, I would get Susan, or Harlan’s secretary, and they would have no idea who I was, or what I wanted. Rick Wyatt would get into trouble for giving me Harlan’s private number, and everybody would hate me.

I know I have some issues.

The phone rang once. Perhaps, I thought, I should just show up at the signing and say “Hi.” The phone rang again, and I thought that I would have to leave a message. Then: “Hello-o-o, how may I help you?” It was a rich and honeyed voice. It was playful. It was expectant, and I recognized it instantly because I have been listening to it since I was a 15 year old kid, on cassettes of “A Boy and His Dog,” “I’m Looking For Kadak,” and “Repent! Harlequin, Said The Ticktockman.”

But I was not listening to a tape. I was expected to say something. Etiquette required me to participate. “Hi, this is Keith from Virginia! I’m in LA.”

“Hello Keith Cramer from Virginia. It’s good to hear your voice.” (I was certain I did not use my last name in my introduction, and I am still certain of this, but memory is a politician), (he KNEW MY LAST NAME!) “I trust you didn’t have any problems getting to our fair city?”

We spoke for 15 minutes. I recounted the exciting story of my search by the TSA, and the confiscation of several personal items (pocket knife and nail clippers) from my suitcase.

“Well, dummy,” said Harlan, “don’t you KNOW you can’t carry that stuff on a plane?”

Okay, no more freaking hero worship. I traveled by plane over 20 times in 2004 (which is more than 40 times going through goddamn security). I can’t stand airports. I would gladly trade 5 trips through airport security for a rectal exam. “Well,” I said, said I, “Normally I check a bag, and my stuff always goes through. But this time I got to the airport late, and they wouldn’t let me check anything through. So I didn’t have a choice but to carry it on.” Oh, the wit.

The Wisdom of Ellison: You Always Have a Choice. Answer to question: How does Harlan thwart the TSA?

Harlan said, “I’ll tell you a way around that. What you do is, take a self-addressed stamped envelope with you whenever you travel, so when they find something objectionable, you can just ask them if they would mind posting the envelope for you with your stuff in it. That way, you don’t have to buy it again; chances are they won’t have a problem doing that.”

This seems like such common sense, but I attribute the reason I never thought of it to the fact that I rarely, if ever, use my brain. Harlan, being a renowned writer, uses his regularly.

We spoke of other things. He gave me a tip on a Fiesta Ware store that was going out of business on Ventura Boulevard, which had some great deals. He told me who would be joining us for dinner that night, and where we were going. The restaurant was to be Mongo’s Mongolian BBQ, and when I inquired if there was a dress code (because I had nothing other than pants in 2 colors of denim, and bright t-shirts), Harlan was dismissive and said that wouldn’t be a problem: he regularly went there in a robe and slippers.

After hanging up the phone, I felt as if I had accomplished something. I motored away, looking to grab lunch, find the Fiesta Ware store, locate my hotel, run a shower, and check out the shops on Ventura Boulevard before the book signing.

The book signing was at Dutton’s Books, from 3-6pm, and I got there at around 4pm. I saw Harlan’s car in the parking lot (personalized plates leave no room for doubt – hey Rick, how do I get a www.harlanellison.com license plate frame?). There was a guy standing outside who looked like he’d died a few years ago, and then been aged under the sun wearing his denim and leather clothes while cigarette smoke infused his body in an ancient ritual presided over by George Hamilton and George Harrison, and at least one Harley Davidson rider. I smiled at him and said “Hi.” He nodded back, smiling. I could hear Harlan before I opened the door. I went in.

The Crowd met me inside. The place was packed. It was a few minutes until I could see Harlan...he was sitting all the way in the next room, up on a stool. The crowd was perhaps 50 or 60 strong. As people got their books signed, they spoke with Harlan, and then made their way back through the store. Some left, and most just made their way around to the back and kept listening to him talk.

He was cracking jokes, telling tales, and relating anecdotes, and having a fun time. About 15 minutes after I got in, I heard Harlan take a shot at people from the East Coast calling him at unholy hours of the morning. I believe his words were: “They’ve got their tin-foil hats and diapers, and their calling at 9am East coast time, and..." and he was on a roll, and I was smiling, because I identified with what he was talking about. Later, when I went up and introduced myself, I told him I forgot my diaper.

In Dutton’s, Harlan called for Susan about 10 times in the 2 hours I was there. He called for her to corroborate something, to remind him of something, to meet someone or to see someone they hadn’t seen in a long time. Harlan and Susan are happy together, are happy in each other’s company, are stimulated and energized by each other, and I can see how fortunate they are.

I can’t write just one word about Susan. She could never be summarized, overlooked, or dealt with peripherally. Those who know Harlan, know Susan. They seem inseparable, and as I watched their interaction, I longed for a relationship that matched this Archetype; two friends in love. At one point, I was falling down a conversational well created by my own inability to hold an interesting conversation, somehow talking seriously to Susan about the differences between llama’s and alpaca’s, the farming thereof, and methods of harvesting their fur. I never knew they were sheared like sheep. Why she indulged me in this Flat-Earth conversation, I will never know for sure. However, it shows she’s a nice, gentle, warm, caring person, who happens to know a lot of stuff, and is gracious to boot.

Answer to Question: What’s nicer, a llama or an alpaca? Unresolved, as far as Susan and I are concerned.

After the signing, Lynn and Bill went out to the parking lot, followed by Susan, and then me. We gathered next to Harlan’s car (sporting personalized tags and customized tag frame), and Lynne and Bill sung a few lines from some bawdy songs. They have very good singing voices. Shortly Harlan joined us, unlocked the doors, and I GOT IN THE BACK SEAT OF HARLAN’S CAR! Listen, I’m not trying to crack a joke (because I was sitting behind Susan, mind you), but I must report that I had a lot of leg room. As I stretched out back there, Susan craned her neck around and asked if I needed some more room. She then proceeded to try to scoot her seat up even farther (I think she was closing in on the radiator when my protestations finally penetrated the fog of polite sweetness wrapped around her like so much cotton candy). Harlan made sure we were all wearing our seatbelts, and we were off.

Harlan is a fucking phenomenal driver. That’s an understatement. I pride myself on being a good driver (and by that, I mean an attentive, defensive driver, ever aware of my surroundings), but Harlan takes that to the limit. And as for skill: he could do a 3 point turn in 2.5 points, as he proved by leading Bill and Lynn (who were following us) around the back of Dutton’s parking lot for about 5 minutes in a crazy bit of mischievousness. It was only after they realized what Harlan was doing (and stopped following us around in circles) that Harlan got on the road. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. I was being driven around by a 7 year old!

Something happened on the way to the restaurant. Not just conversation, but THINGS HAPPEN WHEN YOU DRIVE WITH HARLAN. Harlan drives fast. He dodges down alleys taking shortcuts (some don’t work out that way). He interacts with his human environment. Barriers don’t hinder him. We were in a dead-end alley, and Harlan had his window down, stopped dead in front of a HUGE pickup truck, and proceeded to yell at the driver to turn his fucking headlights on. He hollered at an old couple who WOULD NOT move their car up to let us change lanes. He screamed, “Move your goddamned car, you suppurating bag of monkey nuts!” (I wrote that one down). They moved, and we changed lanes. After making a turn, Harlan explained that he used to drive a cab in New York. Susan asked me if I thought Harlan drove too fast. Then he said, “Actually, it would be, ‘bag of suppurating monkey nuts,’ not ‘suppurating bag;’ a bag can’t suppurate.” Susan agreed. Having educated myself on this topic since LA, I can attest to the accuracy of his correction, and Susan’s agreement of same. Yes, Harlan is a perfectionist.

Answer to Question: “Who was a “bag of suppurating monkey nuts?” The old driver of the car in front of us in a left turn lane on Ventura Boulevard.

Answer to Question: “Does Harlan drive fast?” Yes. But it’s like being driven around in a plane by Neil Armstrong. You are entirely safe. Maybe Susan doesn’t feel the same way, but she hasn’t driven with some of the inattentive spastics by whom I’ve been chauffered around.

One last thing about Harlan’s driving skill. Though we were all talking, and Harlan was doing his fair share, not once did I notice his eyes leave the road except to flicker to the rear-view mirror, or his head turn away from straight-on. That’s concentration. That’s a good driver. If everyone drove like that, accidents would decrease to zero and there would be no use for collision or liability auto insurance. It would be interesting to know how many accidents Harlan has been involved in, which were deemed his fault. My guess: none.

It became apparent to me after leaving Mongo’s (and the food there is fantastic), that Harlan’s method of social interaction, deliberate or instinctive, is genius. We were standing outside Mongo’s, half on the sidewalk, half in the parking lot. This is where the ill-conceived alpaca and llama conversation between Susan and me took place. We were waiting for Harlan to come out after settling the bill. So he finally did, and then he began admiring the jacket Christine was wearing (leather, with a string-leather fringe), and the llama and alpaca conversation was taking a dangerous turn toward including sheep and goats, when a couple (hereafter collectively referred to as the “victims”), walked by and looked at the menu in the window of Mongo’s.

Having just dined there, I was sated. I was full. I may have had llama or alpaca meat, and I hear that makes you tired. But not Harlan. Harlan fired up. “Hey, this restaurant has great food. I come here all the time. You should go in; you’ll love it.” The victims stood there, now half-turned to Harlan, half turned to the menu. Harlan went on a spiel. It was great; it was fabulous. Mongo’s is the best Mongolian BBQ joint in the town. Go in; go on. The victims wavered. Harlan went up to the door. “I know the owners, trust me. This place is top notch. The food is to die for. You’ll thank me. You’ll bring your friends. They’ll thank you.” Then Harlan was hollering into the restaurant at someone, “Hey, I have two customers out here for you.” Our crowd was breaking up. I think John DeChancie started the exodus, but I’m not sure. Then Harlan turned back to the victims. “If you don’t like it, it’s on me. I’ll buy your meals if you don’t like them.” Then Harlan pulled up his shirt and patted his bare belly, “Look, I eat here all the time. It’s great food.” The victims were horrified. They wavered, and then they started walking past the door, down the sidewalk. It was an interesting reaction, and gets to the heart of an observation which might be so much crap.

But this answers one of my last questions: “To whom did Harlan expose himself on the sidewalk?” The victims.

And the final observation which answers the question: How does Harlan get away with being himself? Harlan controls his social interactions by being the social initiator. By doing so, he creates an atmosphere in which people react to him, instead of causing him to react to them. It’s a subtle form of control, but it seems effective. Most people want to avoid conflict and confrontation, and by putting it in their face, first, Harlan gains a strange social advantage. This is a half-baked theory at best. But whatever it is about him, it works.

I had a great time, and I’m grateful to Harlan and Susan, and Lynn and Bill, and Len and Christine, and John.

Dinner, which I now realize I have not written about at all, was delightful. There were at least 2 conversations going on at any given moment, and it was fun. I’ll have to write about it sometime.

Oh, yeah. Why did Jesus cross the road?

-Keith

_Seconds_ is my 62nd favorite film of all-time.

Just because everyone wanted to know... :)

I've watched with somewhat younger viewers who liked it until the "orgy" scene which made them crack up and they seemed to have a tough time getting back into the movie after that. As far as I'm concerned, the ending of this movie is so brilliant it borders on the sublime. Not to mention scary. There are few films or even moments in films that are _genuinely_ frightening, I mean that actually produce a visceral reaction for me. _Seconds_ closing scene does it.

And, man o man, is the claustrophobic camera work in this movie amazing. You think only modern directors can be "edgy" (OK, nobody here is dumb enough to think that) - just watch this movie and tell me what you think.

Is it true that Gerald Kersh wrote a science fiction novel late in his career?

BRIAN:

SECONDS is not only, arguably, the finest science fiction movie ever made, it is--UNarguably--one of the finest, most mem orable movies of ANY kind ever made. It is no less than memorable.

Yr. pal, Harlan

To Ben Whitfield, who compared reading Kersh's _Jews Without Jehovah_ to reading Eliot's _Mill on the Floss_.

I was going to post something about how Harlan's warning against reading Kersh's book reminded me, a little, of the reviews I've read which characterize _Seconds_ as one of the most depressing films ever made. That's one reason why I've never seen it: I tend towards depression myself, and when I'm in a good mood, I don't want to bring myself down. And when I'm in a bad mood, I don't want to drive my mood straight on through to China. So, I've never seen the film. (However, _Barry Lyndon_ is a personal favorite, and that one's pretty bleak.)

It occurred to me that there's a _big_ difference here. _Seconds_, as far as I know, may be depressing. But it's not riven with self-loathing, as Harlan described Kersh's book.

If I saw _Seconds_ (and I will, someday), I would _not_ think that John Frankenheimer or Lewis John Carlino or even David Ely was displaying their crippled souls onscreen. But that's part of what Harlan said about _Jews without Jehovah_: that one of the reasons it's depressing is that it drips with a self-loathing, and Jewish anti-Semitism, that an admirer of Kersh would not really want to witness.



The snowstorm was a big mix of Good and Bad, gang. The good was sledding in Clark Park, and the chance to go to the Fantabulous One's apt to feed her kitties while she negotiates the roads to Boston. (I hate cats, but I like doing favors for her. And no, I did NOT abuse the little fuckers when I was there.) BUT... the snow buildup on one of my roofs formed ice dams, which formed leaks, which in turn formed a fucking RAIN FOREST in the rear bedroom.

I spent a few hours on the roof with a concrete chisel and a snowshovel, demonstrating that if they'd had me on board, they'd have sailed into NYC harbor without a hitch and Leonardo diCaprio'd live long enough to disappoint Kate Winslet with his carefree artist lifestyle ("All you do it sit around and draw all fucking day! Don't even take a fucking bath! I wanna have adventure!" "Geez, honey, wha'd I do?") But the water leakage has subsided, and this summer, I'm geting a new roof. Rubber. Air-fucking-tight.

Averages
Misspoke (and am correcting self): the average on the '80s show was not "about the same," but higher. Its nadirs were not quite as bad as on Serling's.

Twilight Zone response
No, I wasn't saying that TWILIGHT ZONE '80s was better than the original. Not really. I was saying that the original is remembered as being better than it was, and that its overall level of quality is exactly where Rod Serling appraised it -- one-third awful, one-third okay, one-third pretty damn good (with, I would add, maybe a third of that third edging into classic).

TWILIGHT ZONE '80s featured almost as many flat notes as the original, and featured just as many high notes as the original, for a similar average. Its very, very best matched or exceeded the very, very best of the original. But the average is about the same.

Its a very high average for an anthology format. To put it in perspective: I think Spielberg's AMAZING STORIES accomplished, in all, maybe two or three episodes that were keepers (an estimate, because after a while I stopped watching.)

Sorry, just this for Kristin. Amazon isn't always the cheapest way. THE TWILIGHT ZONE $45 incl. US postage. http://www.dvdsoon.com/show-title-details.xml?uid=128224

Good morning! Not actually giving it another thought, there's just something I forgot to say which is important for my reputation. I didn't use the phrase "just a book". In fact, it's not like I don't have a fondness for the little things with all the printed stuff inside. Just thought I'd better get the truth out there before the lynch mob showns up. OK, done.

I'm the guilty party (cringe)
I'm sorry. (Maybe they invented some of those Yiddish words just for me.) it was my lousy me-too crap about the marriage thing Harlan was criticizing. (but the person it was actually addressed to was pleased, not angry!) It was not intended as nit-picking. The relationship-advice thing may have been too, well, personal for such a public forum.

Harlan you are 100 percent right, how much you want the book or will pay for it, or (especially) the emotional/personal reason(s) why, is absolutely none of anyone else's business.

Adam-Troy: Got your review up on my browser. It's terrific. I bet there will be nastygrams in next week's letters column - were you actually saying New Twilight Zone is better than the original? There are a lot of purists who say TZ isn't worthy of the name without Serling (although if you ask ME they're full of shit; comparing old with new isn't really fair.) Well the original had a lot more episodes, so even if you sort out only the good ones, you have a lot to watch (and a lot of expensive DVD sets to buy!)

It's a well-informed review too. A lot of the ones I have seen get the TV scriptwriters mixed up with the authors of the original short stories. With Harlan it is especially confusing (not for us, for those media idiots out there) because he has written BOTH books and tv.

Had a job interview, got turned down. Gotta keep plugging along. One of these days i might order the New TZ set (Amazon had it for less than $50 last time I looked) and get ever deeper in the creditcard debt hole, because I GOTTA watch these!

Kristin
OK, Harlan, so you are God. Happy?
All *I* ever do is make bad first impressions.

Don't give it another thought, Jan. I vented, and all's well again in the Tulgey Wood.

Yr. pal, Harlan

HARLAN,

Funny, your impressions of JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH are awfully similar to my own reaction to George Eliot's THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. Again, hardly a terrible book, but being forced to remain in the company of distinctly unpleasant people for the length of an entire novel is always a lot to ask out of a reader, and in my opinion, I didn't believe the ends really justified the means. (In case you don't already know, the ending's kind of a bummer. Neccessary, maybe, but still a bummer).

I'm sure we all know about Johnny Carson's passing. Here's an obit worth reading, and it ain't one of those "Johnny was an American Icon" rhapsodies we've been seeing lately. It's by a friend of his, whose rep is among the highest of those who fight for sanity and reason. http://www.randi.org/jr/carson.html

Won't comment about the Kersh book-- heck, I _know_ I'm one of those doryphiles who tried to challenge Harlan on a point of grammar.

But Harlan, you may take some solace in this fact: after prolonged exposure to science fiction fans, as they engage in the process of planning a convention, I am now _far_ more cognizant of empty nitpicking and obsessive exception-hunting. Ah feels lahk a al-cah-hollic who's spent a week'n the rummy tank, cleanin' up da puke. I ain't _nevah_ gwine't'inbibe'o the nectar of nitpickin'.

It's a hard road to follow. I mean, I won't put beans up my nose, but I _might_ run the can opener _really loud_ as soon as you step out the door. But my spirit is strong.

Heh, heh, BEANS UP YOUR NOSE, ah, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!!!!!!!!!!

Ghod I love you, man! First good belly-laugh I've had all day. Reminds me of why I wade through so much of the twitter, twitter on the net!

Good luck with the Kersh.

luv,

jono

Harlan, it's not "my discussion". I felt there shouldn't be a discussion of this matter for very obvious reasons, and said so, but as you know perfectly well, you can't control what comes after you. It was naive of me not to expect a reaction. However, I felt that those who reacted weren't discussing the issue so much as explaining things to me (thanks), and I wasn't about to disagree. What I have written, I just felt like mentioning for sanity's sake, nothing more. You know as well as I do that wealthy people have a tendency to spend too much money - which could really be put to good use elsewhere - on personal obsessions. I wrote one sentence, making my point naively, putting a smiley in there and moved on. Since then I have been informed that this book is more valuable to you than I could have imagined. If you need it, you must get it, and I wish you good luck. (I have been obsessed about finding particular books myself, in the dark times before the internet, but luckily when I found them, they usually were inexpensive.)

It wasn't a direct reaction to what you said, either. I had read that the day before. It was (clearly, I think) a reaction to the tenor of the messages that followed. Because it wasn't directed at you, I did not have the feeling of interfering with your fucking business. When you told us about your "latest imbroglio" I thought it was in the spirit of making a little fun of yourself. Otherwise I would have more seriously considered my action. The minute you mentioned bidding for the book, I - as I imagine many of us did - looked for the book a little on the off-chance of finding it where you wouldn't look and saving you some money. I have also read some Kersh on occasion because you recommended him, and I know that some of his books are rare and expensive. Anyway, it wasn't my discussion, and I had no intention whatsoever of kicking it off or arousing your anger.

Spanning The Globe...
To bring you the constant variety of semi-idiotic endeavours.

About Kersh: My guess as to motive for this purchase is to draw a comparison less about subject matter but more about collecting, like my ownership of Doomsman. I wouldn't give it up to anyone, even Harlan. Even if he asked nicely.

To(o)dd: As a Jays fan, let me be the first to inform you that I'm already saving produce for the upcoming season. No thanks are needed, just think of it as my contribution to your receiving your daily nutritional dosage of veggies. I'm not going to bitch about King George's spending habits; after all, Toronto invented big spending for World Series champions in '92 and '93. George spends his bucks on the team and sets out to win every year, unlike owners like Carl Pohlad who take their revenue share to line their own pockets rather than spend on players.

I can't ever vote for the Yankees. It's like voting for General Motors.

As for hockey, if they're gone for the year, I'm gone, period. I've got all the photos done for the Ebay sale I'll have of all my collectibles.

I said at the other page:

KILL 'EM ALL, LET GOD ENFORCE BINDING ARBITRATION!

MAKE THAT

JAN

not

JON.

-he

HAVING READ ''JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH''
BARNEY:

As well you know, old friend, the late Gerald Kersh is one of my top few "favorite" authors. Corresponded with him; edited a book of his stories; recommend him to hopeful young writers as a paragon of style, invention, singularity of approach, passion.

I have virtually every book he wrote, many of the uncollected short stories in magazines, and have in small ways assisted Paul
Duncan in his valiant efforts to get his biography of Kersh published. I am, thus, no johnny-come-lately to admiration, some have said hero-worship, of this writer. And may I say this: even comparing it to the obstinately readable hoard of Kersh's great oeuvre, his life-story vibrates with a singularity, a complexity and a preposterousness that equals the creations of his talent. Yet Paul continues to find stumbling blocks, and ignorance of apocalyptic parameters, and brick walls of mute indifference ... every time he takes the book out to market. In a milieu wherein even Paris Hilton's poodle has a book, well, I cannot fathom this detestable reality. So, for new news on Paul Duncan, I suppose you'd better go to his website, kiddo.

As for JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH, yes, I've read it, every page of it.

You don't want to read it. Not ever.

(This, of course, will tickle the stubbornicity bone in your, and maybe many others' heads. Don't play with fire, you're told. Don't do drugs, you're told. Don't buy dick-enhancer off the internet, you're told. Don't try to invade Russia in the Winter, many have been told. It's for your own good, you're told. But even as I gave a "rule of thumb" admonition here a week or so ago, not to get involved seriously for 3 years after a divorce, a couple of the usual idiot nitpickers came rushing in to assure the person I was addressing that "Harlan ain't God" and "You don't have to follow Harlan's advice slavishly," as if anyone but an utter asshole--which the addressee was not--though I'm not sure about the nitpickers--would have done so. It took an act of supreme willpower not to storm back in and say, shut the fuck up and mind your own goddam business; this was a "rule of thumb" based on long and excellent personal research, and why don't you at least allow the turd to stop steaming before you come in trying to spray it over with pine forest scent aerosol. I said what I said to ONE PERSON and I didn't need the sort of well-what-if exceptions to the rule that jerks like the look-at-me see-how-cunning-clever-I-am nitpickers always come up with when we're discussing grammar. As they will do here, when I say don't bother reading JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH. Doryphores, they are. Pains in the ass who always have some harebrained or halfwitted (they think clever) knothole exception to any/every thesis submitted with consideration. They muddy the water, they muddy the thinking, they strut and preen like callow perpetual sophomores, always raising their hands in class to babble "what-if" this/ or "what-if" that ... thereby blunting any value the original consideration may have conveyed to the ONE PERSON for whom it was intended.

(And so, digressing wildly because I've been seething about this behavior for a week, I say to you, Barney ... and anyone else who gives a damn ...)

For Your Own Good

don't feed the gremlins after midnight; don't get involved in a land-war in Asia; don't shove a gerbil up your ass; don't jump off a cliff even if your friends do ...

and stay away from JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH unless you absolutely and neurotically hunger to be depressed.

It's not that it's a bad book. Anything but. Kersh, even in this, his first novel-length effort, was incapable of writing a sour line. But I understood, absolutely, after reading this novel in photocopied form, EXACTLY WHY his family threatened to sue the publisher if the book wasn't instantly recalled and pulped within half a day of its original, and only, publication in 1934. Had I been of his clan, I might well have joined in the pogrom. This was not literary censorship as much as justifiable self-defense against their existence. As a Jew, even adoring Kersh as I do, I'd be hard-pressed to deny there is more than an ominous shadow of self-hating Jewish anti-Semitism passim its pages of monstrous characterizations.

This is a dreadful book to read. It is meanspirited, relentless in its attack, hideously depressing, and if its portrait of Kersh's London relatives is even remotely accurate, it is a revelation of odious people you would run a mile not to meet.

When I tell you this, knowing full well that the more I say, and the more I tell you not to climb up on a step-ladder and teeter on the edge of the countertop, and reach 'way back there at the furthest extreme of the top shelf, and prise loose that old dusty Mason jar fulla black beans no one's touched in thirty years, and implore you NOT to unlatch the top of the jar and take them nasty black beans out and shove'm up your nose ...

...no matter HOW strenuously, HOW sincerely, HOW well-intentioned and well-informedly I advise you NOT to do that ...

...I know that when I come back into the kitchen, you will be stretched out on the floor, dead, with BEANS UP YOUR NOSE.

So. Yes. This is not a bad book. It just ain't a GOOD book.
It is a howl of blighted animosity, written with the skill and brio of a great talent at its earliest stages, and it will bring you down and keep you down for weeks. That's what it did to me. I would every so often try reading a passage to Susan, and after the first two, three, she pointedly asked me to refrain from doing it again. AND SUSAN LOVES TO HAVE ME READ KERSH TO HER!!!!!!

Are you getting the message here?

That I WANT a copy of the book, Jon, is MY fucking business, and the reasons remain privately mine own. Your discussion of WHY Ellison is bidding so much money for "just a book" (among the most ignorant and puerile phrases I've ever encountered) are not welcomed. You may, of course, say whatever you wish on this board; censorship has no waiting welcome here; but if you say--I may answer. That's the risk you take. I may not be God, or even god, but I can and will smite like a sonofabitch.

As for you, Dannelke, don't come whining to me after you pursue your obsession and tread where I have indicated not even fools should go.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Quick addendum to previous post
Harlan: a) review corrected, on-line now, b) sorry about that and the other thing.

Jan - To each his or her own. A gearhead will drop major coin for a project car with no guts, to spend more money rebuilding/refurbishing/painting what is, to me, transportation. And this is a rare book - estimates of anywhere between 20 and 200 copies sold during its single day on sale in 1934 - plus it's the first book by one of Harlan's favorite authors, and one of only two (I think) he's missing (and the other, if he's indeed missing it - "Private Life of a Private" - was published anonymously and only discovered and reported in 1998 by Paul Duncan.)

Speaking of whom... Barney - other than Paul Duncan's editing of the 2003 collection of Kersh's Karmesin short stories published by Crippen & Landru, I haven't heard much of late. I know that the bio hasn't been published; I'd presume he's still chipping away at it. Also nothing else currently in the pipe as far as reprints go. Hell, I don't think "Karmesin" even got an American publication.

JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH

All this suddenly reminded me that about 3 or 4 years ago I attempted a lengthy essay on Julian McClaren-Ross and Gerald Kersh, which unfortunately turned into a fairish mess and got out of hand, even to honking clauses within sprawling clauses. If anyone's much fussed, they can read below the slightly smoothed down, though still probably fairly dreadful section on JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH (much of it is about how JMR and GK are in contrast to the Auden/Brideshead generation who came in with the 20s while GK and JMR rode in on the more down-at-heel 30s):

Putting themselves at the centre of their fiction to a degree outstanding in 20th century English fiction they (JMR & GK)were "personal appearance artists" pre-emininent, writing about the things they had done and said, the people they met and the places and things they'd seen, insisting upon their own personal authority. In Maclaren-Ross's collection "Better Than A Kick In the Pants" out of 19 stories only 5 come with the disclaimer that "the 'I' in these stories is not Me". and his next story collection, "The Nine Men of Soho" went one better by insisting that "the 'I' in these stories is always Me. All other characters are imaginary". 30s fiction had seen personal stories yield increasingly to public and political ones where writers like Isherwood and Orwell declared that they only wrote about themselves as litmus papers for the times to test. The realist first-person account in socially-commited literary magazines (and this was a time when all literary magazines had to be socially-committed) like "Fact", "Storm", and "The Left Review" offered capok documentary exercises, under the ideological influence of Marxist Gradgrindian factual realism, style-less reportage and partisan observations about the Workers' condition. Freely and unashamedly, Kersh and Maclaren-Ross wrote not about the forces demanding political integration but about their interest in themselves, their feelings, and the world around them where interesting material was swarming immediately to hand. “The fiction I have written has always been tangled up with my life. The two are inseparable. I fluctuate always between the conjectures of the story and the colourful fact of true human existence. It contains a bit of my life, a bit of other people’s lives, and a bit of autobiography and biography in fictionalised form," writes Kersh in his 1939 memoir "I Got References" (a whole world away from the fever flush of stylised, introspective, self-recriminatory schoolday memoirs by Henry Green, Cyril Connolly, Isherwood and others that appeared in the year or so immediately prior to WWII). Writers of the 30s, under the influence of T.S. Eliot and socialist doctrines, had largely sought an emotional anonymity and tried to suppress the identity of the artist, as best exemplified in Isherwood's pose as "I am a camera". The new writers had a boundless egotism and a desire to be personally involved and represented in the narrative they wrote, their "plain-speaking" was the enjoyable exuberance of the man at the bar. Kersh's wholehearted revival of the vigorous traditions of English fiction would overturn a fashion of understatement and bare factualism that had been lightened only by an undercurrent of mild collegiate irony and misdirection; his prose was highly judgmental, boldly declaring what he felt and its importance, his aim always to passionately move and affect his readers.

Kersh's first novel "Jews Without Jehovah" (1934) did indeed strongly affect his first audience: the members of his family. Whether truth was stranger than fiction, when Kersh's taste for flamboyant and grotesque flourishes was applied to his materials immediately at hand (again, his family) numerous uncles and cousins were swiftly moved to sue him and his publisher for libel, with the book withdrawn on the first day of its publication. The novel, covering a generation of secular London Jews in the 20s, caught the naturalised Yiddish colloquy of close family relations, conflicts and business dealings in a well-fleshed-out community of tailors, bakers, promotion men and entrepreneurs, while setting out the case that without the affirmative traditions of Judaism to guide them Jews may be nothing but intemperate commercial business people, their only impulse to better themselves materially having driven away their better sense and social obligations . Kersh was always lucky in his condemnatory eye since without it there would have been considerably less to his work, accounting as it does for much of the drive, drama, and comic detail of his fiction. Kersh tries to balance his account with the more spiritual and independent Leonoff family, whose son John struggles to escape the philistine Ratners' "dreary and meaningless bread-winning with which they killed themselves and claimed to justify their lives" so as to discover what is an honest living and its purpose. Kersh openly proposes that to become an artist is to necessarily escape the insular, blinkered, domineering Yiddishkeit clannishness. The novel ends punishing the Ratners for their various dodges, scorning them as people too proud to work honestly, but neither does his quasi-autobiographical hero Leonoff win his artistic prize at the end either, recognising that it is to be a life-long struggle rather than won immediately. Kersh's prize is an original portraiture unbalanced neither by anti-Semitic caricature nor soft apologetics, placing him immediately in the tradition of the late 19th century writer Israel Zangwill, who demonstrated the same drive at an early age to write, the same realist concern augmented by extravagance and sentimentality in an emphatic and extravagant style, setting his literary stall in the community of London Jewry. Kersh's novel moves swiftly, accumulating a new character in almost every chapter to the total effect that his cast rub against each other sparking aggression, farce, confusion and calamity within the noise and commotion of a contemporary London detailed even down to its popular entertainments of song and cinema.

How much is too much, and when?
Or, I think I would rather regret spending too much for a book than regret not buying it. Not long ago I spent well over $100 for an inscribed copy of Susan Oliver's memoir ODYSSEY. I got instant buyer's remorse, but some time passed and now I'm glad I have it.

(For those who don't recognize the name, Susan Oliver – deceased for some time now, I'm sad to say – was a wonderful actress, perhaps best remembered for her role as Vina in the Star Trek pilot "The Cage". Gifted and versatile, she played all kinds of roles on TV in the 1960s, and she did them with arresting appeal. She could be as sweet as buttercream frosting, or as sexy as a lap dance in the Champagne Room. Mensa-smart, Kevlar-tough - whatever the role called for, she could do. Her (too short) book is about, among other things, piloting a plane across the Atlantic.)

It's more than just a book...
It's a book by one of his favorite writers.

I'm now at the point where I'm going back and buying certain books I read in my youth. Jack London. Mark Twain. And a few out of print books that never achieved immortality but still fired my mind with curiosity and challenge: Follow My Leader by James Garfield, and Wolfskin by Lillian Pohlmann. Not on the level of Kersch, but they came into my life at just the right time.

There's more to certain books than just paper and ink.

"TOO" much on a book? That's just crazy talk. Too much compared to what? A great bottle of wine? A painting? The love of a good woman or the focused attentions of a really bad one? What's too much? Clearly two grand american puts you in the ballpark for a true first Huck Finn in FINE condition. I find it hard to believe this book is THAT good, but so what. There are plenty of modern firsts that outstrip Huck Finn for the high dollar. And many are not even limiteds.

But what I would like to know is how good is JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH? I've read about half a dozen Kersh and they're all good to great but there a couple of dozen I've never even been in the same room with. So, since our patron is the only one on the list with this priveleged information, lay it on us. What are we missing?

- Barney

ps. What's Paul Duncan doing these days? Did he finish the Kersh bio? Are there plans for any of the more terminally OP Kersh texts to be brought back to U.S. shores?

- B

The (New) Twilight Zone
Adam-Troy: I enjoyed your review. I'm working on one as well for my review column in Continuum SF; I enjoyed reading your thoughts. I think my all-time favorite, besides the Ellison, of course, is "A Message from Charity." I was gladdened by how well they've held up to my childhood remembrances of them.

Take care,

James Palmer

*ho-hum* The fact that Ellison is spending waaay too much on a book is not even under discussion here? :-) Not that it should be, but I've done my due and mentioned it.

"Having taped many a full 1-2 hours of Ellison performances in person for my own pleasure, it's hard for me to express too much of an opinion on the two Road volumes as they are just to goddamn short for my liking."

I would love to hear an entire lecture/performance, with Q&A included.

Head's Up
Folks hereabouts were asking for a head's-up, when my review of the '80s Twilight Zone set appeared: it's at

http://scifi.com/sfw/advance/21_screen.html

and will be on the main page of scifiweekly.com later today.

TOO short, not TO short. TOO TOO TOO TOO TOOTSIE GOODBYE.

The latest issue of Amazing Stories contains a review for On The Road With Ellison Volume Two. The reviewer gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, expressing his opinion that it doesn't measure up to Volume One.

Having taped many a full 1-2 hours of Ellison performances in person for my own pleasure, it's hard for me to express too much of an opinion on the two Road volumes as they are just to goddamn short for my liking.

Interesting recommendations at the end of the review; one of those "If you like this, then you may like this" type of listings which contains The Carnegie Hall Concert by Lenny Bruce and Reality....What a Concept by Robin Williams.

PS - More proof that baseball is truly my sport: The Steelers get crushed and I shrug. Certainly not the type of reaction I get when a long Yankee season comes to a disappointing end.

-TODD

Everyone worth their salt uses sniping software now, so it's a total crapshoot if your bid will be the last one.

Whoever is bidding on this is, like Harlan, obviously a lover of literary history and a serious collector of Kersh. If he loses, revealing his identity to the winner may work against him, I think it's more likely to be an advantage, since Ellison is also a part of literary history. He also no doubt has some rarities of his own to offer in the bargain.

Were I the winner, and were I contacted by a writer of Ellison's stature, I'd certainly entertain any reasonable offer.

Not wanting to overcomplicate the issue...
So long as these methods are permitted under the Terms and Conditions of conducting auctions on Ebay, using a proxy service is a good idea, especially if you're not comfortable with the technology. However, I'd lean toward Eric's suggestion since paying someone up front cash with no promise of delivery is a little risky.

What happens if two or more bidders are using the same service for the same auction?

Contacting the seller is prohibited, but there's nothing to prevent you from contacting the winner with a counter-offer. It's happened to me before, but I wouldn't play up who you are because the book's value to the winner may suddenly shoot up.

All you /really/ need to do is put your maximum bid and ebay will bid for you incrementally up to that amount any time someone bids against you.

Toward the end, like 12 hours before the close, check on the progress. If it looks like someone's gunning for you (check the Bid History link on the item page), you can raise the pot with another lump sum bid and let the sucker guess how much you put in.

Good luck, sir.

Ah, at LAST, perhaps something I can do for YOU, Harlan.

This is the link to auctionsniper-- it is the lovliest little gem imaginable as it will bid FOR you in the last seconds of the auction.. up to the amount you designate and no higher. I have used it for over a year and it works like nobody's business.

Set it up with confidence-- it's tried and true. Just be certain you put your absolute top amount and it will get your item at the lowest possible price. In FACT it won me three items just tonight, filters for my VX2000.

Go to the " new user" link which also shows a "try auction sniper for free" feature.. which could mean you'll get this one done for nada.

http://www.auctionsniper.com/register.aspx

I hope you get your book.

:)
Cindy

Charlie is correct. I've also been trading on eBay for seven or eight years, and it's best to wait until the auction nears its end. With a minute (or less, if you're quick) to go, enter the highest dollar amount you're willing to cough up, and presto!

P.S. I've never heard of esnipe.com and I see no reason to pay anybody to win my auctions for me. What will they think of next? ;^)

Harlan, if you do lose, don't hesitate to contact the winner (e-bay members can e-mail each other), let him/her know who you are, and see if you can arrange a sale. It's possible that they would sell it to you for just a fraction more than what they paid, or even for the final price and some Ellison-type collectible.

Harlan, my recommendation would be to STOP bidding at this point. It's not serving you a purpose at this point, except increasing the price of the book with another five days to go. Wait until the end of the auction nears, then put in your MAXIMUM bid amount (the absolute highest you're willing to pay for the book.) This strategy has worked EXTREMELY well for me over my past 8 years as an ebayer. If you recall, I secured one of your damaged ship explorer mugs with this method a couple years back. There is almost nothing you can do about the last minute/second bidders, except to join the fray as the auction nears, especially on a well-watched item as the Kersh book appears to be. Wishing you the best on the bidding!

Harlan,

Fight fire with fire: there's an outfit called "esnipe.com" that exists only to place last-few-second bids on ebay. You'd have to set up an account with them (simple) and if you actually win something via their service, you pay them a 1% commission. I think they may have a slightly awkward payment deal, where you essentially end up paying for a few dollars worth of commission payments in advance, but the service is reputable and has been around for a relatively long time (in ebay years, that is). The upshot is that you can tell them to place your bid (whopping as you like) five or ten seconds before the auction closes, minimizing the chance that you'll be outbid.

HARLAN: If you have any fond memories of shoveling snow, making snow angels, throwing snowballs or licking icicles in Ohio, please disregard them as horribly inacurate.

The Frozen New Englander With a Broken Back

Harlan!!!

Use This:

http://auctioninsights.auctionstealer.com/info.cfm

It's free to download, not shareware. Works pretty well to ward off those who look to snatch a bid under the wire.

I'M AT WAR

Just for your amusement.

An old friend called to advise me that a fine copy of the Gerald Kersh novel JEWS WITHOUT JEHOVAH (which, thanks to another friend, I've actually read) with a dust jacket, had turned up for auction on e.bay.

So, as my library lacks a real copy of this very rare volume (I read it as a photocopy), I got into the bidding. Susan and I bid as 15duo.

You will not believe what's transpiring at e.bay item 6943880962.

As long as my Social Security money holds out, I'm in this fight for the duration. Another 5 days.

Just thought you might want to see my latest imbroglio. Any hints as to how to circumvent last-second sniping would be appreciated, bearing in mind I am computer-semiliterate.

Yr. pal, Bartleby Ellison

Steelers...Oh Yeah.
I was not a Steelers fan...until this year. Big Ben was the starting quaterback of the Miami University Redhawks, who play a mere 20 miles from me. I hated to abandon the Cleveland Browns, the team of my youth but let's face it, we knew they were going to suck before the season started. The Bengals, who I willingly abandoned in 1999, continue to flirt with mediocrity.

Steelers all the way, babe.

My condolances to all the fans on the passing of Johnny Carson...I did not know he was ill at all. I spent a LOT of my youthful late nights watching and laughing.

Chris B.

Hey, what's with all the Steelers fans on the board? I'm also a Steelers fan (having spent my early childhood in Butler, PA), but when I used to say that I would get the type of smirk only reserved for Cowboys and Yankee fans. Y'see, as many of you know, I am a Yankee fan. Bigtime. Baseball is my couch 'tater sport, and football comes in only second.....and not a close second. Yet I'm always getting grief for being a Yankee fan, and I recall in the 70's and early 80's always getting grief for being a Steelers fan.

Why? I suppose it's the success factor; and since the Steelers' last Super Bowl ring was won a generation ago, I suppose that success factor is low, and, though I hadn't noticed it, not much venom has spewed over the past decade and more.

So, I proudly shout "I am a Yankee fan" and then stand tall as the rotten veggies are tossed my way. And I proudly shout "I am a Steelers fan" and, by golly, now I have some others standing with me.

I guess, in a few years, it will be back to the old ways after the Steelers come off their 4th Super Bowl victory in a row. I'm ready.

(Hmmm, I wonder if I will ever get to shout "Go Joisey Devils" again?)

-TODD

Strange requests from the served public
Another short tale of odd requests from customers. A friend of mine (a fellow writer who gave up a teaching job to work on his novel) spent his early morning hours delivering a motor route of newspapers to keep a minimum cash flow while pounding the keyboard during the day. Often, his morning "top sheet" on his papers would list new customers, departing customers, complaints and requests. The oddest request he ever recieved regarding daily newspaper delivery? One was this: PLEASE RESTART DELIVERY, CUSTOMER RETURNED FROM VACATION, BUT DISCONTINUE BECAUSE CUSTOMER DECEASED. But the best one this: PLEASE DELIVER NEWSPAPER TO PORCH...CUSTOMER BLIND.

Harlan - From the myriad online flags and notifications I've set up as part of my sweeps, eBay spit up word that there's a copy of "Jews Without Jehovah" on the block, ten day listing, copy is complete with its dust jacket, listed by a seller in London. Watching has been fun, but during the night this very nice looking copy hit GBP 600 ($1,126 in weak US dollars) with six days to go. Downside? This one's not coming home from the dance with me. But I thought I'd call your attention to it, on the off-chance that someone pressed a disposible check into your hand recently or owes you a big mohonka favor. Upside? Now that I've had a look at both cover and jacketless spine/color (ah, the glory of electronic photographs), I'm one uneducated bookseller away from spotting the bargain on the shelf, tucked among the common used tomes. Sometimes Finding is just Looking with a punchline.

At this rate, I wonder if the US reprint rights might be easier to obtain than the book itself...

If you're up for a peek, you can feast your eyes at

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6943880962&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1

Coming Soon:
KEYSTONE BOWL, baby.

STEEE-Lurs EEEEEE-guhhlz, baby!

FooootyBall, Me Likey FooootyBall!

Stacy: I blame the parents for having put all that crap about civil decency and having respect for one's fellow man into us, especially when so many have the manners and humanity of a snake.

I guess my having to dig my way out the pile of older siblings to get respect and attention makes me a bit more likely to fight back than some.

Mary: You have the sympathies of another proletariat, struggling under the chains of oppression brought upon all souls yearning economic freedom from the evil capitalist state, its walls built of the bourgeois programmed to defend it even at the loss of their livelihoods. That, and the endless parade of dinks who decide that the shopping world cannot live without their patronage however horrible their conduct. I never worked that scene, especially after having to watch some poor girl at a Coles bookstore be literally screamed at by a guy who demanded to know why the latest Sidney Sheldon wasn't in.

I kid you not.

Today my Steelers begin their return to dominance, crushing the puny little Chowderheads ("Hey Frenchy, say CHOW-DAH!"), then marching on the beat the Eagles (pronounced Eh-Gles). I continue to demand that the Superbowl return to being played in the the home city with the team holding home field advantage.

A new story has been selected for discussion in the Bulletin Board, everyone interested in discussing it should read it and feel welcome to join us. Also, we're renaming the Symposium, it's now called S.P.I.D.E.R., which could stand for a number of things, and one day, we might even know what. Presently, it stands for the Symposium Proffering Idiotic and Dopey Ellison Reinterpretations. That's why we prefer using the short form. ;-)

Mary: No worries. The story was meant to bring a smile and a chuckle, so feel free to laugh and enjoy it. I look back on it with some fond amusement myself.

Michael: Ah, but for a chance to step into the Wayback machine. . .but no, I was raised too well. I don't think I could've hugged the guy, even if he -was- deserving of a paint-dripping bear hug.

There was a term once used in an old DC comic book I used to read called BLUE DEVIL, in which the protagonist was described as a 'weirdness magnet'. Things would happen to him, not necessarily good or bad, but just unusual. I never really used to believe, but gradually over the years I began to realize I may be one of these individuals. Just a joe the universe liked to throw the strange at.

And Mary, I feel your pain. I used to work at Chapters, the Canadian equivalent of the Borders chain of bookstores, and I've seen my share of erotica-related creepiness. From the fellow who'd walk by the books just breathing heavily, to another fellow who couldn't quite keep his. . .ahem. . .excitement under wraps, to finding those books in the washrooms, gentlemen and ladies. Brrr. Hey, I'm no prude by any stretch of the imagination, but I wish they'd at least leave their perversity in the comfort of their own homes, not in the place where I have to work and touch things. Ick.

Stacy

shake it, baby

“Y’know, now that I *see* it, I think I should go a couple shades lighter.”

Saturday Cartoons Leave Me Cold
Stacy:

I always wanted to know what would happen if you take one of those paint shakers and did a full case of pop with one, then returning the shaken beverages to the employee lounge pop machine from whence they came.

That was good stuff, man. The only thing I might have done differently was to immediately go over and embrace the guy after his little whine about the massive indignity he suffered. As we swayed bck and forth, I'd cry in the loudest voice possible; "Aren't we all at heart one people?"

I know this sounds strange, but I've never trusted a person who hadn't gotten themselves fired at one point or another in their lives.

As for me, three times.

Stacy, you made my day! I realize that I may be laughing at your expense; but it not only was it a very funny story, it was beautifully told. I have stopped inbetween mid-giggles and chuckles long enough to write this. I wish I had Michael's and yours' experiences, but the best I can come up with is cleaning vomit out of the sink at Barnes and Noble. (Don't ask.) I'm also respectful of retail clerks--I was one of them for many years. Ah, the long nights of staying up until 1 in the morning cleaning up after people who can't seem to find the trashcan. The joy of pointing out the bathroom to people who can't read the signs that are right in front of them. The rapture of finding sex magazines in the children's section stuffed inbetween "Goodnight Moon" and "The Wizard of Oz."

Don't miss it a bit. Not one iota.

Escapades in the workplace.
Neat story Michael, it inspired me to tell my own tale of earnin' the buck by working for the Man. Behold, I give you all the Paint Shaker Story:

For reasons that still baffle me I somehow wound up with a part-time gig working for the good people at Sears in the town of Red Deer Alberta, in their paint department. Now, as an English major who'd currently been out of work for awhile and on hiatus from classes, my goal was to earn some money whilst I decided what I was Going To Do With My Life (didn't know then, honestly don't really know now, but I digress). So I would help people out with their paint choices, help them select a color palette acceptable to them, then mix the paint color of choice into a can of primer and place it inside the paint shaker to have the color mixed into the actual paint can. Pop the lid, have the color base poured into the primer, put lid back on, put into the cavernous device of the paint shaker, let it jostle the can around a bit, voila.

So I'm working on a lazy Sunday afternoon and a customer comes in. Painting a room, wants it in a kind of off-pink color for his little girl. A bit of an obnoxious guy, but I figure what the hell, I'll take him as my supervisor's on break and the day has been mind-numbingly slow. I mix the paint in the primer, the actions so ingrained by now I barely paid attention to the procedure. Which, in retrospect, I kind of should have, but hindsight is 20/20.

So the paint can goes into the shaker, I push the activator button, it starts it's usual rumbling, but in the midst of the procedure I hear this clank sound. Like something popped loose. The guy's browsing through some samples nearby, and I, clad in my business casual, the white coat we wear in the paint department to avoid spillage, and the goggles we wore around the paint chemicals. So as its cycling down I lift the lid of the shaker to take a look. . .and my world dissolves into a mass of pink.

As if a shotgun blast had gone off, I was soaked face to mid-jacket in bright pink paint. I stood there, frozen for a moment of exquisite embarassment. I swear I stepped -outside- of my damn body and just stood in awe, unable to believe what had happened. Somehow I must've not sealed the can properly, the lid had popped off inside the shaker and clattered to the floor, leaving the can dripping most of it's contents into the shaker, but with -just- enough left to splatter all over the poor fool who opened it.

And the most beautiful part of it all was the customer, staring at me drenched in paint, who looked at a tiny fleck of pink on his jacket and said " Jeeze, you gonna pay for me to have this cleaned? " as the paint coated the tips of the new shoes I'd bought especially for work, at no small cost to myself. The fact that I didn't make that paint can into an oral suppository speaks wonders for the way my beloved parents raised me, but oh the temptation was strong in me. . .instead, I grinned, beared it, then headed dripping into the back to dispose of my smock and salvage my pants and shoes.

Needless to say, it wasn't long after that the wise folk of Sears management felt the job 'wasn't for me' and let me go. And that is why I always do my best to be as courteous and civil as I can possibly be to the poor young folks who work in retail hell. Because we're all just a couple steps away from paint in the face.

Stacy

Because, It's Friday...

I've often been amused by Harlan's misdeeds and impish miscreancy fueled from the wellspring of youth, and this board seems neglected, so in his honour I'll relate a bit of my own:

During a stint as a shelf stocker at Loblaws, a small manic impish flame of imagination hit me one morning at break, and I purchased some implements of destruction at lunch. After a night's concentrated effort, I had replaced the labels of a case of "No Name" (generic packaging; bland yellow can with contents printed in black) beans purloined from work with labels that matched the originals in colour and graphic design, except for one detail. Instead of beans, the labels stated: "Smashed Assholes".

Why? Ever heard the old saying: "He/She was so ugly they had a face like a can of smashed assholes?"

The next day, the case was carefully planted amongst my assigned loads for the day, and I took great care to ensure shelf space for this new comestable, even manufacturing a faux price sticker so that shoppers could be sanguine about the savings they were getting by purchasing the generic equivalent to nationally sold brand name smashed assholes. One day, nothing...Three days, nada...On it went for a week. No comment, no outrage, nothing. I was astounded, to say the least.

Monday morning, I show up for work to find a note attached to my locker. Off I went to the manager's office, only to find I'd been fired. No words other than those, uttered as a check was pressed into my hand. As I was leaving, one of the other stockers stopped me to apprise me what had transpired on Saturday, when one of the checkouts had asked for a price check on "smashed assholes". I went back to my beat-up Datsun cursing myself for not working a weekend shift.

A job? Within a week, I began work at a local record store, to begin a life-long relationship with Clifford Brown and Sarah Vaughan. Threesomes can truly be very cool.

The best to all for the weekend.

Love is a Vampire. . .
Kris:

Anything can happen.

Haruki Murikami


HARLAN:

New Murakami released Tuesday. "Kafka on the Shore". Beautiful novel. Magically real.

Say no more.

Tersefully,

Neal

Kris, so how does he explain now that he originally turned away from you?

RE: 3 years
After a brief marriage, I was divorced from Mr. Awful in March 2003, when I was 26. This was my last heartbreak.

My first heartbreak occurred when I was 12. Mr. Wonderful, my first slow dance partner, then 13, wouldn't "go with" me and wanted nothing to do with me after that Halloween dance party. My absolute adoration for Mr. Wonderful remained as fresh in my heart as I'm sure everyone's first crush does.

9 months after my divorce was final, Mr. Wonderful and I reconnected after the years-long separation adulthood normally causes between people who grew up together. Mr. Wonderful had finished college, was gainfully employed, owned a house, and had cut the long hair that gave my mother fits when we were in high school. After a year of dating, he proposed. 31 months after my first marriage was ended, on October 1, 2005, Mr. Wonderful and I will be married.

Harlan, I don't know you personally, but having read most of your descriptions of your own life experiences, I think you would agree that life has no hard-and-fast rules, and that trying to create or follow them causes at least as much trouble as playing it by ear, yes?

Discussion of Harlan's THE DEATHBIRD here has finally made me get around to actually reading the damn story. It's late, and I still have about 45% of the tale to go, but I will say that it's shaping up to be quite a heady trip....

Re-reading STRANGE WINE (having read it once before at the tender age of sixteen), I am struck by how unforced the fantasy elements are in Harlan's stories. The same could be said of the work of Fritz Leiber. The magical elements are so natural they feel part of the landscape. I think that's the toughest job to pull off.

Flaunting it
Hi all
Just delurking momentarily to say - with no bias as to right or wrong - that me and mine have always used 'flautist'. Never heard flutist used, perhaps it's some kind of translatlantic mutation of the word? (Not, of course, that me or mine use 'flautist' in everyday conversation, but, well, just thought I'd pipe up.)
Cheers
Jes

Fritz and flautists and Mann and Beastiaries
David Loftus--hey, funny you should bring up Fritz Leiber. I happened to pull down my old Gregg Press edition of "The Fantasies of Fritz Leiber" the other day --I'm always mixing at least one old classic with the new reading-- and I was struck by how he reuses old themes in different ways. Somehow, I'd never noticed how the same theme underlies both "Conjure Wife" and "The Hatchery of Dreams." The latter is a very slight piece, in which Leiber takes a nice shot across the bows of enforced conformity, but reading it with "Conjure Wife" in mind affected how I thought of both stories. Now I'm tempted to reread a lot more of the old master's work.

It was nice to see that the essay you recommended included a mention of "A Spectre is Haunting Texas," one of my favorite Leibers. Most discussions of his work forget that book. I loved it. Pity the author failed to mention how Leiber's work grew impressively subtle in his latter decades, though. ("The Lotus Eaters" is brilliantly understated.)

On flutist vs flautist--I don't care whether it's official or not; the distinction Herbie Mann made to Harlan works for me. The Italian derivation of "Flautist" fits well with the idea of European training. Besides, as soon as Harlan mentioned Herbie Mann, "Comin' Home Baby" went floating through my mind. Lawdy, I hadn't thought of that one in a decade. Abashedly, I must admit I hadn't even realized that Mann died a few years ago. Somehow, I missed press notices of that.

Curiouser and Curiouser
All kidding aside. I find it rather interesting that the listings for flutist and flautist in the OED make no mention of that distinction, and more importantly, list their first reference for flautist as 1860 in Hawthorne's "The Marble Faun" and the first reference for flutist in 1603. Also of note is that they say a flutist is "A player on the flute" and a flautist is "One who plays the flute, a flutist."

Oh well. I'll stop there before I become pedantic.

---Peter

Kristin & Alex,

Thanks for the kind words - I certainly didn't mean that I was going to take Harlan's advice as holy script.

Jay,

It's good to be back - but am I supposed to be the voice of reason on the board next door!?!

Say this ten times fast: the flautist flaunts his flute. (There is no "flutist" in the Oxford DIctionary of Current English)

Regarding 3 years: Some of us have no choice in the matter.

Lankhmar

Thanks to Dave L!

I just happen to be in the midst of Leiber's cannon of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories. The timing is uncanny.

I never knew much about Leiber other than to see his name meant a quality story. I'm still kicking myself in the ass over not buying the Chaykin and Mignola Epic Comics adaptations back in the early nineties. That will be remedied soon enough though.


From the corner of Crafts and Cheap,

Johnny H.

Woids
Dear Harlan (Dr. I.Q.),

Without looking it up in the dictionary, what is the difference between further and farther? This may be much to simple for you
,word smithee that you are, but I had to look it up.

Mr. Ellison
You mentioned below that there is only one manuscript out of your control. Can you tell us what it is? Thank you.

I ran across a lovely essay about Fritz Leiber that I suspect some of you -- including Harlan -- would enjoy reading:


http://maisonneuve.org/blog/index.php?itemid=760

Las Vegas is one of the most enjoyable places on Earth, if you go with the right attitude...namely, this is not a place to make a living, but a place to have fun. You can have all sorts of kicks in Vegas, with your woman/man or without. Highly recommended. Plan on about $300 a day, not counting room and food, which are usually quite cheap.

Waiting for three years on a next marriage...depends, of course, on who you are. If you are a serial divorcee, with a history of failed relationships, that's probably sound advice. If you've been married to one person for a long time, lose that marriage for whatever reason, and then are lucky enough to find someone else quickly, it's probably not.

I can just imagine telling the new girl of your dreams, two years into your courtship, to wait another year because Harlan Ellison told you to. She'd probably tell you to go marry Harlan Ellison then, and send you packing!

Three Years
Vegas survives on the fact that each of us thinks we can buck the odds; that we will be the one to win the jackpot; that we won’t be like the million other schlemiels who dropped three silver dollars in the fountain and watched them disappear without a ripple. And so it goes with the relationship game. Harlan has established Ellison’s Rule of Returning to the Commitment Fray. A three-year grace period, no purchases allowed without a background check, make it thorough, check with the Feds for priors, don’t even try to pick one up at the pawn shop, and if you sneak past the controls (established for your protection) and pick one up in a back alley – well, you were warned. Wait three years. As simple as it is, this may be the soundest relationship advice many of us will see in our lifetimes. No matter what you think, you will not beat the odds. It just don’t happen. Vegas and the divorce lawyers will see you coming, put out the drinks, and suck you dry.

Oh, by the way – I had been divorced for three months when I met my second wife. We have now been married 22 years. We already have our 25th anniversary planned; we’re going to have Elvis marry us in Las Vegas. (If we can’t find the real one,an imitator will do.) I found my best friend/soul mate/insert sickening (in this case absolutely true) cliché here. Don’t try and win the jackpot – I already did. And one of the things I have learned over those years is how exceedingly, the bluebird of happiness shat elsewhere, lucky I was/am.

Hey Kathy – I know you don’t read the board – but I love you.

Mike

I, Robot
Apologies for the redundancy.

Zuz

It's The Finn!
Welcome back, Joseph!

Congratulations! Keeping it on good terms is a feat in itself. You've been missed. Now, get your ass over to the Forum and weigh in on Deathbird and Tick-Tock.

mrmee...mrmeee....

Various rambles
Joseph, etc: I think Adam-Troy is right - Harlan is smart and a great writer, but that doesn't make him God. *No* one person is The Only One You Should Listen To - (though they may get off on hubris and think they are - a human failing we are all prone to.) Advice from others is a kind and wonderful thing and you should treasure it, but if you act like a blind follower, you aren't your own person.

It takes a special kind of person to marry a truly passionate creative talent. (I'm *not* that kind of person. I don't think I could marry a writer. We'd drive each other crazy.) That doesn't mean you will necessarily have to try multiple times to find Ms Right - hopefully you won't.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Alex/Peter/Harlan: Is it just Mann, or musicians in general that get so uptight over the spelling of a word?? I guess "flautist" is British spelling (it must be different in other languages) and therefore has a kind of highbrow flavor. Dictionaries just note spelling variants without saying which is "right" or "wrong" because it's not their job to be language police. I guess you'll just have to collar a hundred flutists/flautists at random and ask them what they think. (Equal sampling from Europe and the US.) Maybe it's just the language of the "music community" rather than any one person being a snob.

everyone:

Huh - nobody took note on this board that it is Martin Luther King Day? Well it's already over in the eastern time zones and less than an hour to go in California. I haven't hit the Forum today yet but it seems good timing with the "Repent Harlequin" discussion going on. (And Harlan himself was involved in civil rights marches.)

Things I Found on Google: search on "doryphore" and you get sites in French about the Colorado beetle. I kid you not - the Colorado beetle seems to have become a serious (imported) pest in France. I know Harlan's source was Herb Caen, but didn't Caen get it from some *really* old book? Is it in any dictionaries of slang words?

Adam-Troy: Yeah, and every 300 years for the last couple millennia there's been a quake in the Cascadia subduction zone (Seattle area) which could send tidal waves clear down the west coast. The last one was 300 years ago....*Everywhere* is overdue for a disaster. We learn from disasters and do our best to ameliorate them, but each disaster will always have a higher body count, simply because there are more people in the world.

Kristin
P.S. Will Eisner got a nice tribute the other day - his name in the New York Times Sunday crossword.

JOSEPH: Yes, Harlan's advice is very good--but then, it's not necessarily advice which should be followed to the exclusion of all else. Life can happen when you're not paying attention, and no one bit of advice applies to all people at all times.

A good reminder of this are two people Harlan is friendly with, Peter David and Paul T. Riddell, both of whom have posted here on occasion. Each went through a troubling divorce, yet within a couple years, was courting the woman who would later become his wife. I'm not sure if PAD came in under the three-year limit, but it certainly seemed that way. Each is happy, and happily married, to this day.
(And Best Man Harlan danced at the Davids' wedding.)

So think about the advice as a very useful guideline, rather than a hard-and-fast rule.

And I speak as one who has indeed eaten at a place named Mom's (the veal scalloppine was delightful), played cards with a man called Doc (won thirteen bucks), and slept with a woman whose troubles were greater than my own.
(Propriety demands I not divulge the results of the last--but I still smile, thinking on it.)


ALL: Here's a late-arriving--and somewhat cold--thought on the past month's earthquake/tsunami:
I dearly do hope that people are taking notes.
And drawing up logistics plans.
And making cost estimates.

We need to learn from this, even as we work to provide aid.

You see, one of the three most important metropolitan regions--in terms of population, social, political, and economic power--sits on no less than THREE major fault lines.
I'm put in mind of the Great Kanto Quake of 1923, you see. Tokyo and the surrounding region was hit by a temblor measuring somewhere between 7.5 and 8.0 on the Richter Scale, causing vast devastation. In a region of three million people, more than two hundred thousand perished. The Kanto region now holds something like thirty-five million. Two-thirds of the buildings in Tokyo fell or burned or both.
(And directly afterward, in a state of martial law, government-incited and racially-motivated rioters massacred one-fifth of the entire Korean population of Japan, but that's neither here nor there.)

Imagine the cost to the world's economy, the turmoil to the world's political sphere, the gaping scar left across the world's psyche, if this were to happen again.
(and the Earthquake Research Committee set up by the Japanese government has said within the past year that there's a 30 percent chance of another 7.0+ quake hitting the region within the next ten years, a 70 percent chance of one within thirty years, and a NINETY percent chance within the next fifty years.)

So I hope that think tanks and governments across the globe are making preparations.

There goes my comedy career
Yes, Harlan. It was a poor attempt at wit with a mild dash of sarcasm, made too heavy with the addition of falling anvils. I went for over the top and slid down the other side.

Alan: mea culpa on asinine. I kept staring at it; it seemed wrong. I even looked it up, and still screwed up.

Oh well.

---Peter

Ah don't care if'n tits or ain't; Ahm jest thinkin' it's funny, alongside another great ability developed by people with good oral skills.

No, not hog callin'.

Peter in San Jose:

Please, tell me that comment was intended as a gag, right?

Harlan Ellison

Jay, thanks for your comments. They sound rational and right.

Alan,

Those Europeans are constantly spelling things differently. Why would we want to keep up with all that crap? We might have to learn parts of un-American languages if we worry about these things! Is Peter supposed to unclench his asinine gluteals, or his asanine glauteals? It’s all so confusing. I’m gonna keep on listening to fiddlers and flutists, and never mind where they were born.

Peter,

There is power in using the correct word. I love knowing small things (to me and you, but not to the flautist) like this.

And by the way....asinine, not asanine.

Flutist vs Flautist
That is probably the most inane, asanine, and elitist (in its worst possible connotation) bit of eurocentric snobbery I have ever heard.

---Peter

A "flutist" was trained in America.

A "flautist" was classically trained in Europe.

My source (thus proving how jejeune and useless your verdammt Interfuckingnet is): the great jazz flautist, Herbie Mann.

Take THAT, you sniveling gaggle of doryphores!

And lift&clink one for me, in the name of Martin, on his day, just 2 days after his actual birthday. He was peaches, that man.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Did a quick google on the flautist/flutist thing, and most people seem to think the only difference is about $50 per hour.

Flautist and flutists
Harlan, I have no idea what the difference is. Many years ago, my wife asked me what the difference was (she thinks I'm Dr. Vocabulary). So I looked up both flautist and flutist, probably in the Oxford English Dictionary. They seemed to mean exactly the same thing.

So my ignorance pipes through the halls like a bad tune. Pray, enlighten me!

--Alex, who only plays the clarinet

I looked up the difference between "flutist" and "flautist." And because I looked it up, I will NOT post what I found. All I'll say is that I don't think I found the distinction Harlan's thinking of, I look forward to hearing the proper answer.

I'd love to vent about a subject here, but I'll have to keep it private. All I'll say is this. Harlan, I read your resignation speech to the SFWA many years ago. There were details in that speech that floated back to my memory _very_ vividly this weekend. When I get home today, I'll reread it.

I know! I know!

(Question not for me)

KRISLOV & LOFTUS:

Here's your serendipitous trivia epiphanny for the week:

What is the PRECISE difference between

a FLUTIST

and

a FLAUTIST

?????

Without looking them up, if you can. Hint: most dictionaries fail to note the very real distinction.

Yr. pal, Dr. I.Q.

Costco I , ROBOT
Michael - the whole exciting Costco release was covered just before Xmas - have a look through last year's archives.

Thanks
Rob

weirdplay

Alex--

Hey, wiseass . . . who's to say Barney wasn't playing the flute just then, and Harlan somehow knew it?

(Now, THERE's a word the English language needs: floutist. Handily describes some of the people on this very board -- especially its namesake. . . . )

I, Robot Smackdown!
File this under Poetic Justice.

Haven't seen mention on this board yet, but Costco is offering a shrinkwrapped package of the Will Smith "I, Robot" abomination on DVD along with HE's Edgeworks Abbey edition of "The Illustrated Screenplay."

All this can be yours for just $19.99. Yes, the ironies abound.

Imagine all the legions of dunderheaded fans of the movie who'll be distressed to discover that the challenging, intelligent script (described on the box as "the original screenplay") bears virtually no resemblance to the cinematic video game on the DVD. On the other hand, maybe the comparison will help a couple of those fans to recognize the filmed version for the rip-off that it was.

Zuz

By the way, Harlan, I thought you'd be amused to know that my ex-wife (who is still strangely one of my best friends) thinks your advice is quite on the nose.

Dear Harlan,

You are quite welcome. I am rather pleased to have been able to do some small service for you.

warmest regards,

jono

Disregard that previous post.

Google'd the site, found the item, called Derringer Books in San Francisco.

Turns out they had a more valuable item than they knew. The offering was not only a 1967 3-page cover letter to Richard Geis, editor of PSYCHOTIC magazine, but it was, thank you Jono, more importantly, accompanied by an ORIGINAL TYPEWRITTEN MANUSCRIPT of the first installment of a column I briefly wrote for Geis's fanzine, back in the day. Typed on a bright orange paper stock, a column called "A Voice From The Styx" ... it was published by Dick and till now unknown to me as an original that had gotten out of my possession.

As there were no bids on the item -- which opened at $200 -- I made the gentleman at Derringer Books a deal: I have sent him three--count'em--three VERY rare items of Ellisonia, which he can sell for far more than the $200+ he was looking for on the letter and mss.

As far as I know, there is only one (l) original manuscript of mine out there. I hold onto all of them, and I have all of them save for the ones written in 1955-59, before Xerography. So now that I've interdicted the sale of THIS one, which had slipped under the radar, I can allow Mr. Zipkin to finish his lunch, and I can rest easily.

For the moment.

Again, thank you, Jono.

Yr. pal, Harlan

URLs for Harlan
Harlan, you probably left the parentheses in the URL. Try it as

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6943342083&rd=1

Unfortunately, the auction is already concluded. However, no one bid on it, so there's a good chance the person offering it will relist. He's asking a steep $199.00 as an opening bid, though. Knowing you, you've probably got a carbon of the letter anyway.

Best to Susan,

Alex

Harlan, no problem in getting to:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6943342083&rd=1

David

JONO:

Went to the URL you posted, and the search engine said "can't find it." Are you sure this is correct?

Harlan

Corey -

Sorry I'm late to the ball, so to speak, but it comes at an interesting time.

This has nothing to do with personal loyalty, since your greatest loyalty is to the project. This isn't about security of you as the individual - it's about the creation of something greater than all of it's participants. If you didn't understand that at some level already, I presume you'd be in an accounting position or working somewhere with a 401K and a punch clock.

I know it sucks, but your job is YOUR job until the end and the best way to prove to management and future exployers that you deserved the shitcan is to allow the bitterness to influence your professional performance. You got the gig and you pull it off to the best of your ability and give em a smile on the way out the door.

Many times companies have to make decisions that make no sense beyond the Excel spreadsheet that was used by patrons or directors who make those decisions. I've seen community art projects fold in a single day because the "pledges" didn't materialize and the rent couldn't be paid. I've also seen budget revisions that cut half the staff. It sucks, but it happens.

The show must go on, as they say. If you demonstrate that you understand the greater good they're trying to create (even if you don't) you are a professional. Even if you disagree, you can still state your case (as you did) and abide by the decision and save your reputation. If you act like I did last year when I got the pink slip - you risk more than a reference.

Any venture where you're asked to pony up expenses out of pocket is a risky one. If you have legal recourse to collect unpaid wages or if you want to negotiate for the expenses you've incurred, that's your right. Go for it. But walk away politely, professionally and speak of them the same way to others.

You may find yourself in the same position someday.

Ebay Auction

Dear Harlan,

Poking about on the net this morning, I noticed this Ebay item

(http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=29223&item=6943342083&rd=1).

It's apparently three pages you sent to Dick Geis back in 67. I can't afford it myself (post-Xmas poverty time!), but I remember reading during the Mike Resnick fracus that you may be interested in such items for your own personal files.

Just thought I'd let you know.

regards,

jono

Thank you, Cindy. You're a sweetheart.

Harlan,

Words cannot express how appreciative I am of the fine advice.

Best Regards,
Joseph

Thanks, Lee & Pam, I'll let my buddy know.

Bill

Cory,
I'd be pissed too. Lee has a better handle on this than anybody I can think of. If I were in your boat, I'd take his advice to heart. The best revenge of all could come down the road, God willing. Do as Lee advised; throw yourself into your passion and make a name for yourself--THEN you can talk about the bastards on the Tonight Show.

Break a leg.
;)
Cindy




Chuck,
Quite right! I didn't know which book would contain the story.

Thank you!
:)
Cindy


Susan,
At your leasure, would you please tell me what the total would be for The Essential Ellison (50th year) plus shipping and any handling? I would be delighted to purchase one from y'all, please.

:)
Cindy

Os Mutantes
Bill Gauthier: Copies of that book show up on www.alibris.com every once in a while.

Thanks, everyone, for your comments. i actually feel better after reading them.

Anyone here read the graphic novels 100 BULLETS by Azzarello and Risso? Good stuff, especially as a follow-up read to SIN CITY (even has guest art from Frank Miller). Got 'em outta the library, if you can believe it, so I need to get through them so's I can actually get some work done.

Jan: Things are going great over on the Forum. Discipline is not necessary in a literary discussion, you know, as long as people are communicating in a productive way. To lament a thread falling apart after 5 pages is silly-- it was a great discussion, I learned a lot, and I think people are ready to switch over to the next story, which is why the other convo ended.

I have limited time, so that's why I was all over the place, and missed things, like a question from that Barney guy :-P but overall, I think you should feel very pleased and relax.

PAB

The threaded story discussions
*** Jan *** I think at some point you're just going to have to be happy with what you get. In the 10 year history of this forum that's the most focused discussion by the broadest number of participants that there has ever been for a single Ellison story. Also, although I didn't contribute in that last flurry of exchanges - wordplay is going to happen amongst this bunch. It's just a natural consequence amongst Ellison readers and not a bad thing.

Beyond that, it almost sounds like your trying to achieve some sort of consensus or resolution. I'm not sure that's even remotely possible when your're talking about the kinds of stories that we're leaning towards discussing. Hell, I'm not sure we could all agree on the purpose and meaning of A CORPSE CAN HATE or UP CHRISTOPHER TO MADNESS, let alone something like THE DEATHBIRD. As far as what's left up in the air, I'm sure you have something in mind there but that's when you need to go to the re-direct. Like I did when I asked PAB about the gnostics and she ignored me and then I stood in a corner and wept bitter tears. ;-)

And finally, I think there is a natural lull at this point until Harlan decides if he wants to ante up. Sort of like waiting to see if the dealer is going to call or raise or fold. Just remember, whatever the dealer does, he could still be bluffing. ;-)

- Barney

Cory,

The dance arts are either broke or going broke, and have been for decades. Maybe centuries.

Getting fired like you were really isn’t personal. It sounds like they’re just surviving rehearsals and pre-production as best they can so they can get the box office and pay off the bills. If there is no board of trustees underwriting the project – no one to write a check when the going gets tough – then moves like the one that got you are simple survival.

I’ve danced for reputable companies with budgets in the 8-20 million a year range and even so over the period of a decade there were weeks where the suits came in and said, “There’s no money. Will you keep rehearsing?” If a dancer signed a legally binding contract, and a better dancer came along, the contract would sometimes be given to the better dancer anyway. Sorry you moved all that way to work here. Maybe there are some openings in Chicago. The fat-bellied union stage hand lumbering across stage and back pushing his broom made three times as much money as me.

It comes down to the fact that most of the people trying to accomplish something in the dance arts are young, narrowly educated and they aren’t doing it for the money. So they are vulnerable to getting into unsure endeavors that collapse without notice. I’d look at your current situation as a part of paying your dues until you get the skills and reputation that can land you jobs with well-funded projects. Finish out what you’re doing and don’t burn any bridges. Keep in mind: you choose to work in the arts. There are better ways to make a living.

>More discipline would be nice next time<

Jawohl.

Cory: A classic case of putting in effort and then having people not appreciate it, so what you get in return is little. Happens to everybody who commits him- or herself wholeheartedly to what they do and whose effort is then measured in terms of numbers, money, or expenses. It's the human spirit clashing with modern capitalism and the rationalistic thinking that permeates city life and the business world (our employers). Take comfort in the fact that it's part of the crisis of modern man, if you can. We all have to deal with the fact that it's often up to stupid people in positions of power to evaluate and categorize us, based on badly collected and incomplete information. You have every right to be angry, but it may not be all that important in the end. You're alive and well, so move on to better things.

Been lurking here a while and finally decided to participate. You seem like a bright bunch of folks, so if you'll indulge me, I'd like some advice.

A few months back, I got hired to help a new dance show get started. I worked tirelessly putting the box office together, working long hours for little pay, paying for some of the promotions out of pocket. The show has been having a bad month and in an effort to cut costs, I was informed today that my position was being eliminated. I was basically given only one week's notice. I was also told that it was nothing personal, that everyone likes me and this was merely a financial decision.

I told my employers that a week's notice wasn't sufficient, and convinced them to extend my employment for another week. But here's the problem: I'm angry! I go to work and for the last three days, rage has been boiling in my gut.

I've talked to friends, family. They tell me I must stick this out so I can use my employers as a future reference, even though I desperately want to tell my bosses to take a flying fuck for their lack of loyalty.

Sorry if I sound like a whiner, but I really appreciate any comments. I'm so stunned that hard work and going the extra mile haven't been appreciated and I guess I'm seeking a friendly voice.

Cindy, my dear:

If you have The Essential Ellison (50th year) then you have Deathbird. If not, then I'm sure Unca Harlan's Little Bookshop Of Horrors has it at a reasonable price. I hear the shipping & handling is quite reasonable and downright meticulous. Not to mention prompt.

I'd love to hear what you have to say in the discussions ahead.

Chuck

First photos from Titan
Understandably swamped by disasters, but this little news item maybe of interest.

The first photos of Titan's landscapes.

http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/huygens_blog.html

FAQ

ALEX, et al.:

We're fine. Not even a leak.

Don't let our good fortune minimize your overall view of the last three weeks: the ongoing insanity in Iraq, the 157,000 dead in the tsunami, 119 dead in the torrential rains and mudslides here in my City of the Angels...

Will Eisner gone...

We're fine. Not even a leak. Spare no concern for us; put it where it belongs.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Er, Harlan, when you wrote "Barney: You don't mean "flaunting," you mean FLAUTING," you misspelled "flouting."

Okay, so I'm a wiseass. Worse, I'm a hypocritical wiseass who rarely corrects his spelling here. Just in a mood, I suppose. My main reason for posting tonight was to ask after your home, spouse and good self. My sister, down in Hollywood, tells me she's been hit with a bunch of water damage. I trust all is well with you?

Good advice to Joseph Finn, by the way. Back in the early eighties, on the rebound from a collapsed engagement, I damn near ran off with a total ditz. Had I done so, I've reason to believe I'd never have ended up with the lovely lady to whom I've been married for nearly 20 years.

New discussion
Sorry for posting once more, but Michael has announced his story in the Forum, all interested parties should read it over the weekend. :-) I'm looking forward to having more people or a new mix of people participating in the discussion.

(Jay, you're basically right, but I think we can still do better. I mean, look at page one, then look at page five. It kind of fell apart for no reason, while some things were still up in the air. I was very satisfied with how things went earlier on, just to make that clear. I certainly think that in the long run we will become more sensitized to a lot of story elements that we wouldn't otherwise have paid much attention to. I will already read this second story in a slightly different manner.)

Treading the Threading
Jan,

I'm not sure how long you've been lurking, but to have five pages of intelligent, honest discussion of the story AND issues related to it (terminology included) while inspiring positive discourse is something to be proud of. You have to expect time and posts to digress to clarify terms and fine tune the discourse. It's just the way it works with these guys. And it works well.

I look forward to "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" as a topic and hear what my colleagues in Ellisonia have to say on my all-time favorite story. And rest assured, I will dig for details and clog up the thread on that one. :)

Congratulations, sir.

OK, I believe the DEATHBIRD discussion has fallen apart now, and one of the reasons is that too many people have cluttered up the thread with conversation, making it harder to find the posts that include real statements. More discipline would be nice next time. The new title will be announced this weekend, of course. Naturally, the old thread remains open.

Mr. Evil, please go to the RHS META THREAD for any information.

I can see what you mean about the name "RHS". I'd be in favor of discussing alternative names - over in the forum, meta thread. If anyone else has suggestions, post them there. (Put yours there also, Steve, so they won't be forgotten.) Perhaps later on we can take a vote using the poll function?

Cindy, I was lamenting your absence because you're one of the Ellison readers who hasn't adopted his worldview and style of reasoning. The thing is, if you lock Ellison readers into a room to discuss a controversial story of his, major disagreements will be an exception.

Bill,

The closest match I could find was on CATNYP (The Research Libraries Catalog) for the NY Public Library. Perhaps your friend has truncated the title?

Call # JMD 96-268
Author Calado, Carlos, 1956-
Title A Divina comédia dos Mutantes / Carlos Caldo.
Imprint Rio de Janeiro : Editora 34, c1995.

Location PerfArts-Music
Edition 1a ed.
Descript 360 p. : ill ; 23 cm.
Series Coleção Ouvido musical
Note Includes bibliographical references (p. 338) and index.
Discography: p. 339-350.
Subject Mutantes (Rock group)
Rock music -- Brazil -- History and criticism.

Hey, all,

I have a friend looking for the following book:

Os Mutantes by Carlos Calado

He's checked everywhere, all the normal sources. I figured if ANYONE on this planet will know where to get this book, it'll be you guys.

Take care,
Bill

*** Harlan ***
I was just baiting you. Bare baiting that is. ;-)
I guess this means you house didn't slide down the hill. Good.

- B.

The Reading Harlan Ellison Symposium sounds so. . . dry. How about something like. . . The Whimpering Whipped Dogs Club, or the Stag Preston Society, or Edge in Our Voices or the "Let's hang out and talk Unca Harlan's books discussion thread".

How long do discussions last before moving on and when do you announce the new ones?

Just took in "Worlds to Kill" myself. It was a blast (pardon the pun).

JOSEPH FINN:

You don't mean "write the pants off of..."

You mean "write the pants off" ...

No "of." Which is called "schoolgirl grammar" -- a bad bad redundancy. NEVER NEVER say "off of." NOT EVER. (This is about the 1100th time I've written this admonition in this very venue. Gee, I wish someone were listening!)

Welcome back. NOW: PAY CLOSE ATTENTION ...

For the next three years, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, get yourself into a relationship that begins even vaguely to sound, look or smell as if it might lead to a wedding. You will be rebounding, not matter how cleverly you try to fool your survival early-warning system. I am giving you VITAL DATA here, from a man who has been married five times, and who had hundreds of liaisons.

DON'T FEED THE GREMLINS AFTER MIDNIGHT!

DON'T GET INVOLVED MORE THAN CASUALLY WITH A WOMAN!

Trust me on this, Joe. Not for three--count 'em--three years.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Cindy:

That's quite all right, we understand. I'm sure "The Deathbird" has been BANNED ON PAIN OF DEATH from the state of Texas, as being far too toxic for the good citizens of those environs.

(Just kidding.)

BARNEY:

You don't mean "effect things too much," you mean

AFFECT

things too much. One letter different. Two very different meanings, one of which is simply WRONG.

Yr. pal, Harlan

Barney: You don't mean "flaunting," you mean

FLAUTING.

One letter difference. Two very different meanings.

Yr. pal, Harlan

A Brief Return to Share This -
I thought I would add a little bit of wonder to the discussion.

The first photo from Titan. http://www.spaceflightnow.com/cassini/050114pic1.html

We live in amazing times.

And Jan - thanks for the focus. It reminds me of when I first walked into the clubhouse a few years ago.

Oh, Hell.

Jan this is sort of embarrassing-- I ahhh, haven't read The Deathbird.

OKAY skewer me! A pox on me for a dolt!!!!! I haven't read it, I haven't read it-- for the LOVE OF GOD I have never SEEN IT!!!!! I'm unable to contribute on the story du jour because I don't have a copy of it. I am touched that you noticed I wasn't in the throng, but now I feel like the only kid on the block without a Stingray...

Sigh,

;(
Cindy

JOSEPH FINN, where the hell you been?

Jan:

Mine is good to go, so I can start anytime, if you like.

Any volunteer for making the next list at the appropriate time?
Frank, everyone who didn't make it on the list will be on top of the next list. It would be useless to add more names to the current list because we're booked out, so to speak, until May.
Mary, I was just trying to understand what's going on - you don't need to apologize or stick to the title.

I appreciate the thank-you notes, but while ideas come and go, the challenge of keeping the RHS going at the present level of commitment and intelligence we all carry together. It won't always be easy for everyone to arrange, including myself. Sometimes some of us won't be there.

There's two things I would like to point out. It's perfectly fine and helpful to write a post summing up your impressions about the story without having followed the discussion. But if you do participate in the discussion, it's important to pay attention to what has already been said. In a discussion the opinions of people change and develop, and you have to be tuned into that. I guess we're all learning from this. (For example, next time we'll try to have more valid opinions from the get-go.) ;-)

So far we're all very nice to each other and have no major disagreements. That may be so because we're just testing the waters and getting to know each other better. We do have to commit to honesty, though, and one does hope that at some point our symposium reflects the controversial nature of Ellison's work. (For example, I noticed that Cindy hasn't posted.) Anyway, don't be afraid to say your opinions. Just making sure.

I'M BAAAAAACK!!!!!

Yes, your favorite punching bag for Frank Church is back (hi, Frank!) Divorce finally out of the way (and thanks to those who sent supportive e-mails), I'm ready for more arguing and wrangling about why F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the pants off of Ernest Hemingway and other fun stuff.

Jan, what about lil' ol' me?

------------

One big gob of spit on the President.

Just a few real quick notes while everything on my computer is working. First apologies for the double post 2 days ago. Not a flaunting of the rules - I just forgot [damnit] that I had posted about the discussion group earlier in the day. I blame the nap, which apparently didn't help.

Secondly, the discussion group is going gangbusters. I hope Harlan plays, but if he doesn't I think this may not effect things too much as the discussion has been incredibly thoughtful even for this erudite crew. This really is that group that Harlan NEVER gets at cons or on campuses anymore. And remember Harlan, everytime somebody gets it "wrong" just remind yourself that we're not asking you what Auschwitz and Dachau refer to.

Lastly, although I didn't put too much concern into those remarks about CA. rainfall earlier it was because I hadn't really seen the video. Man, everybody is getting hammered this year one way ot the other. So, I just wanted to say that I hope all your stuff is high and dry.

- Barney

Jan: Let me add my voice to those who've congratulated you on the story discussion idea. I'll probably chip in sometime in the coming rounds (points, not story suggestions), but nicely done, sir. Now don't let it go to your head.

Cheers, Jon

My heartfelt condolences on your recent loss, Harlan.

This symposium idea sounds great, and I'm sorry I won't be able to participate for a little while. But I look forward to seeing the results.

J

Adding my voice
The Symposium is a great idea. I'm working on my own entry. Say, can I get on the "next list" for choosing stories?

As for getting hold of the story: The Herc store page may not be entirely current; I have a newer flyer (send Susan an SASE) that says ESSENTIAL is sold out, but as far as I know you can still get DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH, which has all of DEATHBIRD STORIES as well as IHNMAIMS and SHATTERDAY. (all for $20 and you can ever get it signed to you if you have a Herc/Rabbit Hole subscription.)

I suppose ebooks are the future (lot cheaper to publish or republish something that way) but I prefer paper ones - at least for stories like HE's that are worth reading multiple times.

Kristin

Apologies to Jan...I was actually talking about the title I emailed you. I promise to stick to that, honest. I won't cause any instability or confusion (unless asked.)

Big thanks to Jan for the Symposium. "The Deathbird" is possibly my favorite short story of all time, so getting to discuss it with intelligent Ellisonphiles has been incredibly enlightening. I have been posting a lot about this story because it caused me to become both an Ellison fan AND a Webderland denizen, not to mention changing my life in other ways. (I promise to be less prolix in future threads.)

PAB

New TZ '85 Review mentions Harlan

FYI; here's another (somewhat mixed) online review of The Twilight Zone DVD set, posted today at the Film Score Monthly website (www.filmscoremonthly.com) (On Tuesdays they run a regular DVD review column, which also comments on the films' scores.) An excerpt:

"William Friedkin's "Nightcrawlers" is the most impressive visual piece of the series, while Ellison's "Paladin of the Lost Hour" manages to transcend its creaky visuals with a satisfying premise and incisive dialogue.

"Speaking of Ellison, he contributes many fascinating and hilarious commentary tracks throughout Image's box set, no more so than on "Paladin," where he calls director Gil Cates (operating under the "Alan Smithee" pseudonym) a "hack" and talks about how "selfish" star Danny Kaye was during shooting."

Anyway, you can read the entire review at the URL above.

-- Jon

Xanax
I have found this site by accident, but I'm glad I did. Unfortunately, there are little good sites. Your site is very good. Thank you for the opportunity to sign your guest book.

Mental diseases are on alarming rise these days!!!!!! Reasons:: fast paced life style, loss of general society values, rise of individual focus etc. Its sad to see the downfall of humen. The deep chasm between the materilaistic growth and spiritual growth is surely the main reason for all this. There are so called medicines like Xanax, valium, prozac which may probably help give temporary releif to patients suffering from mental ailments. (try visting http://www.buy-xanax-online-now.com if u want them at cheap rates). But does the answer really lie in these medicines??? Probably NO!!...I would advice such patients to help themselves with yoga and meditation. This possibly is the surest way to relieve mental stress.
Regards
Nelson

RHS

It's going quite well. :-)

About getting on the list: Everyone who's not on but wants to be will be on top of the next list, which will be made in a few months by someone we can all rely on. Who'd have expected such a turnout.

About participating: As I said, everyone can *of course* participate, provided that they have *re-read the story*, or have read it recently enough. Yes. We of the Symposium may all be complete fools and make Harlan tear his hair out, should he see something of our theories, but at least we're talking about the same thing, not what memory turned it into.

About posting: Once and for all, PLEASE do not post messages there that are not contributions to the discussion. It kind of interrupts the flow, and much more importantly, if in the future someone who cannot make head or tail of Harlan's stories comes to check out the Symposium threads, he or she surely doesn't want to read about who lost his book. That's the reason. (This will be clearer to newcomers as soon as we can move the threads out of the General disussion area.)

About the announcement dates: I forgot to mention those are all Saturdays. My thinking is this: If we try to announce the titles on Saturday evenings, everyone can be sure the next morning (Sunday) to find them and get going. "Everyone" also includes the Europeans, who are something like 8 to 10 hours ahead. (Uh no, you are 10 hours behind.) But that is just luxury, the real keyword to remember is "weekend".

Mary: Why not stick to the title you gave me? There is enough instability in the world.

Barney: It was nice to read that.

John G, I wouldn't worry too much about locating the stories. The book you have will often be of help (like this week), if people like Mary stick to their titles. Eric, too bad about amazon. I hope you can join us soon.

RHS
Jan - along the lines of John G's question... is it ok for folks (like myself) to dip in and out of the discussion group on an ad-hoc basis, even if we're not on the regular full-time list? I.e., the more the merrier?

Your last post reads like this is the intent (i.e., newcomers), but I thought I'd ask just in case. Hate to be a party crasher...

Thanks,
Peg

Will Eisner continued
He made the top right corner of one of the key Amazon book pages;

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/283155/ref%3Dtab%5Fgw%5Fb%5F3/002-4143884-5733664

or; http://tinyurl.com/5xmgu

which is the equivalent of a VERY LARGE newspaper in terms of literate people spotting it. There is a link to an interview and various editions of his work.

- Barney

Tony, thanks!

"The Deathbird" One I haven't read yet--no time like the present! This group discussion idea was an excellent suggestion! (Now I just have to think of what I'm gonna do on Feb 12th...hmmm...)

Eric, re: availability of Deathbird
Fictionwise may not have it, but if you go to www.ereader.com you will find DEATHBIRD STORIES and several other books by our host; among them are TROUBLEMAKERS, SHATTERDAY, PAINGOD, MEMOS FROM PURGATORY, GENTLEMAN JUNKIE, and DANGEROUS VISIONS. The reader for either Palm OS device or desktop PC is available as a free download, their book prices are reasonable, and there's plenty of good stuff available. I've been buying from them for a little over two years with no problems at all.

Bests,

--tr

To HARLAN and the Webderlanders in Southern California: I hope all of you are safe from the recent dose of heavy-duty rains.

Best,
Mark W.

Jono, can I get on the list?

I might also suggest that when a story is considered the consideror might also give some ideas as to where to find the story--what collection, etc., but also to find out if it's available for purchase at Fictionwise or from Susan as there's a good chance not everyone will have the selected story at hand. I've got quite a few books and magazines but if it's not in "Essential Ellison" it's going to involve enough of a search through the stacks that I'd just as soon buy an e-copy if it's available.

For anyone with the 80's Twilight Zone DVDs - I've only watched the Shatterday episode and listened to both commentaries. Here's an interesting way to view the inner workings of Hollywood:

First, listen to Harlan's commentary. Then, listen to the commentary by with Phil Deguere, Wes Craven and Bennett. You'll hear two interesting takes on the same story.

Hear Harlan relay how pissed he was that Craven allowed Bruce Willis to blow out his voice and ruin everyone's Christmas.

Then hear Craven toss off a mention of how Bruce blew out his voice and, heck, it all worked out in the end.

I could imagine Harlan listening to Craven's take on the story; Susan must have been dusting grinded tooth dust out of the bed for weeks.

-TODD

>>but sometimes you just don't care what the author's opinions are A good work of art transcends its creator's intentions.

Quite so. Writers often don't know why they wrote something, or why it works, when it does. They may intend something but achieve something much finer (although the opposite is probably more often the case). They may end up disliking what everyone else loves.

I remember being terribly disillusioned when I read an interview with Gabriel Garcia Marquez when he all but dismissed _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ by saying he wrote that book in order to get to write the kind of books he WANTED to write. (I think he may have been talking about _The Autumn of the Patriarch_ as being more what he had wanted to do.) John Fowles may get a little tired about all the hue and cry over _The Magus_ year after year; he's fond of it, like an adolescent child, but it's a clumsy and over-earnest book, and he knows it.

It can be even worse for composers, because their work cuts right to the listener's heart, beyond all reason. Tchaikovsky grew to loathe the Nutcraker. Rachmaninoff got sick of people requesting his Prelude in C Minor; after all, he was only a kid of what -- 17? -- when he composed it?

>but sometimes you just don't care what the author's opinions are<

A good work of art transcends its creator's intentions. The views or "reasons" of the writer are interesting, and often clarifying, but they should be considered just another interpretation. One cannot let a writer (or composer, or painter) have the last word on their work, because then the potential truth of the creation is compromised.

the discussion group
Just wanted to say I love how this is going. Because it has STRUCTURE. It's kind of democratic. It's VERY inclusive. And it has a beginning middle and end - sort of. Sure, not everyone will have the time to chime in each week but it certainly offers a way to get this going without anyone feeling herded or being the gorilla - which I think kept this from taking off years ago. It's also the best use of the threaded forum I've seen so far. Hats off. Which if you've seen my dome is a meaningful gesture on a cold day.

- Barney

RHS

1. The discussion group has a name now, it's the READING HARLAN SYMPOSIUM (thanks to jono). This is the order in which people should announce a story or essay of their choice, if it's fine with everyone (yes, the list is that long):

P.A. Berman (done)
Michael Head - Jan 15
Dorman - Jan 22
A.T. Castro - Jan 29
Steve Jarrett - Feb 5
Mary - Feb 12
Bill Gauthier - Feb 19
Todd Cassel - Feb 26
Chuck - Mar 5
Jan - Mar 12
Lonegungirl - Mar 19
Barney Dannelke - Mar 26
Steve Dooner - Apr 2
Rob - Apr 9
Jono - Apr 16
Cindy - Apr 23
Tim Walker - Apr 30

Please remember the dates. If you can't make yours, just switch with someone else and that's that. Those of you who have already chosen a story (yes, at my behest) can change it freely, if chances are slim that somebody else has already picked the new one. Right now there aren't any conflicts. Stories from either volume of Dangerous Visions can be chosen as well. Just remember not to pick the most obscure title you can find, because, my friend, no one else but you has it. Make your announcements here and open a thread in the forums with a little note to newcomers who don't know what's going on. When Rick comes back perhaps he can create a new section in the forum especially for us, but for now we have to use the General section (we can copy and paste our stuff to the new section later to have it more readily available). The question was brought up if novels can be included. Since that requires more reading, I suggest soliciting our opinions before you go ahead. Also, the person among you who has suggested a very long story (which makes it a novella, I guess), may want to reconsider. I think maybe whoever assemles the next list can accomodate longer texts by splitting them into two parts for a two-week discussion. (I have such great ideas.)

2. Since so many of us are getting the TZ set, could we find some way to work together on an episode guide with short comments or something useful like that? Could be used on the website. Just a thought.

3. I think there are some J.M.Jarre listeners here. If anyone has doubts about getting his new record, doubt no more. Music has seldom sounded so good.

There's a review of the _Twilight Zone_ DVDs over at one of my favorite DVD-review sites. The review's at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=13986, and Harlan's commentaries get some nice comments. For example, "In all, there were 22 commentaries with such notables as Harlan Ellison, Philip DeGuere, and Wes Craven to name a few, and they provided far more insight than the usual hack blabbing about nothing," and "With 22 audio commentaries by some of the best writers in the business, I found these to be more interesting than the entire 2002 remake series put together. Ellison’s commentaries alone are wonderful in how he freely admits to his attitudes about how things went and his fans should consider this set a “must have” for those alone. His episodes stood out really nicely but others were just as good much of the time with Craven and DeGuere pointing out a lot of facts that I’d have otherwise missed." Guess I gotta buy it now.

On a more personal note... I finally got my ass in gear enough to actually _submit_ that children's book to a publisher. Well, okay, I sent out a query letter, but it's sort of required now. But I'm amazed that just a _query letter_ gives me stage-fright jitters. But, since I don't have an agent, that's what I gotta do.

(Heck, I'm amazed I get stage fright in the first place. I know that there's no _real_ risk in being a bit public, and I figure, the more I do it, the easier it'll get... but while some people thrive on adrenaline, it gives me something like vertigo. It kind of gives me an insight into fear, in a way; I don't _like_ the sensation, but I don't see it as a mark of bravery or anything. It's kind of like an allergy to me.)

The Discussion Group
Imminent travel will keep me away from this for a couple of weeks, but I will participate later on...

Great, the one Ellison story I never read. Guess it is about time I did my duty then.

I do hear it is a good un.

Yahoo.

Just Musing...

I'm rereading first. It has been a few years.

If I might, I'm taking the tack of not reading the thread Jan is suggesting until after I've posted my thoughts on the tale suggested, and will write my post in my Wordpad, rather than structure it in the thread. That way, I'm not going to worry about overlap with other's points of consideration. I've always found it interesting to see where my perceptions compare to those of others.

It also gives me the feeling that my ideas aren't being altered by prior posts, a bit of a pain in editing.

GROUP DISCUSSION # 1
"The Deathbird"

This story was suggested by our friend Berman.

A thread in the GENERAL section of the forums will be opened immedeately, and you can start putting your thoughts in there. After you have read or re-read the story. Anyone who has done so is invited to participate. Let's see how it goes. :-)

As to what I think the procedure should be from now on: The discussion will shift to a new story every weekend, based on the order the suggestions came in (with one sensible exception). Everyone should announce the story he has chosen him- or herself (or have it announced) on the dates I will provide shortly. I think it's good to make the announcements on weekends, because most of us may have a little extra time for reading then. So far I've fourteen people and fourteen stories on the list. That's three months' worth of potential discussion right there.

Please check if you're on the list:
P.A., Michael, Castro, Dorman, Steve, Mary, Bill, Todd, Chuck, Jan, Lonegungirl, Barney, Steve, Rob.

This is the order the stories will be read in. You can change your story titles anytime by sending me a notice. The only possible problem is that someone else who comes after you has already chosen the same one. In a few months a new list will be compiled by someone else, so if you weren't quick enough to get on this one, just be patient.

HARLAN, please indicate whether you'd like to suggest a story title as well. If so, I will leave a slot open for you.

And off we go to check out the old chestnut... :-)

Jan's Story Forum
Jan - wonderful idea - count me in. I'll write to you in a moment....

Thanks
Rob

Jan,

I'm in. I sent two suggestions, one for a novel, but if you don't want to do books, I also suggested a short story.

Say, did you all know there's a bi-weekly sitcom running here in Colorado? It's done on stage. It's titled, "Magnets on the Fridge", and it's about neighborhood book discussion group.

What you pay at the door depends on the outcome of a game of 3-card monty. What card you pick determines whether you pay $5, $6 or $7. The title for the next episode's book is written by audience members on slips of paper and then picked out of a lunchbox at the end of that night's episode.

Chuck

Well, not an HE question, but one about Alfred Bester which the brain trust here may be helpful with.

In "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed," Bester uses what I understand as being a central tenet of Islam in regards to cause-and-effect as part of the 'twist' or paradox in the story. Can anyone think of any earlier sf stories that use Islam in this sort of way -- as a source for speculation and cosmology in a science fictional milieu, if you will -- or was Bester blazing a trail in this as well as in so many other things?

If you don't want to clog the board, just use my email address, btw.

Cheers, Jon

Hey Jan,

A great idea! I know that "On the Downhill Side" has already been given awards, but I've never talked with anybody about it ever. I love the use of the "familiar" and I am very interested in hearing what people think this story actually says about love.

It might also serve to read "Grail" alongside this story.

Steve

Jan, if done right, and if it can last, this will be a worthwhile use of the forum and this board. It would be interesting to find a way to bring some level of the results to this Pavilion; I'm sure we can think of something (a daily/weekly summary of some interesting comments?). This way, discussion of Harlan's work can be brought to both areas.

I've sent you an email, with a suggestion of a gutpunch of an Ellison tale. No, it's not from my all time favorite book whose anniversary edition a await with the patience of a saint....but it's probably the best story Harlan has written since the 70's.

Hope it's touched on some day.

-TODD

Discussion group and odds and ends.
I would like to be a part of the discussion group although I'm going to be hanging back when it comes to what anything "means".

I would choose The Deathbird over A Boy and His Dog simply because ABAHD was written about here lately with the iBooks re-release of the combined material - so far, whereas The Deathbird keeps getting stuck on everybody's Ellison top 10 without really getting written about all that much. If it ends up being THE Deathbird I'll try and keep my Twain remarks to a minimum.

In general my preferences would be to discuss those stories that have the least amount of wraparound material. Not that I don't enjoy Harlan's remarks - in fact, it's safe to say when I was younger I frequently enjoyed the remarks more than the stories. Now I sometimes go the other way. I think the British are wrong to consider the remarks "intrusive" as was the case with the UK edition of Shatterday - but sometimes you just don't care what the author's opinions are. This is probably one of the many signposts on my journey towards complete calcification. ;-)

I'd love to have a reason to do a close re-read of some of the stories in ANGRY CANDY or SLIPPAGE. And Just Off the Islets of Langerhans, etc. is a personal favorite. Another request is the one with "Red Queens Race" in the title. Please forgive me, it's 3 floors away as I type this. So, yes, please count me in, short of ham handed interpretation.

************************************************************

I transferred edited remarks to the Eisner memorial page. Thank you for the heads up on that. After my remarks on the 5th I turned on CNN and he had bumped up from newscrawl status to a 30 second spot at the bottom of the half hour. He should have gotten the send off Charles Schultz did at the very least but it was still nice considering he probably never put real coin in the Time/Warner money vault. Unless you run a country, media obits go to people who make media money.

**************************************************************

Well, that's a dpressing thought so I'll end on a foolishly optimistic note - Go Packers!!!

- Barney

Dingygreysky, PA.

I will not misspell APPARENTLY...I will not misspell APPARENTLY...I will not misspell APPARENTLY...I will not misspell APPARENTLY...I will not misspell APPARENTLY...I will not misspell APPARENTLY...I will not misspell APPARENTLY...

Harlan interview for Barnes & Noble
Folks-- In late 1997, I interviewed Harlan for the launch of www.barnesandnoble.com I've moved thrice since then and misplaced my copy of the transcript, and apparantly B&N has taken the interview down. If anyone has a copy, I'd be most appreciative.

Jan:

Sent suggestion to your email--I'm in! Looking foward to many interesting discussions!

Jan:

Sent discussion idea earlier.

Can't talk more; getting nookie.

If I'm not back in a week, I died a happy man.

Evening, folks. Was just over at comingsoon.net and read a story that Fox has optioned a spec script entitled "Orphan's Dawn." Check out the story yourselves for particulars, but sounds to me like shades of "Starlost..."

Guys... thanks, but the idea was to keep the suggestions SECRET, they will be revealed one by one each week (by whoever has the list in a given period). We don't want to know NOW and don't NEED to know what story we'll discuss in two months' time, and we don't want to know WHY a suggestion is made, either. You're responsible for your choice and no one will question it. It's on a first, come first serve basis. I hope we can have general agreement on this, and I'm sorry I didn't make it clear enough what I intended. Isn't it better this way?

I would like to suggest A Boy and His Dog.

I think it's cool to pick a story regularly.

I e-mailed Jan about being involved in the discussion group. I hope we can talk about "The Deathbird," because Jim Davis and I were discussing the possibility of a gnostic theme in the story and were wondering what Harlan and others think of that.

Looking forward to this group!

PAB

Story suggestion
I absolutely adored "The End of the World As We Know It," by Dale Bailey, a few months ago in F & SF.

If you want an Ellison story, I would say let's be difficult and go for (title may not be accurate): "Alive and Well on a Friendless Voyage."

(And I still wanna see that sequel to Santa Claus Vs. Spider, but, you know, I have very real appreciation of how unhelpful nudging is.)

So far we're in four, and this board seems pretty empty, too. Where is everyone? I'm waiting for more names (your aliases), and do send only one story title for now. We need a preliminary list of stories/essays to work from, and people willing to dust off their books. We can always stop later and say that was way too tough and demanding.

Again, this is supposed be fun. The story is supposed to do the real work, we just have to speak it out. No one is expected to write a full appraisal of a story or to do it complete justice. Everyone (and that includes Harlan himself, of course) contributes what he or she feels like, if it's one sentence, that's fine, perhaps someone will pick up on it.

Great Idea Jan.

This is one of the reasons I check in so often to this forum. What's the first story to read? Good Goobuhley Goo, there's a lot to choose from.

JAN:

I think it's a super idea. May I also play?

Harlan

A couple of years ago, in my high school english lit. class, my substitute teacher asked everyone what they felt was the most tragic event in Hamlet. Most answered Ophelia's descent into madness, her brother losing his family and then being used by the king, or Hamlet's death. My teacher wasn't very impressed with my answer, but I still believe it's true today. For me it was two words uttered by the ghost to Hamlet. . ."Remember me". Because in the end, that is all we can do for those we loved, and all we can hope for in return.

http://www.legacy.com/eastvalleytribune/Guestbook.asp?Page=Guestbook&PersonID=3004402

The above is a link to a guestbook honoring Mr. Eisner.

God, what can I say about the passing of Mr. Eisner that hasn't been said here already? Back in the Seventies, THE SPIRIT was the only James Warren publication I could bring myself to buy, basically the only one that wasn't almost total garbage.
I saw a flag flying at half-mast today. Think it was for Will?

Will Eisner

i just read on Neil Gaiman's site the results of Neil's suggestion of:

"a spot on the willeisner.com site where friends, fans, etc. could leave a comment or share a memory. Just wanted to let you know that we had done that. It can be found at:

http://willeisner.com/condolences/ .

Respectfully,

Neal

Group discussion
A good day to you all! How would we feel about a more "systematic" discussion of Ellison's works, in addition to all that's already going on around here? The basic idea is that each week we could chose a story to talk about, so everyone who wants to participate in the discussion can read it at the same time, and then we can discuss it - what we like or dislike about it, what we feel it's about, what strikes us about the writing, what parts work or don't work and why, what it reminds us of, and whatever else comes to mind. Fully-fledged reviews are not required here, it's to be about collecting impressions and possibly gaining new insights that way.

Obviously this should go on in the forum, with just the story anncouncements in here. The threads could be called "GROUP DISCUSSION: [story title]" as a general rule. Although not everyone always has every story at disposal or time to discuss it, we should put together a list of more or less steady participants, so we can take turns chosing a story. The occasional non-Ellison story could be included from Dangerous Visions or similar collections many of us have.

The thing to remember is that even if we have read the story in the past, we should read it again for the occasion. We want to avoid relying on vague memories and not really being on the same page with everyone else. I also feel we should move at the speed of one story a week, so the discussions are closed before we talk a story to death.

How does everyone feel about it, and what else must be sorted out before we start? We need to be more than a handful of people because in any given week not everyone may feel like rereading a particular story or essay.

If everyone likes the idea, I hope we can get this started soon. Send me your NAME to my above address along with one STORY suggestion (or essay, but no obscure titles), then we can immedeately start going down the list as soon as everyone's ready. Opinions?

Jan

Man, I don't know where I am, but recently I only hear about passages when I check in here. I listen to the news, but it's mostly vacuous people nattering about the rain.

Oh Eisner...I think he's the only person to whom I ever actually wrote a fan email. Then I thought "what a dork I am--like he's ever going to look at crap like that," which accounted for my dumbfoundedness when he wrote back a thank-you. What a nice man, and a phenomenal talent.

I am so sorry for you, HE, as I am for all of us, that we will so strongly miss him.

I was getting excited about Chadwick's new CONCRETE project when I heard about Kelly Freas...

Then I was sketching out ideas for a "get well" card for Eisner when I heard about him...

I'm not going to preach to the choir about what these men meant to their craft and those that came after them, I just wanted to add my sentiments.

The closest thing I have to a new years resolution is to be mindful of my brush and try never to cheapen the narrative art these giants helped add legitimacy to.

It seems selfish in light of global tragedy, but it stings nonetheless.

Sorry
Hello all. Thanks, Alex, for the heads up about my last post. Won't happen again. From now on, just the link, when I have a good one.

To steal a riff from Doug, I've choked down a good Whitman sampler of angry candy this past few months with all the local announcements of great spirits passing and lamenting them at length while in the background 150,000+ souls were literally swept off the face of the Earth.

I'm done reading the obituaries for a while and while I'm not saying anyone is wrong to post or not post or taking any position on anyone's "right" to say whatever, I'm just a little - no, I'm REALLY burned out reading about who we've lost when there are so many lives out there worth celebrating with equal joy and passion.

I'll be back, so this isn't the latest Rolling Stones/Cher Farewell Tour announcement. I'm gonna go visit my parents for a bit and catch up on the stuff I thought I'd have all the time in the world to learn. Then, I'm going to spend some time with my children. And then I'm going to the doctor. It's about fucking time.

Be well.

a question and a comment
I imagine one or several of the folks hanging around these environs will know the answer to this. I was reading the opening essay in the opening issue of PS Publishing's spiffy magazine, "Postscripts." It's by Christopher Fowler, and in it he mentions that his first graphic novel for DC was one that no American reader, save Harlan Ellison, understood. Fowler didn't mention the title, however. Can anyone confirm that it's MENZ INSANA? And if any of y'all have read it, what's it like?

With the passing of Mr. Eisner, I thought it of note that someone else just died who perhaps had more significance for the mothers of the boys who huddled under the covers devouring Will's work: the inventor of the Bundt cake pan. Sounds a little corny, I know, but the history of the pan is actually rather interesting. Check out http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/5171410.html, and note the origin of the word "Bundt." It seems appropos to this site, somehow.

Cheers.

Adam-Troy, Mike Resnick and James Palmer
Adam-Troy, congrats on making the preliminary Nebula ballot with "The Tangled Strings of the Marionettes." Good luck on making the final cut!

And if Mike Resnick's still around, congrats, Mike, on getting onto the ballot with "Travels With my Cats."

James, I know you meant well with the Kelly Freas obit, but Rick really, really, REALLY likes us to avoid posting copyrighted material here. A word to the wise.

Will Eisner 06/03/1917 - 01/03/2005
I never had the honor of speaking to Mr. Eisner, but I was able to hear him speak several times at the San Diego Comic-Con, and I've certainly been moved,influenced, and inspired by his work.

Harlan, my condolences.

Here are two links to different NPR audios:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4259517
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4266952

Kelly Freas obit
This has probably been read by everyone here, but I thought I'd post it just in case someone hasn't seen it. I got it via the Dragon*Con announcement list.

By TIM MOLLOY
Associated Press Writer
Published January 3, 2005, 2:03 PM CST

LOS ANGELES -- Kelly Freas, an influential illustrator who produced
sleek, stirring images for science fiction and fantasy books and
helped shape the image of Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E. Newman, has
died. He was 82.

Freas died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, said his
wife of 16 years, Laura Brodian Freas, the host of a Los Angeles
classical music program. The cause of death was old age, she said.

"He always wanted to be a science fiction illustrator, and the life
of a science fiction illustrator led him to so much more," she told
The Associated Press on Monday. "Life with a Mad artist was never
boring."

In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Freas illustrated the
covers or the pages of books by writers including Isaac Asimov,
Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, A.E. Van Vogt, Poul Anderson and
Frederik Pohl.

His science fiction and fantasy illustrations included emotive images
of pained robots, insidious aliens and exotic women.

Beginning in the 1950s, he spent seven years as the main cover artist
of Mad Magazine, creating stylishly detailed portraits and helping to
make famous Alfred E. Newman, the freckled, front-tooth-deprived
purveyor of the phrase, "What? Me Worry?"

"Kelly Freas created the future in his paintings, sleekly delineating
a style that has influenced two generations of designers as the
technology became available to make his fantasies real," said Paul
Levitz, the President of DC Comics, which publishes Mad
Magazine. "And with the impish grin he gave Alfred, he winked and
warned us not to take it all too seriously."

His other illustrations included the official patch of NASA's 1973
Skylab 1 orbiting space station, as well as the covers of such Mad
paperbacks as "Son of Mad" and "Ides of MAD."

Freas (pronounced "freeze") also created the cover of Queen's 1977
album "News of the World," and a picture of a werewolf that appeared
in the movie "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."

Born on Aug. 27, 1922, in Hornell, N.Y., Frank Kelly Freas
demonstrated artistic talent at an early age. In the late 1930s, he
attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, where he received a Doctor
of Arts in 2003.

While serving in the Pacific theater in World War II in photo
reconnaissance, he passed his spare time painting beautiful women on
the noses of bomber airplanes.

Freas started as a commercial illustrator, but soon moved on to
science fiction and fantasy illustrations. He illustrated
publications including Analog and Weird Tales or Astounding Science
Fiction.

Among his awards, Freas received 11 Hugo awards for his achievements
in science fiction, five of them awarded in consecutive years.

Besides his wife, Freas is survived by a daughter, son, and six
grandchildren.

Requiscat in Pace, Kelly and Will. We'll see you at that big Convention in the sky.

Will Eisner
Obviously, Mr. Eisner has been tapped as a permanent guest at the same Eternal Comic Book/Science Fiction Convention that invited Julie Schwartz last year. It's an impressive guest list. I just wish I had more opportunity to speak and meet with them in THIS realm. Ah, well, someday, when I'm finished here, I'll book a room at that convention hotel and have an incredible time.

Will Eisner
He will no doubt be eulogized, over the next few days, as the creator of THE SPIRIT, a summary that absolutely omits the rich and vibrant work he has been producing over the past couple of decades.

It was my great pleasure to meet him once, only two years ago, and speak to him at length. I was a gibbering fanboy in his presence. But he was an artist in the capital-a sense of the word, and a true gentleman. I already admired him, but it took me no time at all to like him.

He had been announced as the contributor of a story featuring Michael Chabon's character The Escapist. He also has a new graphic novel coming out, supposed to be one of his most controversial: THE PLOT, about the forged "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

Losing Kelly Freas and Will Eisner in this short period of time is a major one-two punch. Dammit Dammit Dammit.

Harlan: condolences on your loss.

Eisner addendum
Sorry - just had this handed to me. For anyone who would like to see Eisner talking about his work there is this Realplayer video available through the Library of Congress;

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/eisner.html

Caroline and Erwin Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon
WILL EISNER ON THE GRAPHIC NOVEL

If for any reason that doesn't work the path is;
http://www.loc.gov/

then click Research Centers - Prints and photographs - Swann Foundation for Caricature and Cartoon - Events in Caricature and Cartoon and the Eisner Cybercast link is halfway down the page. I mention all this because it'll take you past some of the other nifty things the Library of Congress has out there.

- Barney

I refuse to mourn Will Eisner. For one thing, his wife said he hated funerals.

I am sad _only_ for his friends and family, who no longer have him in their lives.

I'm not sad that his particular genius will not exist in this world. That's because Eisner's works will _continue_ to enhance, brighten, and illuminate our world. Ther will always be new readers for The Spirit, A Contract with God, Fagin the Jew, and all the rest. We are _not_ poorer without Eisner now. We're just not _richer_ than we are already.

I'm not sad because his genius _was_ recognized, and honored, and respected by all those who understand what he did... when he was alive, and could enjoy it, and even use it to reward those young'uns with merit.

I'm not sad because of the legions of creators who learned from him, and whose works continue to enhance our lives.

But really, I'm not sad because Will Eisner spent a long and productive life creating art, expanding his skills, encouraging newcomers, shaping our minds, and, in general, living as good a life as any of us can hope for. His example reminds us that such lives are not merely "possibilities."

Lives such as Will Eisner's are _real_, and if there's anything more hopeful than that fact, I can't think of it.

I just wanted to add my condolences. They both seemed like great guys. A friend of mine had this to say about Will Eisner yesterday -

"I met him twice, both times in Angouleme, but saw him on many other occasions (SPX, San Diego). I was always amazed at his genuine curiosity. At an age at which many are content to sit on their laurels, he continued to challenge himself and sought to expand his horizons."

Since I honestly can't think of anything nicer to say about a person than that I'm just going to bow my head and back away.

- Barney

When my grandfather died in August of 1995, I had just moved to a new town and didn't have friends to lean on. It was the stories in an accidentally discovered book, Angry Candy, that helped me cry through that loss. I hope Harlan has someone who can speak to him as he speaks to others.

-------------------------------------------------------

At various times on this board, the topic of the death penalty has come up. Harlan made some interesting comments in November regarding his views, and I recently defended Texans' reputation on the point. Court TV will show The Exonerated on January 27th at 9pm e/p. As I've said before, no matter what side of the debate you are on, you should try to see this. Check out courttv.com for details.

Nice article in today's Washington Post about Mr. Eisner by Paul Fitzgerald. Good to see that Mr. Eisner's passing has not gone unremarked by the "mainstream" media.

Will Eisner's work is beautiful.

Naiki

Damnit.
I'm too stupified to say much of anything. We all know the contribution that Will Eisner made to the world.
This place called Earth just got a good bit
worse off.

Harlan, you have my condolances.

I don't know what I can add that others haven't said. I'm sorry, Harlan. It just seems so unfair, just when you thought someone was going to live, you lose them anyway. Even when they're really old, even when the odds are against them...death always comes too soon.

At least you got to speak to him one last time. I can't imagine what it's like to have lived through heart surgery oneself and know "there but for fortune/the grace of god" (whatever) "go I" - yes there was a considerable difference in age, but it was a close thing.

The year is getting off to a sucky start for comics people.

What do I know, I'm just a 40 year old kid.

My condolences.

Kristin

I'd like to add my condolences as well. Mr. Eisner was the one who woke me up to the idea that comic books could be different.

Chuck

Thank you all.

If I'm not around for a while, you'll understand.

Harlan

The news
My wife was just now checking her email on Yahoo! and she asked me "Who is Will Eisner?" The first thing I said was "What happened?" I had heard the news about him going to the hospital for a procedure that over the years has become much easier to recover from, but it didn't make the news any less crappy.

I never met him. I did write an email to him once just saying in one line how much I have admired his work. He replied and said thanks. Of all of the comic pros I've written to and heard back from his response was the most amazing to me. Not because he was a nice guy who replied, but because he was WILL EISNER (the caps are intentional) who replied to a dumb guy from Indiana.

I'm not only sorry for Harlan who has lost a dear friend, I'm sorry for the rest of us who have lost an inspiration.

Tony

Hi Harlan,

Condolences for another loss. I wish the best for Mr. Eisner and his friends and family and hope his passing was a quick one. Not a good way to begin a new year.

FAQ

I just found out about Mr. Eisner as I was leaving the bookstore. My condolensces, Harlan.

Bill

Amen, and amen.

Eisner, Freas
It's been a bad time for art, losing these two giants so close to each other. I had hopes that Eisner would pull through, hopes, I'm sure, many others here shared. I'd just sent the publicist at Norton an interview request regarding "The Plot." Now we know it's the last new work we'll see from his agile pen. Alas.

In an online chat* I arranged with Eisner back in 1996, he was asked how he'd like to be remembered. He said, "I really don't know how I want you all to know me, simply that I came by here, and perhaps left a footprint."

He left far more than one.

But I can't say I really knew him. I only spoke to him at length that one time, over the phone, and, very briefly, at a few conventions over the years. Still, this leaves a big hole in my life. G'bye, Mr. Eisner.

Freas, now, him I knew a bit better. We were only acquaintances, but we shared a few sit-downs. Still, oddly, we never really talked about art. Funny, that. He was a gent, and in many ways an underrated talent...such is the fate of the "commercial artist."

*For those who would like to read the old Eisner chat, it's at http://community.compuserve.com/n/docs/docDownload.aspx?webtag=ws-literary&guid=615a2a5f-7d57-481f-a186-e55e196c3206

Every time a major talent and good person dies it's also and probably most importantly a reminder to appreciate even more the ones who are still around.

A thank you to Tony and Castro for the story recommendations, you're doing me a big favor. I have already read BRIGHT SEGMENT a while back and thought it was fantastic. I have only three of the other stories, despite having many collections, but will have more.

Will Eisner is...WAS...one of the few men in the world that had every legitimate right to be called an artistic prodigy. The vast phalanx of up-and-coming 21st century artists have very big shoes to fill.

R.I.P., sir.

Harlan,

My condolences, Mr.Eisner was one of THE greats.

Anthem

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.
Ah the wars they will
be fought again
The holy dove
She will be caught again
bought and sold
and bought again
the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs
the signs were sent:
the birth betrayed
the marriage spent
Yeah the widowhood
of every government --
signs for all to see.

I can't run no more
with that lawless crowd
while the killers in high places
say their prayers out loud.
But they've summoned, they've summoned up
a thundercloud
and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring ...

You can add up the parts
but you won't have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.

Harlan,

I'm sorry for your loss, Harlan. We know something of what Will Eisner meant to you because you have spoken so beautifully about him over the years.

Steve Dooner

I don't like these situations. It hurts too much, it's too fucking close.

I'm so sorry. I don't know what it like to lose someone of such success and notoriety, but I do know how it feels to lose a friend. I get that coldness, right in the seat of being.

In that, Harlan, you have my sadness and pity.

It's hardly original to say, but Will Eisner was an innovative giant in his realm, just like Charlie Parker, Orson Welles and Lenny Bruce were in theirs. Even if you weren't an afficianado of The Spirit, you have to recognize the liberating influence he had on later generations of comics artists. Without him, the whole notion of the "graphic novel" would either not exist, or would have taken far longer to bloom into the vital art form it is today.

I'm sorry you didn't get to talk to your friend one last time, Harlan.

My condolences, Harlan.

Mark Evanier has a nice piece on Will Eisner up on his site, www.newsfromme.com, by the way.

Jon

Will Eisner
In addition to all the extremely well-justified comments about his work, it's also worth noting that Mr. Eisner was a true gentleman. I had the pleasure and honor of chatting briefly with him a few times at various San Diegos, and his kindness, generosity, and enthusiasm for comics in general always stood out. I've never heard or read of any creator or fan having a bad encounter with him. His loss is a tragedy both for the work he'll no longer be creating (and his recent works were still at his consistent over 60+ years high level) and for a good person no longer being around.

HARLAN: I'm deeply sorry about the passing of your friend, Mr. Eisner. I know a loss such as this takes a lot out of you, so I wanted to wish you the strength to see the days ahead through.

I share Alejandro's sentiment: we should also remember the great gift Mr. Eisner gave us and how his work enriched our lives.

Mark W.

Aw, Will...

When I spoke to you in the hospital last week, you said call me at home in a couple of days, they'll be letting me out of here, and we said I love you to each other.

I was going to call you today.

Neil Gaimann called early this morning, woke me, to tell me.

Aw, Will...

Goodbye.

Yr. pal...

Oh Harlan,
I'm so sorry about your friend.

Cindy

Will Eisner R.I.P.
Neil Gaiman just posted some very beautiful thoughts about Eisner's passing in his journal.

Let us not cry but rejoice at his legacy. The world is a much better place thanks to that legacy.

Alejandro

I know, I know, two posts--but I forgot to include the link to the story:
http://www.newsarama.com/pages/Eisner.htm

I'll go out on the limb and say that this is NOT a loss. Rather, our having Will at all is a great, graet gain. For sixty-eighty-plus of his eighty-seven years, here was a man who was doing what he loved, even to the end. He revolutionized an entire medium, and never stood still or rested on his laurels.

He was called a "living legend." Well, the legend still lives.

Will Eisner gone? It doesn't seem possible. The man was an institution, as much a part of comics as the ink and paper. This is a sad day not just for comicbook fans but for anyone who appreciated a good story well told.

Stacy

Will Eisner dies at 87
Bob Andelman, author of WILL EISNER: A SPIRITED LIFE reports that:

"Legendary comics and graphic novel artist and writer Will Eisner died last night, Monday, January 3, 2005, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the age of 87, following complications from quadruple heart bypass surgery. "

AND:

And Eisner’s final — and likely most controversial — graphic novel, The Plot, finished last summer, will be published this spring by W.W. Norton.

Will Eisner was the wizard behind the curtain, except in his case, the magic was real.

There will be no funeral service, per Will’s wishes. “Will and I hated funerals,” his wife, Ann, said the morning after his death. “We made plans long ago to avoid having them ourselves.” He will be buried next to his late daughter, Alice, who died in 1969. Surviving Will are his wife, Ann, and his son, John.

Cards may be sent to:
Will Eisner Studios
8333 W. McNab Road
Tamarac, FL 33321

Unofficially, in lieu of flowers, you might consider a donation in Will’s name to the American Cancer Society — his daughter died of cancer — or the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which Will was known to have supported.

(Apologies. Theis quoted portion of my previous posting disappeared in e-mailing.)

Will Eisner passes away at age 87
WILL EISNER- biographer Bob Andelman reports that:



This is a tremendous loss. Will Eisner was still amazingly productive at the age of 87, continually breaking new ground in the areas of graphic novels and visual storytelling. We would have been perfectly happy to see Will bat out new Spirit stories, but Eisner insisted on breaking new ground for the art form he had helped create seven decades ago. I mourn not only for the wonderful man but also for the additional stories we will never see.

Will Eisner
I just received notice from The Comics Buyers' Guide that Will Eisner passed away last night in Fort Lauderdale,Fl. Anyone else hear about his death?

A-TC,
You mentioned that your review of The Twilight Zone episodes would be up in a few weeks on scifiweekly.com. Can you let us know on this forum if you get any dates or more specific timeframe?

Couple of comments regarding The 80's Twilight Zone. I haven't watched all of them just yet, but I think it's safe to say that the mid-80's really weren't banner years for fashion. I guess it's inevitable that some episodes would be outdated now, but a couple in particular of the 12+ or so that I've watched are almost unbearable in their awfulness: "Little Boy Lost" and "A Little Peace and Quiet" for example, though I don't even know where to begin to start with the sentimental crap that "Little Boy Lost" was. (There's just so much wrong with that episode...anyways, time to move on.) To be expected in an anthology show to be sure, but I mention that only because the show was touted as a writer's show and the bad ones are that much more glaring in relation to the good ones.

Which brings me to "Paladin of the Lost Hour", by far the best I've seen so far and listening to HE's commentary, it strikes me that it could've been so much better with a more capable director and generous star. I saw A-TC's recommendations when he posted here so I'm gonna check those out also, but I'm wondering if the best way to view these is in the order they were aired. Yeah, I can jump around to the interesting ones or ones I remember with fondness, but if I watch all the good ones up front, then what have I got to look forward to?

My only real complaint (as opposed to the opinions of the two segments mentioned above) is the quality of the video. CBS should've gone back and done a little restorative work as the video quality of something like "Nightcrawlers" turns out to be a detriment to the story. Even "Gramma" suffers to a large extent because of the video quality.

So far, though, I'm enjoying them (even the not-so great ones---except for "Little Boy Lost" which sucked. I'm bordering on irrational over this segment so I'll move on again) and think all the commentaries are informative and entertaining. Good stuff.

Shit shit shit shit.

Will Eisner passed.

Has anyone had a chance to see the film "Code 46"? I was
surprised to find that an intelligent science fiction movie
had actually been produced within the last couple of years
(barring ones I haven't seen). It is without all of the requisite laser-blasts and block busting multicolored explosions we're typically exposed to in the genre. In fact, there is little in the way of special effects in the film at all except a few that create ambience. Despite this, it creates a believable world in which the main characters deal with everyday reality and with a problem they create themselves within the constraints of the near-future world in which they find themselves. I mention the film to see what folks here thought of it and to point it out to others who may not have seen it. The latter group could be a large audience since it undoubtably received little notice through the general media. It stars Tim Robbins and Samantha Morton. It was directed by Michael Winterbottom.
I won't preview it any further since I don't want to spoil it. It's out on video as of very recently. Enjoy it. I did.

Happy new year folks.

This is the best I can do for a postcard but a happy new year to everyone. I'm currently in Karachi working and helping develop five shorts here. Currently enjoying the view from my hotel balcony and then being told I'm on, what locals call the Bomber's Triangle. So called for the frequency of suicide bombers thwarted in their attempt to bomb my hotel, the American Consultate, the British High Consul, etc. etc. etc.

Otherwise. Bliss. Hope the sames for ya all.

FAQ

Sturgeon & Ellison
Messrs. Sturgeon and Ellison penned the story "Runesmith" together. I see the database on this site lists the story as having first appeared in the May 1970 issue of "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction." I ran across it in "Realms of Fantasy" several months ago, although it doesn't look like RoF's web site lists that particular issue for sale anymore.

Sturgeon
I would add "Saucer of Loneliness" (beautifully filmed on the '80s TWILIGHT ZONE) and "Vengeance Is." (written BEFORE the AIDS crisis, believe it or not.)

Sturgeon, et. al.
Jan,

I'll second Mitch's recommendation of E Pluribus Unicorn. And be sure to find the following stories:
"Bright Segment," "The Graveyard Reader," "Hurricane Trio," "The Widget, the Wadget, and Boff," "Slow Sculpture," "Suicide," "When You Care, When You Love," "It," "Maturity," "Killdozer," "Thunder and Roses." North Atlantic is publishing Sturgeon's complete short fiction, and the next volume, The Man Who Lost the Sea, should be out in another week. Give yourself a treat & get 'em all.


Any Fredric Brown fans out there might want to check out www.blackmask.com -- they're doing paperback reprints of a number of Brown's mysteries. Pricy (10-15 bucks each at Barnes & Noble's site), but the ebooks in Adobe Reader format are only a buck each. These folks also have an ebook of Gerald Kersh's Prelude to a Certain Midnight.


Bests to all

--tr

Jan - RE: Sturgeon
"By the way, can anyone recommend any Sturgeon short stories? I don't know where to start."

Find a copy of "E. Pluribus Unicorn". Don't be put off by the title; it's got some terrific, chilling stuff inside.

Is Harlan Jehovah?

Since there seems to be no end to minutiae with which we will burden Harlan, is it just possible that HE is Jehovah?

Seeing him deal with everything brought to him here, I start to think that every grain of sand really is numbered and that the fall of every sparrow is heard afterall. Endlessly, we bring our supplications to him and our petitions, and unlike other divinities, HE answers them.

Just a thought.

Steve "acolyte" Dooner

Comment Found
I'm a follower of the TV show "The Amazing Race" (pretty much the only "reality"-type show I watch and defend); noted here because this article about the show makes a brief reference to "The Glass Teat"

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/articles/1318016.html

Jan S: Harlan commented at length about Dylan sometime in the last two years, and possibly around February 2002 in the Pavillion. Go to the archives and use your web browser's 'Find' function and you should run across HE's comments in fairly short order.

Cheers, Jon

Yes, 2004 was in many ways a year of pain.

Shirley Chisholm. Kelly Freas. Jerry Orbach. Reggie White. Jack Chalker barely out of a coma, permanently disabled. Son Seals. Arthur hailey. Cy Coleman. Christopher Reeve. Richard Avedon. Fred Ebb. Julia Child. Marlon Brando. Ray Charles. Elvin Jones. Tony Randall. Alan King. Pat Tillman. Hubert Selby. Alistair Cooke. Peter Ustinov. Jack Paar. Captain Kangaroo. Spalding Gray.

Nine hundred six American soldiers in Iraq and anywhere from five thousand to twn thousand Iraqi civilians, with more only to come.

The further eroding of American civil rights and American government's ethical direction.

The requisite number of ongoing civil wars and atrocities which, sadly, we may count on in each and every year.

Capped off by the worst earthquake since 1964 which led to the
worst natural disaster in half a century.

And many of us had bad years on a personal level, as well.


But in the midst of the pain and the deaths, I look instead at the good. There were births of those who will later become greats like those we have lost. Books were written, films were made--some of them even good.
We have developed the first potential diagniostic test for ALS, Lou Gehrig's Disease. We have discovered what may be the oldest use of controlled fire by humans, from three-quarters of a million years ago.
For the first time, cloned human embryos yielded stem cells. Scientists have created molecular computers out of DNA--TRILLIONS of which can be contained in a single drop of water--which may in time help us to treat cancer on a cell-by-cell level.
Hybrid automobiles received their first large-scalle acceptance by the public.
Two new elements, 113 and 115, were created.

And then there are three big ones for me: The Cassini probe became the first craft to slip through Saturn's rings and orbit the planet.
One year ago today, the first of two rovers, Spirit, landed on Mars. It was later joined in that month by its twin, Opportunity. And through software problems and the occasional cold reboot, we were able to learn more about Mars in one month than we had learned in all of human history. Designed to last for three months, the rovers are STILL WORKING; still sending back data and making new scientific discoveries.
Through the eyes of a bird-like rolling robot, we may now look out on the surface of a different planet.
The last line of Ted Sturgeon's "The Man Who Lost the Sea" is well-known by many science-fiction aficionados: "God," he cries, dying on Mars, "God, we made it!"
Now, we cry, "living" on Mars, "WE made it!"

And lastly, SpaceShip One won the X Prize and opened the door to civilian space travel.
I'll say that againb: CIVILIAN SPACE TRAVEL. Most of us here are still young enough to one day be able to regard a cruise into space as a viable and common vacation.

There's a lot of good mixed in with the pain, if you allow yourself to see it.

Has anyone read Bob Daylan's autobiography? If not, I'd like to recommend it to everyone including Harlan, who probably has. After all they're the same generation and have lots of background in common. Bob talks about the 50's and 60's in great detail. I wasn't very pleased with what Harlan reported about him a while ago (the death bed thing), he seems to not want to like him. The book shopuld change his mind. Bob recounts a similar event like the one Harlan mentioned where he spent time with Woody Guthrie by his death bed and receiving a repertoire of songs as a gift. He also talks about everything from growing up with old time radio shows like Suspense and meeting jazz talents to dealing with obnoxious fans who feel he's the voice of their generation. It's a good read regardless of what you know (or think you know) about Dylan. He also knows that quite a few of his records are weak and explains why.

By the way, can anyone recommend any Sturgeon short stories? I don't know where to start. I'm reading MORE THAN HUMAN, which seems to have influenced other writers including Ellison and, in particular, King, whose material is so often derivative. But you never know where anything comes from originally, because before that there was Kafka and BORN OF MAN AND WOMAN and who knows what else. It's all variations on a theme. The more old stuff I get into, the more everything seems to have been there before. Perhaps the only thing a writer can do is transcend the tried and true with a voice?

HARLAN: What influence, if any, does Gnosticism have on your work? (I'm thinking of "The Deathbird," in particular.)

Frank Kelly Freas 1922 - 2005
I'm sad to hear about Freas. I enjoyed his work well before I knew who he was, spoke to him several times at the San Diego Comic Convention, and had him do a sketch of me at the World Horror Convention in 2000. He will be missed but we can still enjoy the work he left behind.

I received the following:
--It is my sad duty to inform all of Kelly's fans that we have dealt with
over the last few years at Freasproject that Kelly Freas quietly passed
away this morning, January 2, 2005 at approximately 4:00 a.m.

There will be a public memorial service in a week or two. God watch over
him and his family - Mark Corrinet, Agent for Kelly Freas.--

You know, people do die, guys. It's not like we are supposed to live forever. Shirley Chisholm had a long and noble career, and died at a fine old age. This is nothing to curse about.

Here, two days late, is a new year’s resolution compliments of Warren Zevon.

“Don’t let us get sick
Don’t let us get old
Don’t let us get stupid, all right?
Just make us be brave
And make us play nice
And let us be together tonight.”

Not exactly a resolution, but still good thoughts for a better year.

A happy one to you all.

Mike

Now Shirley Chisolm is dead. Another light gone out.

Damnit.


Chuck

The world is a darker place today.:(
Kelly Freas was a fixture at conventions and a very sweet, charming gentleman. I remember when his first wife suffered her fatal illness there was a big fundraising campaign with auctions and such to raise money for the hospital/funeral expenses. Then he met and married Laura, another wonderful lady.

I used to have an autographed print of his "Bridle for Pegasus" (Anne McCaffrey) painting.

He will be missed.

kristin

Good God.

Another body blow.

www.kellyfreas.com/moviepage.htm

SF artist Frank Kelly Freas died this morning: http://www.sfwa.org/News/kfreas.htm

Commentary Tracks
I agree with Brian on "City" - All that needs to be said on the content is in Harlan's book. However, after replaying "A Boy & His Dog" last night I would LOVE to hear a commentary track by Harlan on that movie - perhaps on a version of the DVD that doesn't get his name wrong. I don't know if it's even worth it, but I get the impression that it would be a lively and spirited lecture.

Chadwick's got a new _Concrete_ out? Wahoo! I'd actually given up hope!

Re a commentary on "City..." I think Harlan said here that his intro to the published script really ought to be his last word on the subject. It's in print, it's said, and I wouldn't want to put him through that story again.

Trio's broadcasting _The Trip_, that LSD-era artifact with Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, and Dennis Hopper. (T'was sorta neat to see those three in the same shot.) The plot's simple: Fonda drops acid. About a half hour into the movie, the visuals he gets are pretty much what the AIP/Corman budget and locations give him, like haunted houses, fog, Pismo/Mojave desert scenes. (I kept expecting Boris Karloff to make an appearance, or Buster Keaton'd take a tumble off a rowboat.) Which is sad, because the scenes with Dern as the Oscar Janiger-like figure taking Fonda through his trip have a simple directness that seem to capture the LSD experience (of the time) better than the psychedelic bullshit.

Fonda's stiff, Dennis Hopper's dopey as hell, and the Jack Nicholson-written script is full of the period jargon. God, I'd love to do a Mystery Science Theater version. The music was nice, tho.

(I'm not much of a fan of LSD, actually. I tried it a couple of times, but I wasn't terribly impressed. It didn't help me find any profound insights-- instead, it seemed to lower the threshhold of what _seemed_ profound.)

New Concrete
Hey,

Just in case some missed it the new issue of Paul Chadwick's wonderful comic, Concrete, is out now. It's called The Human Dilemma and is the first in a six-issue mini series.

I became aware of Paul Chadwick's creation from Harlan's long-ago Playboy article on comics. I'd taken a hiatus from reading comics and Harlan's recommendations lured me back. So, thank you, Harlan, for re-intoducing me to this colorful world of pictures and words.

Are you reading any good comics right now you'd like to pass on to the rest of us?

Thanks again,

Stuart

Just catching up with the posts...nice to see the brouhaha about the postcard finally clearing up. Apologies to Mr. Resnick--I wasn't very ladylike in my estimation of him, and that wasn't fair. I didn't know the whole story, and now I do.

I hope 2005 brings with it better tidings than 2004. I wish everyone a happy and prosperous New Year, with the exception of our President. I just wish him a swift impeachment. (I know, ouch, but what exactly has that man done to gain anyone's respect?)

Happy New Year!

HYPOTHETICAL QUESTION FOR HARLAN
If Paramount offered you a reasonable fee, and guaranteed in the contract not to censor your remarks, would you do an audio commentary for a special "The City on the Edge of Forever" DVD. or do you feel you've already said all you have to say about it for one lifetime?

COLLECTING HARLAN!

Dear Harlan,

Firstly, wishing Susan and you the best in the New Year, and secondly advising you that the 'Collecting Harlan!' Contest has come to a close. We’re just trying to coordinate the prize mailings before closing down.

I know you don’t usually go gamboling about in the bowels of 'Webderland', however I would like to draw your attention to the last few postings in the 'Collecting Harlan!' thread under ‘Pop Culture’. We bibliophiles have uncovered a candidate for Webderland ‘Mensch of the Year’. FinderDoug’s consistently kind and thoughtful conduct, not only in the arcane realm of 'Ellisonia' but in everyday behavior deviates considerably from the norm.

I will leave you to deal with this reprobate as you see fit.

Warmest regards,

jono

"Happy New Year to all sane Ellison fans everywhere!"

And if you find one, steer them this way.

We promise not to hurt them....


...Too much.

Chuck

Years ago I bought ten of the old Alfred Hitchcock Dell paperbacks because they featured an author named Hal Ellson, and I thought that Ellson was really the undeniable HE. Screwed up on that one, obviously. It would be a great pseudonym if it were HE, but it ain't. Anyone else fooled by that?

HE's JAY SOLO and SLEY HARSON sound like good names for porno actors. Not quite as snazzy as DIRK DIGGLER, but close.

RE: Scarlett

I always thought she was given somewhat of a bum rap. Sure, she was fairly ruthless and selfish, but on the other hand she certainly provided for and took care of her sisters and Melanie when they were on hard times...and then was treated by contempt by them (her sisters anyway)for the means by which she did so. Personally, I always thought the take-home message was that brutal, callous people like Scarlett were necessary for the preservation of gentle honorables like Melanie.

(It's been a long time since I read the book or saw the movies, so this is all based on my possibly hazy recollections)

Happy New Year all. May it be a damnsight better than the last one.

THE NEW YEAR

Just a quick appearance to say that, while I sometimes find the season rather overstuffed with blather, I am a great believer in fresh starts, and I hope that those of you who need them, get them.

D.

Thanks Harlan. After two months without a reply to my emails, I was beginning to think that Rick might have done a shuffle right off the coil. Michael

Poke my melon head with a stick, will you...
Ah, the ingratitude. Here I spend a half hour waiting for the excedrin to take hold this morning defending Mike Resnick's honor [which Harlan and I agree needs no defending] and coming up with a PLAUSIBLE explanation for this artifact's existence only to be beaten and mocked by a man I was trying to cover up for. But one can only be pushed so far.

THE TRUTH is that the card is the last link in a paper trail long thought to have been destroyed. It is not the innocent little note that Mr. Resnick wishes it to be. Actually it is a death threat and a warning. "Sorry I missed you" indeed! OF COURSE Harlan denies being in that town on that day faster than Nixon denies being in Dallas. Of course he knows nothing of the sabatoged mimeograph machines and that copped feel by the punch bowl at that Mid-Ohiocon that he "was never at". Of course "Harlan" and "Harl[e]n" are different people with different handwriting styles. How could it not be so? First through Fifth Fandom is littered with the bodies of people who "Harl[e]n" didn't miss. But NO, Harlan was not there on that day. Sure sure kid.

And then there is the matter of the stationary. How many unsent HOJO postcards lie in a secret drawer in that Barclay Shaw desk next to the remaining few sheets of stationary from Walter Sickert, aka Red Jack. HOW MANY??? See? See how the pieces come together? I tried to protect you master but you mocked me and, hey, someones at the door, I'll be right back...

Happy New Year to all sane Ellison fans everywhere!

Although it's a bit late to add anything(trying to honor the one-a-day post) I'll have to add that I've done probably 20 transactions with Mike and every one has been 100% to the plus, and I'd strongly recommend checking out his for sale list if you're interested in getting some well kept and perfectly described items. There's a lot of sf history there, not to mention tons of just plain cool stuff, and I really shudder at the thought of it getting thrown out, especially the zines and other fan stuff that's unlikely to ever be reprinted.

I'm glad everyone's decided I'm not a villain.

I -should- have spotted the misspelling; I really do know how
to spell "Harlan". But as anyone who knows me -- and that
includes a ton of pros and fans -- can tell you, I had 5
eye surgeries in 2004, 3 on one eye, 2 on the other, and I'm
not always able to see exactly what I should be seeing.

I had no idea Harlan wanted such items for his own archives.
There was only one other letter in Don Ford's Ellison file,
a postcard from 1956 that seems legit. I've mailed a photocopy
to Harlan, and will do nothing with it until he authenticates
it. Then, if he wants it, I'll be happy to sell it privately
to him.

I should point out that I am a writer, not a bookseller. I have
over 100 books of my own out there; just check Amazon. I am not
doing this for a living, or even for profit. I am simply helping
a trio of computer-challenged elderly fans, one of them Don
Ford's widow, downsize or totally unload their collections so
they can enjoy some of the profits before their heirs leave
the books, pulps and papers out for the garbageman or perhaps Goodwill.

-- Mike Resnick

Card and all that
Harlan, I just rang Mike up and let him know you've got another message for him here. He's sent you something else, too. Look's like all's well.

Happy New Year to you and Susan!

REPLY TO MICHAEL REED AT DEEP SHAG

MICHAEL: Rick is, I believe, in Arkansas for a short spell.

No contact number at the moment. He really doesn't want to be distracted, at least for the nonce.

He'll be back soon. If you scroll back a day or so, you'll find his most recent advisement.

Harlan

LAST WORD ON THE POSTCARD BROUHAHA

ONE: Not for a moment did I suggest Mr. Resnick was trying to pull a fast one.

TWO: Once it was verified that Mr. Resnick was the seller, I knew the item had entered the stream innocently, however erroneously.

THREE: The card is NOT mine, Barney. Let me say that again: I did not, absolutely, positively, have anything to do with that card. It ain't mine, never was, never could be.

FOUR: Your "what-ifs" and assumptions of more pertinent wisdom than mine are way outta line, son. I do happen to know what my handwriting looked like back then, middle-back-then, middle-now and currently ... and I NEVER wrote like that. The card is NOT from me, whoever sent it from Cincinnati to Don Ford. I haven't been in Cincinnati since the 1950s, if I recall the last half-century at all well. And, geezus, kiddo, it is clearly an "e," not a badly lettered "a" in my name. Cease posturing, Barney, and fook ahwf.

FIVE: If I am at all distressed by ANY of this, it is that Mr. Resnick has been