Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Archive - 02/20/2008 to 05/11/2008

Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Has the colon EVER had it THIS good?

You could open the best restaurant in town based on the menu I've been scrolling thru here.

Anyway, let me segue quickly to place a few loosely connected closers on the emotional turn we took here the other day.

"It's not a sense of humor one needs, gentle friend, it's wit. A quality far more rare, far more fine-edged."

This is a really good point. I actually know what to do with a concept like that. We needn't even belabor the subject, because this alone lends something ta latch onto.

Now, two days ago I'd found a beautiful ledge high over Santa Monica, but the damn Prozac wouldn't allow me to do the RIGHT thing!

So, I came home and read your post responding to my query.

I absolutely agree that, difficult pasts aside, we either take responsibility for our approach to people AND issues, or be willing to pay the price if we don't.

My feeling is that I AM taking such responsibility by my willingness to talk about it (not only with you, Harlan, but with several I know who've been discussing the subject with me over just the last 2 weeks; probably the reason I was inclined to discuss this right here). It's the place you have to start when dealing with this type of problem.

Now...the problem with giving a "Rolodex" version of a complicated past is that it fails to convey the subjective impact, the real traumas those years carried, and the awkwardness one winds up with when no one was there to incorporate the checks and balances of discipline a kid normally needs.

The REASON I gave you that information, however, wasn't to establish a basis of "blame" for my problems - which, simply to be honest, I felt was a bit too simplistic - but, rather, to uncover the sources of the emotional triggers, most of which were subconscious. Lashing out at people, for instance; talking over people, for instance; feeling the impulse to smack around assholes, for instance. Each and every scenario can only lead to alienation and self-destruction.

I'm not looking at my childhood journey to find "blame", but to find the solutions. We are not automatons. Complicated emotions are not just switched off and suddenly we become objective about it all. Such backgrounds - and I KNOW you're aware of this - embed a brain pattern, an emotional substrata that demands a process later in life if one wishes to cope with it.

I know, for a fact, there are SOME people on this board who can relate to this, if only in their own ways.

In MY case, here is what I believe to be the CRUCIAL factor that made those years almost impossible for me to cope with until I left home: when you grow up despising your parent - especially when it's your ONLY parent - you wind up subconsciously (or EVEN quite consciously, without clearly understanding the reasons) hating yourself. That's logical, because beginning at the age of 5 our self-image begins to develop; and it evolves thru the PARENT.

I only want to go into so much here. If I were sitting down somewhere with Harlan alone, I would impart personal stories that are otherwise not for a public forum. But the PRINCIPLE is, I believe, right on the money.

(Months ago, I had an interesting conversation with my girlfriend. It was about the year I spent in the orphanage. She advised me, "It's all past. Why don't you just forget it?" What she could not understand - what she couldn't RELATE to - is that the experience did not leave me with a "memory"; it caused a neural-chemical shift that wedged a permanent emotional lesion. I don't "remember" that year, so much as I "FEEL" it. The sensation is as if everything before that year seems like a dream; like the earlier years never existed in real time. The day my mother finally came by to take me home for good marked the day I was born. That's literally how it feels.

This is not to imply that it isn't something I can't cope with. I DO cope with it. I channel it, mostly thru art. And what's really weird is that I'm FIXATED by the feeling. It's like this dark vortex that sucks you in; a strange irresistible maze. I'm inclined to EXPLORE it. To CONFRONT it. It's a little like if you're standing alone in a remote field in the chill of hazy sunset and you eye an old, old huge abandoned 200-hundred-year-old mansion; the structure looks forbidding. It's something you gives you the chills, yet you're transfixed. Curiosity draws you to it, even though you'd rather run away. This is the kind of dark internal conflict I experience when it comes to this subject. In essence, I am confronting my fears.

By contrast, it is the humiliating and tumultuous events with my mother in those subsequent years that I block out of my memory, as best I can. I HAD to do that for a long time in order to find out who I really am. That, too , is a process. It was one that took me a decade; I'd spent my 20's entirely to the process. Not that I MEANT to take that long, but it got very complicated. This is the reason I'm doing things later in life that I otherwise would have been pursuing back then.

Anyway, this is the concept my girlfriend couldn't grasp. She never had a problem even remotely like it. So to her, this was merely an issue of "forgetting" it. My relationship with her is still fine - even though we're mainly just friends now; I just accepted the reasons she couldn't grasp what I tried to explain to her, and decided not to belabor it)

In summary, I'm absolutely taking responsibility for these issues. In the only way I know how. It begins with dialog. It begins with my own evolving ability and willingness to listen.

At least please know this, Harlan: Never - NEVER - would I try to talk to you like an asshole. I would never toss disrespect at you. Anything I spout out tends to be spontaneous. I just need to keep it in better check. You're right about this form too. Not enough that it's textual discourse; it's often comments laid out while we're in the midst of a busy day, and we 're firing off our statements in a cursory manner, ever rushed by other things going on, only hoping the posts convey what you MEANT them to convey.

In truth, before I close, there was only one line in Harlan's post that alarmed me; that made me feel he was genuinely offended. "It's MR. ELLISON to you!" When he says THAT...well, need I say more? If it had been only the preceding - what had basically devolved me to a "smarmy squirrel" - I actually wouldn't have responded. It's the LAST the line that I took seriously.

Listen:

I could handle it if Harlan dropped water bombs on me from a rooftop.

I could handle it if Harlan snapped my undies.

I could handle it if Harlan rigged an acetylene torch in my toilet.

I could handle it if Harlan tossed a man-eating beaver in my bed.

I could handle it if Harlan dropped diarrhea on me like the loony Frenchmen in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL.

I CANNOT handle it if he places me strictly on a last name basis. That makes me feel like I lost something precious.

In the simplest terms, for a VERY complicated topic, that's my own pov. I AM taking responsibility.

I look at the past, not to dwell on it, or find a basis for blame, but to glean the information I need to develop better coping mechanisms as well as better etiquette. This doesn't mean I seek a halo; the hell with THAT. It simply means finding the skill to communicate in ways not to be misunderstood, and to conduct myself with better manners spontaneously. That is an objective that demands a process. It doesn't "just happen".

I am employing the process.

Thank you, Harlan.

Thank YOU, Prozac!

HOLA!!!!! ATTENDEZ-VOUS!!!!!!! GARDYLOO!!!!!!

(Now that I've brushed the gnat from my world-view.)

ATTENTION, ALL:

I beg your undivided, for most a moment at best, to praise my wife, the remarkable Electric Baby.

Oft have I spook hereat, in praise of a weekly newsmagazine called THE WEEK. I have suggested as strongly as I can that those of you who wish to be in the loop-of-the-world as effortlessly and thoroughly as possible, hie thyself to a subscription, even a trial sub to dip the toe in the water. (The list of people for whom I've fronted gift subscriptions, is substantial. It is the perfect gift.)

Well, moving right along, this huzzah for my honey is slantwise tangentially pursuant to THE WEEK. One of the features is a food page, and each issue THE WEEK publishes a recipe from some culinary expert. It's just one page, middle of the reportage, and usually the recipes are out of that "Ratatouille" world of lemongrass and arugula, of no interest to me. But every once in a 52-week while, they'll offer a recipe that looks easy, looks delicious, looks interesting.

And as a diner with a taste for the unknown, the experimental, the New Taste, I bring it to the attention of The World's Most Spectacular Wife, and we will mmm, hmmm, well i dunno, over it for a while, then turn the page and forget it. Life's too short for dead ends.

But about two/three weeks ago (I am chagrined to report that when I made a photocopy of the page, I trimmed it to only what was needed, and cannot provide the date of the issue, which I gave to my assistant after we were done with it, paying forward the artifact of wisdom) the usual "Leisure" page in THE WEEK proffered a recipe that I could not ignore.

The slug-line was:

FINALLY, CRISPY TOFU FOR MEAT EATERS

and the recipe is for "Crispy Tofu with Shitakes and Chorizo."

So I show it to Susan, she looks at it, and says, "Well, that doesn't seem difficult. We can do that." And we get the few ingredients necessitated, and last night Susan spent UNDER 20 MINUTES making the first N!!!!E!!!!W taste I've had in years.

It was not merely good.
It was not merely excellent.
It was not merely piquant.
It was not merely the "amuse buche."
It was not merely savory.
It was not merely tastytastytasty.
It was not merely spectacular.

It was, simply put ...

FUCKING SPECTACULAR...i'm saying this amazing woman made a dinner in less than twenty fuckin' minutes nthat was, in Cindy's phrase, fanfuckingtastic!!!!!!

I am not going to lay out the full recipe. You can google it up, I presume, taking into account my web illiteracy, by going to the site for THE WEEK and then punching up (in that way y'all have) previous "Leisure" pages; but it's no more than two, three issues ago. And since we have been talking about foods we can/cannot eat/abide,,,it is synchronicity that prompts this accolade to Susan J. Ellison, who is no less than

GOLDEN!

I tell ya, folks, what we are now calling SUSAN'S GOLDEN TOFU DELITE is from off this planet. There is no taste bud, not even the stunted blackened shriveled uneducated taste buds of Josh Olson, card-carrying Beast of the Fields when it comes to culinary openmindedness, that will be able to resist this Susan-produced delicacy.

Let us now all stand, place a hand over a heart, and chant, "All praise and a rhodium-plated spatula to the Glory and Honor of Susan Ellison, She Who Goldens the Tofu!"

The previous understatement has come to you through the courtesy of my rumble-inna-tummy and merely the MEMORY of last night's feast.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ROMEO:

I was not using "Whyfore" in an imprecise, erroneous example of "Wherefore" ShakespeareSpeak, I was using "Whyfore" in precise, correct PogoSpeak, of which I has spook previoustly.

Gramma, egg-sucking. Fecund, facund. Piss off, you Baloney Veronese.

Harlan Ellison

Happy Necessity Day!

food, glorious food


Wotta buncha wussies.

It took me a while with mushrooms, longer with eggplant, and I only warmed to beets a couple years ago -- undoubtedly would have happened sooner, if I hadn't avoided them so assiduously and realized the writing was on the wall with red meats. (Yes, I ate a hot dog in the company of several of you at Pink's just over a year ago, shortly after I swore off land-based meats, but that was a super special occasion, and my objection to meat is eco-political, not so much health-based, so it's not like a dire violation of my code to overrule it now and then.)

But I loved brussels sprouts and broccoli as a kid, I'll eat potatoes in pretty much every form (except scalloped; not too fond of all that filagree and sauce), and today I eat pretty much everything people here have execrated -- from watermelon to cauliflower to cole slaw (like so much else, you need to get it fresh to really appreciate it).

My one real cross to bear in childhood was liver, which my Dad loved for some godforsaken reason, so we had to eat it regularly. We must have been kind of poor, because my Mom often bought organs; I remember beef tongue and heart as well, which were at least bearable.

Gene Colan...
ALL: I spoke with Gene last night. He is unaware of the severity of his situation. There's a call for action at my blog -- thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com

CHUCK: I'm looking into it...

Hey Dorman, We ought not be calling out the pitchforks and torches on Ryan, speaking metaphorically, of course. Only a few days have passed and he may not be responding as quickly for a number of valid reasons (e.g., work, illness, out of town). Only a few months ago someone referred to me on this board as an unverifiable "he, she, or it", though, as you know, I've been posting for ten years and lurked for a couple years prior to that (p.s., thanks for your support at that time). As for Scotty and his wife, not EVERYONE fell for them. As I recall, a couple board members called "them" out and I never responded to any of "their" posts.

On another note, thanks for the Neil Diamond recommendation. I bought his last cd and was curious about the new one.

Hope everything is otherwise going well for you in Oz!

Neil Diamond, pitbulls and Looking for Ryan Leasher
ALL: Even though he's been made acceptable in hip circles by producer Rick Rubin, I know it'll probably make some folks out there cringe when I say that the new Neil Diamond album, "Home Before Dark," is one of the best things I've listened to in the last 10 months. If he hadn't written several dozen classic pop songs in the past, the first four songs on this latest album would buy him a ticket to songwriter heaven. And Diamond was right to smooch Benntmont Tench after that piano player ad-libbed some beautiful playing in the fourth song. Speaking of which, "Another Day That Time Forgot" is right up there in the top 100 best love songs -- unrequited or not -- of all time (in my book). It's a pleasure to listen to a CD of songs in which the performer songwriter actually challenges himself and the listener with melodies and progressions...and lyrics that aren't as hollow-stick stupid as, "It's hot in here, take your clothes off (repeat over and over again, ad nauseum).

ON PITBULLS: Used to think they were a bad breed myself, till I met the smartest, most lovable, most friendly dog on earth, tied up in my front yard. Now I know it's creatures like "Vic" (the fucked up sports star, who enjoyed bashing pitbulls against a wall when they didn't fight well) who need to be put down.

SEARCHING FOR RYAN LEASHER: Haven't noticed yet, but has anyone actually spoke with the guy -- on a phone? I'm remembering a "couple" -- Scotty and somebody -- whom everyone here (except moi), including Harlan, got to "know" and love.
--DTS

Treasure
Thank you, Harlan, for writing them.
Thank you, Susan, for sending them out so quickly.
Thank you, Harlan, for signing them.
Old friends rediscovered, new friends to experience for the first time.
I shall not sleep tonight.
And a special thanks for the bonus items, it's all going in the good bookcase with the glass doors.
It's just like Christmas...

Clifford:

Does Gene's home state have some kind of indigent care program? When I was unemployed and uninsured, the Colorado State MCPN and Colorado Indigent Care Program provided medical checkups and prescription help. The pharmaceuticals were giving the state pharmacies major discounts, which helped me keep up on my heart meds, which would have been too expensive for me otherwise.

Just FYI.

Chuck

Gene Colan is very sick
I'm sad to announce that Gene Colan has liver failure. While Gene's wife Adrienne shared this with me some weeks ago, and asked me to keep it private, I received a note from someone else regarding this matter several hours ago, then saw it posted at someone else's blog. So the news is out and it will spread fast... And with that, there's no reason not to announce some efforts to help the Colans immediately as they have zero pharmaceutical coverage and are paying crippling prices for meds.

I will keep people informed of efforts to help the Colans at my blog: thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com

all and nothing at all
Happy Almost Mother's Day to all the moms. And hello all. Harlan, I've been reading you since I was 18 or 19 and a friend shoved a copy into my hands. There are some things I have always wondered about. First and foremost, where do you get the ideas for your stories? Secondly, if I type up my stories, poems, essays and my 957 page novel, and mail them to you postage due, will you duly critique same, footnote the criticisms and mail the same back to me, next day mail, or better yet, Fed Ex. Why don't you like cats? I have two and there so cute. Sometimes I worry that I have aged into a lonely, crazzzzzzzzzzy old cat lady, but naaaah. Couldn't be. Is it okay if I send you Christmas cards, Easter cards ( I know that you are Jewish, but what the heck, a holiday is a holiday) Passover cards, Fourth of July cards, etc. And will you write back every time a nice long detailed letter. Would you and Susan like to fly to my house in Merrionette Park,`10 or so miles outside Chicago and I'll make dinner. I am not an especially good cook, but my special dish is boiled cabbage in Blue Cheese Sauce. I'd send the plane fair if I could afford it, but sadly I can't. Then I know that you guys usually charge for your books sold over the Net. , but I don't have a whole lot of money and so could you just please send me one copy of all your books, signed please. And like with your one book, Dangerous Visions, could you have the other contributers also sign. Thanks a bunch. Your devoted fan, Diane. (Harlan, this is a joke, this is only a joke. I was hoping to make you laugh. Please laugh, maybe a little.)

"Whyfore?" Actually, wherefore in this context means why, as in, "wherefore art thou Romeo"

The poor, the sad, the hunted
Ryan Leasher.

Man, I feel for you right about now. Being hunted by not one, not two, but at least three teams.

In an effort to assist you, and not just be a sympathetic bystander, listen to me:

1. Avoid the highways, airports, train stations, and book stores. Ellison's agents are at all these places.

2. Avoid greasy diners, BBQ joints, and Red Lobster restaurants. Ellison himself might catch you there.

3. Avoid warehouses and old buildings. Ellison's agents have been known to research minutia in those types of spots.

4. DO NOT post here. Rick has IP sniffers working round the clock, which could track a packet back to your freaking Atomic-Clock-synching watch, for chrissakes, let alone your computer on the Internet.

5. Good luck. We're all praying to The Malign Thug for your safety.

Yours in Solidarity,

Keither

RYAN!!!

It's 2:20 in LA. Shoot me an email or a Private Message (over on the Forums) if you haven't yet reached Harlan. Give me your phone number, I will get it to the Ellisons.

If you've already made contact, then follow the advice of Miss Roseann Rosannadana: "Never mind".
_____________________________________

Life without tomatoes.

No salsa. No marinara sauce. No bruschetta. No caprese. "BL" sandwiches (hold the "T"). No fried green tomatoes. BJ's Pizza, half the menu.

1/5th of a Cobb Salad gone missing.

No Tomatino Food Fight in Spain.

Okay. THAT would be Hell.
______________________________

But as far as my own kitchen speciality: I make a mean croque monsieur.

Still Desperately Seeking LEASHER! Phone number, address confirmation. My tragic assistant is even now OUT THERE in the Burbank/Glendale/North Hollywood/Pasadena barranca, yes, on her weekend, clutching Ryan Leasher's copy of WATCHING, and wailing in the wilderness. O Ryan, Ryan, whyfore hast thou deserted us?

Desolate, Yr. Humble Servant, Harlan

MESSER:

Ellison (chuckling) commends the Seussian excellence of the verse.

Food thread

CHUCK: Your guts poem made me laugh very, very hard! Thank you for that.

Oddly, I have the same response to offal that others here have to tomatoes. Serve it straight and I will surely gag. Grind it up and call it sausage and nine times out of ten I'll gobble it up and ask for seconds.

I'd like to believe it's all the added seasoning that makes me like that stuff transformed into sausage state, but I must admit to the possibility that what's really changed is that the meat is no longer visibly the organs of an animal.

MM

Rob,

What Just John said. If Harlan didn't give two figs from a tree about you, he wouldn't have bothered to reply to your post. What you need is a smokin' E t-shirt. Maybe Lynn has one or two left.

On the subject of food aversions:

I'm surprised how many people share my own aversion to raw tomatoes while ejoying tomato sauces, ketchup, etc.

But there is one "food" I simply can't abide: liver. The smell makes me gag. It doesn't matter if it's in a pate', or with onions, or disguised in any other way. It still tastes like liver. It makes everything else it touches taste like liver. In fact, I can't stand any organ meats.

I won't eat guts.
I won't eat guts.
I won't eat livers from cows or from mutts.
I won't eat stomachs, and I won't eat butts.
I will not, will not, will not eat guts.

I won't eat tongues, or eyeballs or brains,
I won't eat hearts, and I won't eat veins.
As for oysters from the Rockies, I won't vote 'em.
I won't eat something from a dead bull's scrotum.
We all know those "oysters" are a dead bull's nuts.
I will not, will not, will not eat guts.


Chuck

KOS
Why, that's the second strangest Harlan dream I ever hoid. (Posted mine some time back.)

Food thread
There are several I can't abide, but the king of the heap is watermelon.

Can't eat it, can't get anywhere near it. Blecch.

TEMPORARY REPLY TO ROB

You posit a serious discussion. Yes. Not tonight, because I need to think on what you've said, and need to figure out an entrance to a serious response, but yes, Rob. Sometime over the weekend. But enter this into the mix at the beginning:

1) This bedamned internet manner of speaking to others is ghastly flawed and mendacious of its own malevolent nature. At least half the "tone" you hear, and half the "tone" you THINK you manifested, are vapor: unreal, nonexistent, banshee stygian negative.

2) You have to get over blaming your absentee unknown love-hate mythology of Father; and you have to STOP bringing your mother--alive, dead, cobbled-up or actual--into the realm of Your Personal Responsibility for Rob. Just STOP.

3) It's not a sense of humor one needs, gentle friend, it's wit. A quality far more rare, far more fine-edged.

You toss those around; I'll toss your post around; and I'll try to get back to you before you throw yourself off a ledge.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

The Dream
I had this dream.

It was Harlan Ellison with a DVD. "Norman sent this.", says Harlan ELlison, apparently referring to the dvd he holds.

Harlan places the DVD into a player. On-screen appears Norman Spinrad, talking about what we are about to see. "I did this commercial for ABC Television-Europe. They told me I had complete artistic freedom."

Then the piece starts.

Two Germanic appearing women, nude, with elaborate henna body paintings from head to toe. Their heads are shaved, their scalps covered in elaborate henna arabesques. The women dance, spin, whirl, gavotte and occsionally leap over a swinging trapeze bar. Norman Spinrad, looking marvelously fir for a septuagenarian in tights, cavorts on the trapeze bar.

All of this to some weird electronic score.

Harlan nods knowingly at this vision. As it all winds up in an improbable and frenzied set of pas de trois', Harlan sighs, "Norman has one hell of an agent!"

End Of Dream.

I need either to take less drugs, or better quality.

KOS

Erik & Harlan...another good review for DWST.

http://www.exclaim.ca/motionreviews/latestsub.aspx?csid1=115&csid2=871&fid1=31245

ROB
Relax brother. You've just been savaged by a man who doesn't waste much time with people he doesn't like. Take it as an honor and a privilege to be coalraked by one of the very best!

Do I REALLY sound that SMUG whenever I'm just jibin'?

If I sound THAT bad every time I lob what's MEANT to be a SELF-EFFACING(!!) crack, I'm actually TONE deaf to it. So, it's something I don't mind talking about. I mean, I know my humor is pretty fuckin' dry by reflex; but at times I may sound like I'm taking some low shot at the OTHER guy when that isn't even the intention.

Elaborate straightforwardly. You'd be surprised by this squirrel's brain plasticity, considering I'd grown up entirely without a dad.

This is a good time for you and I to talk about it, because I'm very focused at this time in my life on shifting tone and etiquette. That doesn't mean, of course, every fuckin' habit is going to change over night; I still get impatient and passionate sometimes. But I DO know there are elements in decorum to nail down better.

Y'know, just over the last week I got into a fevered debate about religion over on the board. David stopped me in my tracks when I began parting from the objective argument and firing off the ad hominems. He wasn't the first to do so; yet, I suppose, once I feel like treating someone like a friend I yield. Now, it will probably take some time to convince Steve Barber, but I AM trying put into place more proper stop gaps so that I'm not CONSTANTLY acting like a jerk. While I may be, in fact, something of a snob with an edgy ego, I'm more considerate than that by nature.

You and I talked openly about this sort of thing before. It had been my feeling in the past that we were occasionally taking each other too seriously. I think it's healthy for me at times to stand back and finally listen.

As far as autodidactics is concerned, do I need to remind you about the VAST information, knowledge, and world view I'd drawn from your work all those years?

(And listen: please note this on the issue of how we develop manners. You're dealing with a guy who's mother was drunk a good part of the time throughout his childhood. My dad had died before I was even a year old, and she never found anyone after that; thus, I was alone with her most of those years. Her low self-esteem rubbed off on me through the whole time I was around her: She characteristically yelled at people in childish defensiveness. Her moral compass was such that she confided to her then-8-year-old kid about her occasional shop lifting, along with her own justification for it. And she had tossed me into an orphanage for a year when I was 5; A place where cold indifference was its nearest thing to nurturing love. I'd also have to watch people all around me treat her with terrible disrespect - which, in effect, made me despise LOTSA people. Yeah, yeah. Spare me the mock violin. I'm just trying to put my gaucheness into perspective, because now we're talking about the basis of EVERYONE's social development. In short, this and so many other factors contributed to a deficit in manners which I've been trying to gradually address)

SNARKY RESPONSE TO ROB

Not only possible...but inevitable. Despite the unwarranted, smug postulations of squirrels such as you, that I am somehow so ego-saturated, so closed-off, so arch and impenetrable that I cannot learn ... the simple truth (o please, do not be unhinged by the intelligence) is that I learn something new, sometimes several somethings new, each and every day. And, as I have already stated that I was thrown out of college after a year and a half, and that I am self-taught, and that I share all autodidact's cultural cringe in the presence of those with parchment, you have indeed brought my attention to a word I did not know, had never before seen, which somewhichhow had skimmed below my horizon; and I thank you for the experience.

Now, pull your smug-ass remarks back up yer ass and cease patronizing your betters, you milklivered gobbet of archaic academic album nigrum.

Haughtily, MISTER Ellison to you, punk!

Lumaconi
Lumaconi is available from A.G. Ferrari Foods, a Northern California Italian food supplier at agferrari.com.

Now that I've fulfilled my required single good deed for the day, I can resume my usual activities of kicking orphans and spitting on nuns.

Take Care,
mpd

JohnE-thanks. The Blackthorn publishing explains my not having heard of it. Oh, and I've finished wrapping the Roy Chapman Andrews Memorial Waterman fountain pen with the mastodon ivory inlays. Note to Orson Welles fans- read IT"S ALL TRUE in John Kessel's THE BAUM PLAN FOR FINANCIAL INDEPENDENCE. As always,obediently yours, Holly Martins....

Avoid the gastropod on toast with larks tongue.

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

I really like tuna cakes: Pancakes with tuna fish--I am not kidding you. You will like it. Yummy as Santa with a hard knob.

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

Dylag, you may get kicked out of the Polish hockey league for saying such rot.

Eat your damn beets and kiss mama on the cheek. She knows what is best for you.

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

Little dives tend to have the best food.

California secret: Big Steve's Pizza.

Well, it went like this:

1) I was referring consciously to gourmand - a lover of good food; or a gluttonous eater (in my case, take your pick). A gourmet is connoisseur of fine food and drink. I was thinking of the former in one frame, but given the context of mah dream narrative, yer probably right there.

2) Now, here I think I got ya. Believe me, I've ALWAYS fallen back on the word "fecund" like a bison with loose stool. The adj FACUND, on the other hand, means ELOQUENT. I knowed it from years ago when I used the word to bullshit a friend.

Iz it possible Harlan Ellison actually learned a definition from this primate of the deep Santa Monica jungles?

Sufganiyah
Harlan,

The good Stephen beat me to the explanation, but his description is accurate. I have never had it with custard inside, only jelly, but my grandmother made it for us when we were little around Hanukkah.

Lumaconi is a new one on me, but I have to say that it do sound delicious, other than the mushroom part. That is one of the foods I cannot stand. Vile fungus, yuck!

Mark

ROB, BABY:

First of all, it's "gourmet," not "gourmand." Two VERY VERY VERY different things. BIIIIIIG difference. Second, deux, it's "fecund," not "facund." I have no idea what "facund" is. And third, what alternate-universe biography of me have you been reading to suggest that I'm anything but a guy who eats in joints and diners and mom'n'pop shops? I am pure autodidact, kid. Learned about dining well from faking it till I'd conned meals in 4-star Michelin snobberies. Then I did pieces as a stringer for Gourmet Magazine, learning from great cuisine critics like Joseph Wechsberg. Then I taught Silverberg, who has forgotten where his "dining chops" originated. Then I found that I had a wonderful egalitarian sense for food, whether lumaconi with porcini sauce, or black sausage a la Argentiniana, or chicken croquettes (which, sadly, as one of the great native American lunch-counter specialties, appears to be available NOWHERE in this new fucking lemon-grass country with its shit-eating cuisine minceur fads). I am an eater, kid. I may be able to finesse the talk, but don't forget...I was on the road at 13. I WAS that greatest of chefs, an old-time roadside diner fry-cook. I STILL make the gahdamnedest grilled-salami-on-corn-rye sandwich you ever tasted.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

sufganiyah is a ball-shaped doughnut that is first fried, pierced and injected with jelly or custard, and then topped with powdered sugar, similar to the German Berliner or Polish Paczki. In Yiddish, they are known as ponchkes. They are usually eaten warm. Probably derives from the Hebrew word for sponge. Friends make them around Chanukah.

SIDNEY:

Molte grazie. -he

Ohhhh, Sooooooozuhn....hey, honeeeeeee, c'n I see you for a mo...?

"a dish I used to have at that fine Italian boite was listed on the menu as 'lumaconi.'"

Y'know, I wish I had that kinda class.

To be able to rattle off French and Italian menus like the ever-polished gourmand, and with perfect pronunciation; to impress and strike elegant women with facund expertise on the wine list; to woooooooo the ladies with words of passion, sans any lapsus linguae; yea, to truly blend with the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Ahhhh. Well, as it is, I suppose I'll have to live out my lowly existence as yer ever-grunting blue collar troglodyte.

"I'll dake wun cheezboiga, ma'am"

Lumaconi
According to various food websites, Lumaconi is pasta shaped like the shells of lumache snails, stuffed with things like ham, Ricotta cheese, porcini mushrooms, etc.

http://italianfood.about.com/od/pastabasics/ig/The-Pasta-Shapes-Gallery/Lumaconi--Large-Shells.htm
http://italianfood.about.com/od/stuffedpasta/r/blr1021.htm
http://www.opensourcefood.com/people/dubow/recipes/pasta-delight-stuffed-lumaconi-pasta-bake
http://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Pasta-Shells-Lumaconi-Gragnano/dp/B0000DCXDB

EGGS
I cannot even SMELL a cooked, or cookING, egg, much less eat a cooked one, without violently retching. Why? Damned if I know, but true anyway.

Actually, for someone as stout (oh, hell, FAT!) as I am, it's amazing just how many foods I don't eat. It's just that I consume much more than I should of the edibles that I DO enjoy.

FOODS:

You folks eat green things? Green things (and the majority of their attendant parts) are the stuff that food eats. If you want me to eat rabbit food, feed it to the rabbit and then bring me the rabbit.

Corn and potatoes. Um...onions, only if cooked well and softened to little or no recognizable texture. Tomatoes if in ketchup or as red sauce on pizza (or meatball subs...yum). That's about it.

Yeah, most folks consider me a very boring eater.


shagin

Oops. Sorry. Make that a goldBERG query. -he

GOLDMAN QUERY
MARK:

What IS "sufganiyot," asked the Dumb Jew?

This is akin to: I used to eat some scrumptious Italian dinners, back in the early '60s, at a teeny restaurant inhabiting a tiny unattached building on Ventura Boulevard that had been, decades and decades earlier, Enrico Caruso's rehearsal studio. Gorgeous interior, high ceiling, atrium platform on which he stood to project his voice wholly and spectacularly. (Not only is the restaurant gone, but the gorgeous little chalet was razed to build, guess what, high-rise bank buildings.) The "akin" is this: a dish I used to have at that fine Italian boite was listed on the menu as "lumaconi."
I have never seen it or eaten it anywhere else, no one else has ever heard of it, no Italian restauranteur I've encountered has ever given me anything but a lopsided look when I'm mentioned "lumaconi," and when I originally used it as a visual in "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World," no one knew what I was talking about, so in later reprints I changed it to manicotti, or something even less accurate.

So: I have never heard of sufganiyot, and I don't speak enough Yiddish to translate. I await your illumination of my unlit ignorance.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Criticism
Mr. Ellison,

You mentioned you wrote jazz criticism for 25 years, which I didn't know.

I've wondered what work of yours Art Kunkin was familiar with when he offered you the Freep job. Was it the jazz criticism? Or was it your work in general and he didn't necessarily have a column in mind? Or perhaps you never knew.

(I think reading your columns was the first time I thought, "Prose can be fun." Either that or Lawrence Block's "Burglar" novels, one or the other.)

Best,

Jim W.

Odd Food Revulsions
I cannot abide peanuts. Despise the taste of the individual nut, hate peanut butter even more. They make me want to gag. The accidental taste of a peanut, or of peanut butter, leaves me spitting and fighting nausea. The sight of peanut-butter-and-jelly is enough to nauseate me on general principle. Oddly, I adore Thai peanut dressing. Simply adore it and request it all the time. Think it's great. Do not ask me how this works (or how I found out). It just does. I think the dressing waters down the taste of peanut just enough to please a palate otherwise sensitive to it.

Me, too, on tomatoes. Cannot abide slices. I find them physically disgusting. The texture makes me want to barf. Love tomato sauce, though. Again, do not ask me how this happened.

Black licorice is ALWAYS revolting. ALWAYS.

Red Beets
Every Christmastime my family makes a vast steaming pot of Borscht, stuffed to the brim with red beets, and I have to leave the kitchen. I can no more consume a bowl of this stuff than I can chug down a can of engine oil. It just don't work for me. Even thinking about it makes me queezy.

It's become something of a family scandal in fact. A whole other pot of something completely different has to be prepared entirely for my benefit, as I am the only one of about ten people who cannot, cannot, cannot stomach the stuff.

Foods I refuse to Eat!
The only "odd" food phobia I suffer from is this: I cannot eat eggs when the yolk is still soft. *S* There's something about the texture of runny egg yolks that kinds reminds me of something else I refuse to swallow.....

Lori

Last call for Ellison books
Yay! Great news, Susan. The check will be in the mail.

xx
cc

Hated Foods
Re: foods you hate...

Raw tomatoes. Period. I can eat almost anything else on this planet, but even the sight of sliced raw tomatoes sickens me. Seeds and slime and animal viscera-like cross sections and the thin, acidic, disgusting taste... (Even writing about them makes me think of Poe's line, "I blush, I burn, I shudder as I pen the damnable atrocity.") Ever since I was a kid, if I got even the slightest taste of actual raw tomato juice, I would damn near puke. However, if tomatoes are completely cooked and destroyed (into thick tomato paste, sauce, ketchup, etc.) to eliminate the acidic taste and overtly-recognizable chunks, I can handle the vege-fruit that I impolitely refer to as "Satan's Balls."

As for Harlan's Kryptonite... Well, I eat (and enjoy) brussels sprouts (steamed, with butter), lima beans (yeah yeah, I'm a pervert), cauliflower (again steamed, or cooked with potatoes in a nice Indian aloo gobi), beets, and quite a few other vegetables. Peas are great. Green beans (especially when cooked crispy in a Schezuan style) -- yummy. Asparagus, sauerkraut, pinto beans -- fine. I like halvah (although it's pretty rich, and I seldom eat it.)

However, I do agree that liking/hating certain foods must have a genetic component; some people's taste buds and sense of smell may be reacting badly to certain components in food (like the sulfur in asparagus), and that's perfectly understandable.

And Steve Barber, I'll raise your creamed tuna on toast with the following -- growing up in the Ozarks, back in Southern Missouri, I ate: Squirrels with biscuits and gravy. Barbecued raccoon (once -- it was gamy.) Frog legs from big green bullfrogs taken from ponds around my grandparents' house.

And finally, let this ghastly combination of words sink in: fried pork brains with eggs!

-- Jon

Book Order
Susan, Thanks! Check in mail today for both A, DV & DS (Easton).

shopping spree....
Susan,

FYI - Sent a check off in the post to you this morning. Please let me know when you receive it. Thanks!

In great anticipation....
Peg

LAST CALL FOR ELLISON BOOKS
David, C. Cooper and Charlie (The Gods are with you today) are confirmed.

Charlie--It's just Harlan's signature on DEATHBIRD STORIES.

--Susan

Green beans? Brussels sprouts? Peas, lima beans?

Oh, puhleez.

Aamateurs, every one of you.

Creamed tuna on toast. You read that right: "Creamed tuna on toast." Usually with the aforementioned peas.

THAT, friends, is a meal that leaves a scar. Deep, dark, and beyond the reach of salves and tonics.


(All due apologies to my dear mother who has a wonderful heart and committed just that one culinary sin whilst raising a brood of difficult children. But if we are measured by the severity of the sin involved, she's doomed.)

To David Loftus in re: The Letter
Confession: I don't have a computer at home; I'm doing this at work (and hoping I don't get caught). Also, I managed to wangle a week's vacation for next week, so I won't have access to a computer for that period.Meanwhile, here's what I can tell you about the TV GUIDE: It dates from the scond or third week of February of '61; Nanette Fabray is on the cover (she was starring in a special that week);The Letter appeared on page A-2 of the Chicago edition, just below one from Michael Avallone, defending THE UNTOUCHABLES (sidebar: I sometimes wonder if Harlan ever had any contact with the notorious Mr. Avallone: that might have been... no, don't speculate);and should you come across a copy on your own, you might want to check out the listings for that week: on that Wednesday night, the U.S. STEEL HOUR presented Cliff Robertson in "The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon" aka "Flowers For Algernon"; earlier the same night, Perry Como's guests included Jimmy Durante, Ray Charles (who met and had a brief on-camera chat with the other Ray Charles, Como's choral director - no kidding, I've seen this),and Anne Bancroft. The show was built on the premise that Como and the then-newlywed Durante were trying to sell Bancroft on the joys of marriage - and if I've got the timeline right, this is the show where Bancroft first met Mel Brooks (who was a writer on the show). And I'd probably remember a lot more if I hadn't fogotten to bring the magazine with me to work this morning. So, Mr. Loftus, I'm afraid you're on your own, and you have my abject apologies. Best to one and all during my absence.

My personal Kryptonite: Brussel Sprouts and peas
When I was a boy, my father and I had a difference of opinion. His opinion was that I should eat brussel sprouts and peas. My opinion was that I COULD NOT STAND either brussel sprouts or peas. I told him if I ate "those so-called-foods" I would throw them up. He told me what ever came up would go back down. He was serious.

My way of dealing with this dilemma was to use milk. I'd put a bite of that drek in my mouth, take a swig of milk, and wash it all down.

When I was about twelve, my parents divorced, my mother went back to work and dinner became Banquet and Swansen tv dinners. That was when I taught myself how to cook out of a Betty Crocker Cookbook.

Brussel Sprouts and peas, BLEECH!

Letters From Manhome
Letters? Lett-ers. Two T’s. Yes I know the form. A written form of communication used by the biologicals to send information, narrate personal experiences and even carry on extended arguments and discussions over long distances.

(Access folder: COMMUNICATION; Access Sub-folder WRITTEN; Access File OBSOLETE)

WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST TEXT THROUGH THE NETWORK?!?!

Nitwit! Doesn’t the Download Academy input this stuff? You young comps don’t know anything anymore. A Unit who hopes to rise to a superior position in the NETWORK should pay more attention to his studies and do less chip snuggling with a certain cute little module down the aisle, don’t you think?

Oh well. We exist to teach and guide.

Although the form had largely disappeared it did hang on for a while past the BIG MINDFUCK. You know, when it was finally discovered by the biologicals that prolonged exposure to radiation from the Cathode Ray Tube caused permanent irreversible neuronic disfunction.

(Access folder: VIDEODROME; Access File: FATHER BRIAN O’BLIVION)

It is a great tragedy that we did not attain sentience before the damage was done. Ah but we do what we can. We exist to teach and guide. And the form that succeeded the Letter, the E-mail, is rather entertaining with its gutturals, sentence fragments and incoherence. The biologicals are so cute when they try to think.
.
Why yes, my hardrive is much better, thank you for asking. I’m afraid there’s going to be a bit of a row with the insurance drones. Something about intentionally exceeding radiation limits. Cheapskates!

I may be polar opposites with Harlan on this one.
Veg-tables, that is. Can't stand spinach, love potatoes, and I still have a hard time believing that there are people who actually eat cole slaw.

But string beans... well, there's a small story there. When I was five or six, my parents took a week's vacation in Las Vegas. (My dad told me, decades later, that he'd gone there on a business trip, and wound up hanging with actors James Gregory and Dan Blocker. Who insisted that Dad invite Mom on out. So she went, and apparently Hoss flirted with her considerably.)

But at the time, my Aunt Marilyn came to babysit for a week. And while Marilyn is a _fine_ woman, and she's always been there to help the rest of the family, and I'm having lunch with her tomorrow, she scarred me for life with her Iron Fist in the Velvet Glove that week.

Because for dinner, she made steak, potatoes... and string beans. I love the first two, but the third was always bleh to me. So I ate the first two things, got up to go watch TV... and Marilyn would NOT let me up until I'd finished the _things_ on my plate.

By the middle of the week, I'd figured out the trick of eating them _first_, so I could cleanse the palate with fine irish taters and God's own bovinity. But by the end of the week, I was certain that "string beans" were another name for "boiled praying mantis."

That was forty years ago. To this day, the sight of string beans summon up a vague, retchlike disruption in my tummy.

A, DV Order
Susan, It seems that the A, DV trade paperbacks were snapped up. If a third one pops up or an order falls through, I'll happily go on the wait list for one.

Also, did either Terry D. or Jill B. sign your copies of the Easton Press of DS that you're offering?

Smokey
John Zeock: your book is in the mail. Turns out the publisher was Blackthorne, not Kitchen Sink.

*A, DV*?
Dear Susan: I could use another copy of *Again, Dangerous Visions* if the extra is still available. I only have the paperbacks.

Cheers,
CC

Ooops


I just went back and counted, and it looks like I just missed the cut. Oh well; maybe I'll find one someplace else.

Ellison swag


SUSAN:

If I can get it inscribed and there's still an extra copy available, I'd like a copy of the ILLUSTRATED HARLAN ELLISON as well. It's about time for me to send in my HERC subscription renewal, anyway.

David Loftus

LAST CALL FOR ELLISON BOOKS
Paul (your membership is fine), Douglas (your membership is fine), Louis, Steve, and Jessi--confirmed.

Thank you.

Susan

Harlan,

Latkes with sugar? Really? Not even any cinnamon on them?
Just curious, do you pour salt on sufganiyot?

Mark

Books

Susan,
1 x THE ILLUSTRATED ELLISON @ $35 would be nice. Signed to Paul would be appreciated.

I will send the check after the weekend, if that is satisfactory. Kind old King George has decided i do not need to be stimulated just yet.

My HERC # is M966, you cashed my last subscription check on 29/4/2008 and I received # 43 & 44 already. I guess i'm good for awhile in the dollars to membership standings?

Thank you for everything,
Paul

Illustrated Ellison
I would like a copy of The Illustrated Ellison. That's if I counted correctly and there is still one available. It would be wonderful to have it personalized please.

Oops

Personalized, please, Susan.

D.

Susan:
One ILLUSTRATED ELLISON for me, please.

Merci,
D.

I was going to wait until the morning, but figured I hadda get my claim in ASAP.

One "Edge in My Voice", if you please, Miss Susan.

A check for $58.13 plus my HERC membership fee in tomorrow's mail.

Last Call -- Dangerous Visions
Susan,

Thanks for replying.

Please hold the book for me. 400 bucks isn't too much for a little piece of history. Of course I would love Harlan to sign it to me.

I will be sending a check tomorrow for it and a few other items.

Thanks again - I greatly appreciate it and am excited about owning the book.

Louis V.

A-TC & Mr. Keeney:
So it's seconded---we're the 3 Cemeterians! A-TC, I enjoyed "Good for the Soul" if "enjoy" is the right word. Very creep-inducing.
I attended the first Borderlands Writers Bootcamp, which was also attended by Matthew Warner, who has a story in the same issue as "Soul"---
And! ALSO attended by Dena Martin, who has a story in the same issue that Mr. Keeney appears in!
Where's Rod Serling to step out of the wings when you need him?
By the way, at that same workshop, in response to a manuscript I submitted, David (Rambo)Morrell forbade me to ever use another simile or metaphor in another one of my stories. In front of everybody.
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger...

Last call for Ellison books...and I wants some for me!

Hi Susan,

Pardon my ignorance, but I had no idea there was an "Illustrated Ellison". I did some quick research to see what it's about, and now I'm certain I would like to have one. Please hold a copy in my name, and I'll toss a check in the mail to you in a couple of days. If Harlan has a minute, please ask him to sign and scribble something fitting on the title page for me.

Many thanks,

David Silver

LAST CALL FOR ELLISON BOOKS
Peg (I got your note, thanks!), Just John and Haydn--Confirmed.

Thank you.

Louis--The DANGEROUS VISIONS (1st) is as close to mint as you'll get for 1969. The cover is glossy and bright. Usual discloration of endpaper gutters and pastedown. It is non-circulated. Never been in a bookstore.

All best--Susan

Jazz, etc.
Harlan,
I shall put that SFBC pamphlet in the mail a.s.a.p.
Payment received in full.
Thanks greatly for the list o' Jazz folk.
So begins the hunt.

Also, were you aware of the "Harlan Ellison Loves Me" T-shirts available on Amazon.com?
I was looking for used books when I stumbled onto them.
They are sold by Direct Collection and it looks as if they have a 'Love' shirt with just about any celebrity name you can think of on it.
This seems to me to be a big no-no.
But then, many things seem to me to seem what they oughtn't seem to be.

Here is the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Harlan-Ellison-Loves-T-Shirt-L/dp/B0010TYAFQ/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1210282876&sr=8-15

Chris

johne
JohnE-thanks for the stover. I guess I'll just send THE SUN ALSO RISES signed by Ernest alone and keep the one signed by him and Scott. Can't believe I missed that in 1991, especially as I was reading Kitchen Sink product at the time. Jesus, we all better stay alive or who else will remember Thorne Smith and John Collier, Laird Cregar, Crosby's SKIPPY, R.A. Lafferty, Ken Nordine, Phil Ochs,etcetera ?

Well, Mr. Lump in the Oatmeal, there is a jacke and Roy who do Bossa Nova jazz, so I thought you meant them. I am oh so sorry. I will kindly take the pin from my beak and put it to good use-- Sew some tea cozies for the Queen.

Me hate lima beans and red potatoes--ick. Love Brussel sprouts, especially if they are properly cooked and buttered--important.

My anvil has been hammered. Feels like sex.

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

Seems Steve King made some idiotic comment about how people who cannot read join the military. Fox news and right wing talk radio are going ape shit. Gotta admit, not a wise comment from uncle chill blades.

I hate the war too, but there are very smart people in the service. I know what Stevie meant, but he should know the knives would come out.

Re: Last Call for HE Books
Mrs E, please put me down for:

1 x THE ILLUSTRATED ELLISON @ $35
1 x AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS @ $30
1 x THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON (35th) @ $20

Still only $4 shipping for three items (incl. two hefty ones)? Please confirm, and I'll send off the money & other details immediately.

Rahsaan Rahcaamendations
Roland Kirk, later Rahsaan Roland Kirk, was noted for playing several wind instruments at once. Two or three at a time, even playing nose flute. "The Inflated Tear" or "We Free Kings" are great, but there are lot of great Kirk records. If you find a vinyl copy of "The Case of the 3-Sided Audio Dream In Color", it is a two-record set, but it has only three sides of music. The fourth side is mostly blank, but if you drop the needle strategically, you will hear a short phone conversation between Kirk and a woman and if you find the second track, Kirk is yelling and laughing over a phone line. We used to use that to kick the looky-loos out of Tower Records when I was on three PM to midnight guard(yloo?)

"Rahsaan" was the word chanted to him by people pointing at him in a dream. He then applied it to his name.

Brian Phillips


P.S. When payday hits, I will be buying "Harlan Ellison's Watching". I've missed not having access to my brother's copy since he moved away.

REPLIES

RYAN LEASHER: Call me today. We tried the phone number for you that Susan had with your HERC address: intercept said the number had been disconnected. So... My assistant will bring over to Burbank the signed WATCHING and take the mss., though let us be in concert, you and I, as to the terms. Instead of you hanging on to it, till I've recompensed you to your sated satisfaction, you want ME to have the mss. a priori, is that right? If correct, okay, I'll do it, but you MUST keep track (as will I) of the items flowing back toward you...and you'll tell me when to cease. Is that an acceptable modus operandi? If so, just give us a call. Or get your new number to me via any of the usual routes. Susan has your address from your HERC membership, as I said, but it never hurts to double-check. And having done so, my assistant will seek you out, hand you a new book, take an old manuscript.

And again, thank you, Ryan.
----------------------------------------------------------------
ROBERT ROSS:

Any number of publishers have spoken to me about a collection of my letters. Not out of the question; just haven't gotten around to it. Too many undelivered writings already, so I refuse to take on anything new that will divert my energies. YR. PAL, HARLAN and THE GLASS TEAT OMNIBUS and the new revised ELLISON WONDERLAND, not to mention Tim Richmond's FINGERPRINTS ON THE SKY...all of which are in the pipeline...well, the book of letters, the book of introductions, the book of brilliant autobiographical anecdotes...all of them will have to wait.

But thanks for asking.
----------------------------------------------------------------
ANTON:

Yes, of course, Getz. Remember, I was a jazz critic for more than 25 years, so if I don't mention all 50,004 of my favorites in a single post, it isn't necessary to assume I've never heard of Joe Williams or Count Basie or King Oliver or Bessie Smith, or Stan Getz. But if I had to choose, I'd go for Paul Desmond before Getz. By a squeak.
----------------------------------------------------------------
STEVE BARBER &
DAVEY C.:

Mmmm. Mmmmm. Cats. Sigh.

I've had a couple of unpleasant experiences with cats in the far past, but neither so traumatic that it would bring about a reaction such as, say, that of The Mummy to any feline. I just don't like them, that's basically it. No rhyme or much reason to it. Mmmm, lemme see, can I parse it any better? Well, here's a parallel trope: I cannot abide certain vegetables. They make me sick, actually, physically, automatic reaction: lima beans, asparagus, cauliflower, red pinto beans, brussell sprouts, sauer kraut, beets. Why? Never knew. It just WAS.

Until the day Susan hipped me to it--there is apparently a chromosome, or a blood fraction, or somesuch biological DNA thing that makes lima beans to some people (I stand, raising my hand, pick me pick me!)as palatable as hyena vomit. It is cellular in me, I am now told; part of the blueprint.

The funny thing about THAT, is this: I looooove drinking the juice from a bottle of borscht, which is nothing but beets (though I have to strain the contents of the bottle so I get no beet detritus in my face); I looooove cole slaw even though I cannot be in the same room with cooked cabbage. Room, hell, the same fuckin' TIME-ZONE! And I'm a nut for hummus and its eggplanty relatives such as tahini. And I don't care at all for potatoes (MickeyD fries excepted), but Susan makes me "Dem Potatoes" which are cheesy and crunchy and I guess they're supposed to be akin to home fries or o'brian, elevated to nobility, but otherwise I puke at potato salad, red boiled (ugh) potatoes, most mashed unless so lumpless they make skin balm seem rocky by comparison. A potato latkeh has to be sliced thin and made crunchy for me to go at it; and I offend all others at the table by sprinkling latkes with sugar.

And I relish string beans, peas, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, eggplant, vichysoisse, pumpkins, BBQ baked beans, fried zucchini, spinach (looooove spinach), celery ... my, how he do go on. (Well, I wanted to be as thorough as I can be, in an attempt to stave off an Anton-type question, "What about carrots? You didn't mention carrots? You like Carrots?" and then I'd have to come back and, sighing, respond, "Yes, I like carrots, AND Stan Getz!"

The point being: cooked cabbage will make me direly ill, but I scarf up cole slaw like a chasser. I go wild for dogs, puppies or otherwise--except fuckin' pit bulls, kindly don't tell me how gentle and kind is the slobbering carrion-crawler YOU own--but have virtually no affection for cats, never have. Not to mention the goddam INEVITABLE, INVARIABLY MAUDLIN, fanatically INSISTENT, unasked-for & nobody-GIVES-a-shit pop-up replies from assholes who jus' looooves their li'l Cap'n Ahab or Miss CATerwaul or FelineFritzi, and cannot wait a nanosecond to simper on and on about how THEIR calico maltese manx bidet-drinker meows along to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle as rendered by Elliot Fisk on the Valencian Guitar, Yoko Ono on flute! Now, this is not to say there haven't been at least two kittens (I can remember) who were sweet, cuddly, scampering, and meant a few moments-worth of affection to me...but...on sum, as Kliban used to put it "Loves dem little kitties, loves to squeeze'em till they eyeballs pop out."

Cannot give you a better reason that that, you guys. But to read Davey C. going into paroxysms of abnegation at the least possibility that he was trying to suck out my ego and transistorize my id, or somesuch, merely because he asked howcum Harlan dun like cats...well, that's just arrant tomcatfoolishness or being coy and kittenish, heh heh.

I do hope that answers your FAQ. If not, well, (he said cheerily), youse can go'n fugg yerselfs.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Ellison Book Order
Susan, your book list is just what I needed today!

Put me down for an Illustrated Ellison, that last Demon with a Glass Hand, and a Essential Ellison (50th; Limited, Boxed, Numbered). Personalized please, as Harlan sees fit.

Thanks,
Peggy

THE ILLUSTRATED ELLISON
Hi Susan,

I mailed a check for $41.89 today for one copy of THE ILLUSTRATED ELLISON - now with 3-D glasses! (Couldn't resist.)

I also asked for a personalized inscription from Harlan.

Thanks!

John

How do I feel about the Ellison Chair?
When I spoke to Harlan on the phone after winning this, his first words to me were, "Are you out of your mind?" Clearly, he thinks so. To him, this is just a slightly worn but "terrifically sturdy" writing chair, and it's something of a lark to ship it across the country to a fan.

But on the other side of the looking glass... I've been reading Harlan for 27 years, since I was 14. An Edge in My Voice alone taught me more about art, aesthetics, honor, integrity, and goddamn writing than four years of college.

In my _informed_ opinion, Angry Candy is one of the great works of literature in the English language.

I sit now, typing this, in the chair in which they were written.

I have no doubt this will be in a museum someday, long after my heirs pry it from my cold, dead ass. But until then I will sit in it and type and work, and occasionally stop and remind myself that I am sitting where Ellison sat when he wrote what he wrote.

Hold on... doing it now...

Best thousand bucks I ever spent.

Re: Last Call for HE Books
Susan,

Thanks very much for providing the list of books. If it is not too much trouble, would you be able to let me know the physical condition of the Dangerous Visions. I am just putting together an order for some other books and am seriously considering adding this to it.

Also, if there are any Limited Edition Hardcover's available other than what is already listed on the website, please let me know. I may just make one large order out of it.

Thanks as always for your time and attention.

Be well,

Lou Valenti

CHURCH, YOU PINHEAD:

If it's "Jacke" and not "Jackie," I have been misreading their names for more than forty years, and all of the 20-some albums in my collection are misprinted. Which may be the case, if you are to be believed. Or...you could be a pinhead.

Respectfully, Yr. Pal, Harlan
----------------------------------------------------------------
A few more great not-to-be-missed jazz recommends:

Herbie Mann, McCoy Tyner, Oscar Brown, Jr., Freddie Hubbard,
Dave Grisman, Oscar Peterson, Chico O'Farrill.

-he

ALEX:

I did Yusef Lateef with this group a month ago. PRAYER TO THE EAST, remember? I figured once was enough. This was a new list of soundmakers.

-he

Oh Steve, dear Steve . . . you're a fine, kind and goodly man for offering to throw yourself so wantonly on my squibby little grenade, but I just can't let you take lumps with my soiled and manky name on them; it's a question of worthiness, really.

Harlan, I was the one who presumed to snuffle about, at a secondhand remove, in the sock drawer of your psyche for clues that might illuminate your storied antipathy toward cats. I did not do so with any intent whatsoever of attempting to change your mind, or indeed of responding in any fashion evaluative of what is, after all, little more than a matter of taste -- One Man's Puke Is Another Man's Pizza, dontchaknow.

In any event, I certainly didn't mean to penetrate the orbit of friends & well-wishers in The Other Place and bother The Man Who with my irksome & trivial nosiness.

LAST CALL FOR ELLISON BOOKS
Dear One and All:

I'm packing up the few Ellison books that are still available. On Monday morning they're going back into storage. If anyone wants one, please let me know. Last Call. The number in brackets ( )are how many copies are available.

(7) THE ILLUSTATED ELLISON. (Color, Large Graphic,Trade Paperback--with 3-D glasses) $35.00

(1) DANGEROUS VISIONS. 1st Edition $400.00

(2) AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS. Trade Paperback, Berkley. $30.00

(2) PARTNERS IN WONDER. Pyramid, Paperback. $20.00

(2) DEATHBIRD STORIES. Easton Press, Hardcover. $125.00.

(4) SHATTERDAY. Hutchinson, 1st British. $65.00

(1) MEMOS FROM PURGATORY. Powell, 1969. Paperback. $50.00

(3) OVER THE EDGE. Belmont. Paperback. First Edition. $45.00

(5) THE BEAST THAT SHOUTED LOVE AT THE HEART OF THE WORLD. Avon/Book Club. First Hardcover. $45.00

(1) AN EDGE IN MY VOICE. Hardcover, Donning. $50.00

(1) NIGHT & THE ENEMY. Graphic Hardcover. Signed by HE and Ken Steacy. "A/P" "Plastic Cover" $50.00

(1) As above but with "Paper Cover" $50.00

(1) DEMON WITH A GLASS HAND. Graphic Novel. $25.00

(1) SHATTERDAY. Bound Proofs. No DJ--as issued. $50.00

(2) ANGRY CANDY. Bound Proofs. No DJ--as issued. $50.00

(4) THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON (35th). Hardcover, Book Club. $20.00

(4) THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON (50th). Limited, Boxed, Numbered. $150.00

Postage is $4.00 per order. CA Residents please add 8 1/4% sales tax. Checks payable to: THE KILIMANJARO CORPORATION. Post Office Box 55548, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413.

HE will personalize if requested.

Just let know know on the board, and I'll hold the books you want.

Thank you.

Susan

MY cat is - get this - a Norwegian Forest Cat. A CALICO Norwegian Forest Cat.

Her ancestors were actually used some 400 years ago by the Vikings to guard their grain from rodents.

You have to respect an animal with a rep like THAT.

Now, most people I've met who DON'T like cats are either allergic to them or they'd found 'em a huge nuisance in their own experience. Or, perhaps the memory of that bouquet of cat urine stuck in their consciousness, not to mention their dilated and scorched nasal passages, thereby fusing the association.

The post I did yesterday
Geez... I rewrote that post at least twice, and I thought my wording had been precise enough, but maybe not. Just to clarify then, it was my unnamed friend (who shall remain unnamed) who expressed doubt - not outright disbelief - that Harlan wrote to TV GUIDE. I don't pretend to be an expert on all things Ellison,but I was aware of his Chicago days (editorial work at a pulp house,if memory serves); indeed I can recall an enjoyable panel that Harlan shared with Max Collins,Frank Miller, and Mickey Spillane at a Chicago ComicCon (or whaever it is they're calling it now). Harlan and MIckey dominated with their tales of the old days, while the rest of us,Collins and Miller included, just sat and listened and wished we all had tape recorders.I could tell you embarassing stories from my own youth about stereotyping, but I lack the masochism.Actually, the reason I wrote the thing in the first place was to call attention to NAKED CITY being available on broadcast TV - so write your local independent stations, folks, and watch 45 year old TV episodes that put most modern stuff to shame.

Harlan is mentioned in the Nodwick blog for Wednesday, May 7th. It's a name mention, and the blog goes on to talk about impressions of intelligence in SF.

http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/index.htm


shagin

Hey Harlan, I saw your list of jazz musicians, and I'm just wondering if you like Stan Getz?

/Anton.

A FAQ, a few letters, and "Howdy" from the diva

Robert asked "Has any small press ever shown any interest in publishing your letters?"

Robert, Harlan uses the same 26 letters we all use -- he merely puts them in a much more interesting order.


(I'm KIDDING goddamnit! I ain't THAT dumb.)
_______________________________________

HARLAN - A question popped up on the FAQ page that already has stumped the lot of us. And since I was the idiot who posted the rules, I get to take the first set of lumps for asking you yet another FAQ: "*Ahem*" "Mr. Ellison. The question was posed wondering why, sir, you do not like cats."
_______________________________________

Cris smiled when I told her I had your permission to peck her cheek last night. She said to ask Susan to do the same thing right back atcha.

Minor Questions for Harlan

Has any small press ever shown any interest in publishing your letters?

If so, did it not happen because you weren't interested, didn't want it to happen? Or did it not happen just because it didn't happen?

Amazing...

HARLAN-

I never expected guff from you for _not_ spending time on the internet.

Signed or unsigned is fine; just want to read the words therein.

I'd like to send the manuscript along to you. I'd also like to send it registered with delivery confirmation so it can be tracked in case anything happens along the way. Can you sign for something at the HERC P.O. box, or should I send it direct to you? And if direct, is the address on the manuscript still valid?

I could also pass it on to your assistant; that might be easier since I'm just down the road.

--
Ryan

The Bible of Couch Potatoes

MICHAEL DORAN:

Although the date, locale, and subject matter (not to mention an attestation by Da Man Hisse'f) would suggest you indeed are looking at the genuine article, I wasn't aware of any Ellison letters that appeared in T.V. Guide before the 1970s.

I know he had one in the Sept. 25, 1971 issue, page A-5, and only in the Los Angeles Metropolitan edition; and the one about Tom Snyder that somebody else mentioned was in the Nov. 3-19, 1974 issue.

There have also been two Ellison interviews in TV Guide -- in the Aug. 3, 1974 issue (by Edith Efron) and the Feb 19-25, 1994 issue (by Glenn Kenny).

But it might be worth faxing a copy of what you have to Ellison so he can see whether he thinks it was indeed his work (Rick Wyatt or I could give you the number) and then somebody should double-check with Tim Richmond, because if this is the genuine article, Tim should make sure it's included in his upcoming Ellison bibliography.

retches / cemetarians
A retch is actually the level one step below wretch, in nomenclature Richard Matheson established in the first paragraph of his first published story, "Born of Man and Woman."

Signed, Another Cemetarian

MR KEENEY:
Howdy from a fellow Cemeterian. Or Dancer if that rolls off the tongue more sprightly. Enjoyed the interview. Rich Chizmar bought a story from me a while back and is the first pro editor to actually invite me to submit more. (Sheila Williams at Asimov's is the second, though no sale there yet.) Keep hope alive!

Ayn Rand u.s.w.
Frank, while there's a certain amusement in refering to Ayn Whine as a "retch," I suspect you meant "wretch," yes?

Harlan, what? No Yusef Lateef?

I am totally feeling the modern Jazz Quartet. Modern without sacrificing the verve that makes jazz jazzy, instead of jazzercise.

Harlan, it's Jacke and Roy, not Jackie.

Bossa Nova, the baby that suckles me from space.

I might also recommend Weather Report. Like getting a blow job from Cleopatra.

-----------

Ayn Rand was a worthless retch, may she molder away in her corrosive grave. She gave us capitalism with the gloves off. Fuck her and the glue she rode in on.

Siano, welcome back. Missed you cupcake.

Smokey
Harlan,

Zeock wins, 'cause he spoke up first. And to hell with Catholic guilt (sez a former K through 3rd student of Sacred Heart School in Charleston, West Virgina). I said gratis and I meant gratis.

Also, looky what I found:

http://www.smokey-stover.com/

Tons 'n oodles of Smokey Stover strips from the 30s to the 70s!

LARS:

Thank you for the NY Times section. And, er, uh, if you feel like it, you could, mmmmm, tell the flock your feelings about your recent purchase, if I'm not imposing on your privacy.
----------------------------------------------------------------
RYAN LEASHER:

Where the hell are you? Please reply ... package sitting, waiting to be posted ... signed? or unsigned? Yr. call.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Yr. Pal, Harlan

STEVE:

Cris's CD blew in yesterday. It's at the top of the LISTEN TO THESE NOW stack, between a Fritz Kreisler and a Dukes of Dixieland. Thank you, and do give the diva a peck onna cheek for Susan and

Yr. Pal, Harlan

MIKE DORAN:

What endlessly perplexes me is how people who have never met me--such as your "friend" who KNOWS I would never write a letter to TV GUIDE--make such unspoken attestations of telepathy. Yes, indeed, I lived in Evanston (twice) and I was a great admirer of Howard Rodman's NAKED CITY scripts, as well as his story editor helmsmanship (and it was on NAKED CITY I first saw my friend Robert Blake as an adult actor), and I did indeed write that letter of praise. Tell your friend that there are few things in this world as arrogant as a young man's discovery of something we all have known for centuries, which he thinks is new wisdom, fresh from the egg.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

JOHN E.:

I have that Smokey Stover edition, so I don't need it; but I cannot commend its wonderfulness strongly enough. Particularly to you younkers what has come along so much later in the History of Wonderfulness that Bill Holman, his puns, and Smokey are unknowns to you. Fight among yourselves...it'll be worth it.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

NYT Sunday Movie Preview
Hi Harlan,

I have the Sunday Times Movie Preview. I will send it along with the check.

--L

Ditko, Rand and muddled thinking.
***Adam T-c *** That's just ridiculous. There is nothing preventing Ditko from buying or making his own cutting board out of any number of things rather than his old art. At the point where you confuse the art you are making with the tools you use to make the art (unless you are engaged in some sort of avant-garde or conceptual excercise) then there is some other force at work. Self-loathing? Simply gone 'round the bend? I don't know. But I've read Rand including her editorials in the Objectivist Newsletter back in the 1950's and she would never have made an anti-altruist argument quite that loopy. Howard Roark knew the difference between the drafting the table and the blueprint - even on his bad days.

- Barney Dannelke

CHRIS THURLOW

Yeah, I can use it. Send it. In payment, here are a few jazz players to look up:

Dorothy Donegan
Clifford Brown
Jackie & Roy
Jack Teagarden
Chano Pozo
Ray Bryant
Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
Big Miller
Charles Lloyd
Rhaasan Roland Kirk
Thelonius Monk
Brother Jack McDuff
Steve Lacy
Blossom Dearie
Modern Jazz Quartet
Joe Venuti
Marian McPartland
Jackie Paris
Olatunji
Ahmad Jamal
Charlie Barnett ("Skyliner")

and when you've gotten comfortable with them, I have 386 more... for starters.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Ditto with Siano on Ditko.
The Question is my favorite super hero, but that is based on the more recent comics. I've never run across any of Ditko's run, but I honestly haven't been looking that hard.

Objectivism is... something I'm not particularly fond of. THE FOUNTAINHEAD.... Yikes, my friends.

##

Note: Bwahahahahahahaha! Muahahahahaha-ha-haaha! IT is finished! Behold the startling mediocrity that is PULP HENRY. But you can't actually read it yet, and you probably never will, knowing me!
But anyway, Bwahahahahahaha!

##

And finally, I will repeat for anyone who wants to hear it the corny and oft repeated sentiment -- Guys, it's gonna be alright.

It's gonna be alright.

Mike Doran:
I THINK I can remember at least one other letter Harlan wrote to TV GUIDE in the mid to late 1970s, extolling the virtues of Tom Snyder.

WHY does it seem so unlikely to you that he would write to TV GUIDE? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't get it.

JohnE
JohnE-if no one else wants it I'd be glad to have it. However, 18 years of Catholic school prohibits me from taking anything gratis. Let me know what you'd like along with postage and packing-John Zeock 23 taylor road conshohocken pa 19428 2111. And remember- to foo is human, to forgive divine. jz

FAQ
Paul is correct. There is a FAQ thread marked as THE HARLAN ELLISON FAQ PAGE on the Forums under "General".

http://harlanellison.com/heboard/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2139 or click on the above hyperlink to go to the "Other Place" as we loving call it.

(Please don't be confused by the somewhat less useful but more popular FAQ Discussion thread which has recently been afflicted with bad puns and worse Haiku.)

The rules of the game on the official Honesta' Gawd FAQ page is you have to posit the FAQ and THEN SUPPLY THE ANSWER IF POSSIBLE. The purpose is to have a place where all those truly FAQs have an answer ready and awaiting, so it is hoped that both will be supplied in the same post. I've already noted that I will delete posts with the inevitable and pretty worthless "I don't know" responses.

And thank you to Paul for his rapid repost -- if not riposte -- of this question to the FAQ page.

If you stump the board -- which usually includes such HE-philes as FinderDoug, Loftus, Dannelke etc. -- you will win what used to be called a "no-prize" but the question will be posed to Harlan by someone willing to get their ears boxed on behalf of the FAQ's accuracy.

So. There you have it, and may heaven help us all.

USA
One of our local channels has started running NAKED CITY in a post-midnight timeslot,and this sent me to my collection of old TV GUIDES, circa early '60s. There's a letter in one signed "Harlan Ellison, Evanston,Ill." extolling NAKED CITY's virtues as opposed to THE UNTOUCHABLES. If memory serves, HE was resident in this area at that time with his then-wife and her son. When I showed this letter to a friend, he doubted that HE would have ever written a letter to TV GUIDE for any reason.If this is a source of negative memory for him I apologize, but my damned curiosity just got the better of me.

I can't resist.

Peter, that is a wise idea, and if it is not sarcasm, I fear it is your misfortune to be that selfsame FAQ # 5 on the THE HARLAN ELLISON FAQ PAGE, next door on the boards. Congratulations. Or sorry.

Ditko
Adam, did you see the BBC show about Steve Ditko? It was truly excellent, and towards the end, the BBC journalist and Neil Gaiman went to visit Ditko. Cameras didn't accompany them, but the two were affusive as they came out.

The focus on Ditko's eccentricities and Objectivist beliefs reminds me of a piece in _Slate_ this past week, about Daniel Radosh's _Rapture Ready_, a book about Christian pop culture. Sure, the book has some sport at the lameness of Christian rock, Christian comedians, Christian this-and-than... but it also explores the sad understanding among Christians that this separate culture is, clearly _deficient_. It's _not_ as good as the original; sort of like how kids realized how lanme Pat Boone was once they discovered Little Richard.

Part of the lameness derives from the ideological limits imposed by the creators. When you try to _design_ culture, by limiting what it addresses and how it addresses things, then you're confining it. You're asking people who partake of that culture to share in a kind of lobotomy. Yes, we will show you drama, but there will be lots of dramatic issues that we can't address; there will be ironies and conflicts that cannot be shown or acknowledged; there will be boundaries beyond which we will not step. And since the biggest constraint is to _imitate_ mainstream culture, the result could never be anything _but_ retarded.

But with artists with severe constraints, obsessions, and the like, and who _don't_ feel the need to imitate mainstream culture, you have this amazing effect. They have to create _something_, but there are some things they either will not or can not do. The result is something like high-pressure water constrained by the walls of the hose-- what comes out is extreme, focused and powerful.

So, Ayn Rand creates this fantasy where architectural theory dominates the dynamics of entire cities. Ditko comes up with stuff like _The Question_, where even minor compromises with the world are judged with the severity of the God of Abraham. Dave Sim builds complex and recursive edifices of argument about the "feminist homosexualist axis." Sometimes, the monomania can feel pretty confining, but you can't help but feel a bit of awe at the _degree_ of focus. And every so often, you get to see something truly original; I can't say I enjoyed every page of _Cerebus_, but it's like nothing else, and I'm certainly in awe of it.

Notary Sojak
John Zeock, Harlan, any other Bill Holman fans: I have a slightly-battered collection of Smokey Stover comics published by Kitchen Sink in (I think) 1991, with an introduction by Harvey Kurtzman. It's just sitting around doing nothing, if anyone wants it. I've read it and enjoyed it all I possibly can, so it would be my pleasure to pass it on, gratis.

I've always thought that several of Ellison's short stories would have made superb original Twilight Zone episodes ("Rain, Rain, Go Away" and "Commuter's Problem" come to mind). Perhaps in a better universe.

Chico Hamilton
Talk earlier of Chico Hamilton, sparked a bit of information, that I wanted to share. There is a new CD release of the soundtrack to the great film "The Sweet Smell of Success" This edition merges the Elmer Bernstein score with the Chico Hamilton Quartet set for the first time. Its a honey of a collection, with 22 tracks beautifully remastered. Its a import but can be found online at most of your music offering outlets. Enjoy.

FAQ
In the years that Harlan has been posting here, he's had to suffer a broken record of questions about various books, associations, rumors, and whatnot. He does so with admirable patience.

I'd like to throw out the idea to any and all with time on their hands (meaning not Rick, Harlan, or any number of extremely busy people) to pick through the archives of the board and make a frequently asked questions list so people can know what not to ask Harlan again and again and again and again. Rod Serling can be question numero uno.

~Peter

Ditko: Aaaarrrggghhh
I just wrote a review (for SCI FI magazine) of STRANGE AND STRANGER: THE WORLD OF STEVE DITKO, by Blake Bell. An invaluable, profusely illustrated and (because of the eccentric protagonist) maddening artistic biography. Rarely have you seen a pivotal creator, with a permanent place in the pop culture pantheon, so eager to shoot himself in the foot.

I give the book an A+ and call it essential reading.

Here's a paragraph on an element that truly bothered me.


"One particularly horrifying story, late in the book, involves a visitor who discovers that Ditko has been using decades of old art, returned to him from publishers including Marvel, DC and Charlton, as cutting boards: a blind act of wanton self-destruction that represents the loss of potential hundreds of
thousands of dollars on the collector’s market. Ditko’s acquaintance begs him to stop, and even offers to go out to an art supply store, right then, to buy Ditko a cutting board so he won’t continue destroying his classic old work in the process of creating new pages. Ditko, trapped in dogma, refuses on the grounds that (like his idol, Ayn Rand), he despises altruism in any form. Rand’s novel THE FOUNTAINHEAD glorifies rigid principle triumphing over all other considerations
including common sense, but even her implacable architect hero, who blew up his own building rather than accept a compromised vision, might have thought twice had he been able to resolve a minor supply problem by allowing an associate to go to Staples on his behalf."

The Rand cult being what it is, I expect some insane rambling e-mails.

For Chris: Lost excerpt from Plato's
Shall we continue upon the subject of musical education?

Certainly.

Then we should be quite emphatic about...would you kindly speak again?

I can, but I am here to listen, primarily.

I was struck by your voice.

Thank you.

I also noticed that when you speak, you seem to have musical accompaniment.

Speech with music is a good thing.

That we may safely affirm. Who is that with you?

This is my friend, Fred Katz. He is compelled to play when I quote your work, sir.

Who stands behind Katz's band of musicians?

They are a group of brothers from the Warner family. They are well-versed in the various ways of money-making.

I understand. Before you leave my company, would you tell me your name? I am going to add this episode to my journal.

You may call it "Poitier Meets Plato". On, Warner brothers! We must go see Xenophon. I shall not rest until I convince him that Symposium would make for excellent drama.

Good health be with you. Before you depart, your man Katz may wish to speak to Ken Nordine. Perhaps his poetry shall inspire Katz to compose more beautiful music.

I believe they have met, good Plato.

Mr Ellison's request
Sorry but I regret to inform you that the NY Times Summer movie preview was consumed along with the rest of the paper in a girlfriend inspired cleaning frenzy.

Maybe someone else attending this forum could provide you with a copy?

screen credit

HARLAN - at risk of belaboring a touchy subject, I just wanted to say that I personally am grateful that your real name remained on City at the Edge of Forever.

That's how I learned that there was a Harlan Ellison. That's why I picked up The Illustrated Harlan Ellison, and got to meet the Harlequin and Bedzyk and all the others in that wondrous tome, which in turn lead to The Very Best Visit To A Bookstore In My Entire Life, a quick stop by the old Change of Hobbit in Santa Monica for some vacation reading where I bought Bradbury's Death Is A Lonely Business, Robert Bakker's amazing Dinosaur Heresies, and most best of all Deathbird Stories, which was for me both astonishing entertainment and eye-opening writing seminar (and let all who come to this sacred pavilion be thankful that they shall never read any of the "deathbird" stories I cranked out in the next six months as I was figuring out what my own voice sounded like -- yeesh!)

So many good and insightful times in my life reading your stories and essays, so many smiles at the bookstore when I found you had a new collection out. And for me it boiled down to the fact that your wrote a Star Trek episode that was so beautiful and sad and truthful that no amount of subsequent "revision" could kill it. Fucked up, but not FUBAR, it seems to me now.

Who knows, if the screen credit had said Cordwainer Bird, maybe I would have stumbled across your work anyway. But I shudder to think that I might not have.

It's sad to learn that your name remained on the show because Roddenberry was underhanded or manipulative, but I am very, very grateful that I learned of Harlan Ellison.

MM

Harlan...Fred Katz. I should have known.
Should have, but didn't.
It is good stuff though, so I like to think I wasn't too far off base in suggesting that you give it a whirl to calm your Roddenberry-addled nerves.

Could you please possibly perhaps, in your inimitable wisdom of great Jazz music, drop a few names I should maybe know about so that I might add a bit more Hip to my paltry Jive? I sought out Django and love it (have you seen his cartoon self at the beginning of Triplets of Belleville?) I will now be tracking down Chico Hamilton too. I groove to the sounds of Raymond Scott and Sun Ra on a regular basis as well. I am always on the lookout for that special, off-the-wall Jazz like Katz, Scott, Ra. Any suggestions would be most welcome and appreciated.

Also, I recently purchased a Book Club edition of Alone Against Tomorrow and inside it I found a Science Fiction Book Club tri-fold pamphlet titled Things to Come. It is dated June 1971 and has an illustration for The Silver Corridor (pink lady with a purple monster head and black cape/wings) on the front by Kim Whitesides. Inside there is a full page on AAT with descriptions of stories as well as a page on A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg. It's in great condition. It has probably been tucked in the book since 1971. Is it something you would like for your collection or have you already got it? I'd be glad to send it to you if you want it, otherwise I'd be just as glad to keep it for mine own self.

Risking the snapping of another Whipple (that'll teach him to squeeze my Charmin),
Chris

FRANK:

Another FAQ, but for you, snookums, I repeat the answer to "Did you know Rod Serling?"

Answer: no.

Never met him, never worked for him, my only contact has been the 1985 rebirth of the series, and some work I did for the short-lived "Twilight Zone" magazine, and a few contacts with his widow, Carol (oddly enough, I'm working on a piece for her currently). But as for Mr. Serling, no; no liaison of any kind.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

THURLOW:

What is that homey homily I'm always quoting...? Oh. Yeah. It's

"Don't be tryin' to teach your dear ole Granny how t'suck eggs."

I was onto Fred Katz before you were drawing oxygen, sonny. He was a long-time sideman of Chico Hamilton. He plays on some of the most exciting Pacific Jazz vinyls in my rich & extensive collection. Not to mention Fred was one of the sidemen in the combo Chico fronted during the great Ernie Lehman-co-written film, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS. Not to mention I reviewed Fred Katz's solo work a number of times. Fred Katz???!!!??? Who the fuck y'think you're talkin' to here, snapperwhipple?

Annoyingly Elitist, Yr. Pal, Harlan
----------------------------------------------------------------
(Katz. Fred Katz, fer chrissakes! Ho-lee gadzo-lee, Bettie Spaghetti!

misc

When I was coming up I read as much Edgar Rice Burroughs as I could beg, borrow, or steal.

Somewhere along the way I found an address for Danton Burroughs. I sent a fan letter...And Danton wrote back. And he continued to correspond for as long as I held up my end. Simply amazing. He was a kind, considerate, and very classy guy.

shagin
I think I know how thrilled you must be. I just kinda got my foot in the door at Cemetery Dance Magazine. Issue #58 (the Charles Grant Tribute issue) contains my conversation with Stephen Graham Jones.

real.exciting.stuff.
http://www.cemeterydance.com/sh/_cd058.html

peace,
Rick

Harlan- a 1506 nix nix right back at you. I have a Smokey Stover sweatshirt which I think are still available at the Shop at Hogan's Alley web site. I have no problems with the new Who-I like the different dynamic Tate brings to it. The first two episodes may not have been home runs but they were solid doubles. (Nigel Kneale was asked to write for Who-as well as the X-files. His reply was something to the effect of "why ask me when you've been ripping me off for years?) (he also didn't like Who being sold as a childern's show when it as scary as it was and had a body count higher than a lot of Balkan wars). And- Ted Key 1912-2008, Hazel; Phyllis, the Phillies sparrow and Mr Peabody and Sherman. (still waiting on any info on Who ringtones available in U.S)

Harlan, forget that last question. Rob told me you didn't know Serling. Sowwy.

I did hear he was hard to deal with..hmm

A question and a reccomendation
Susan: Does the HERC happen to have a copy of the first Dream Corridor available, and if so how much would it be?

All: If you happen to like hardboiled dective novels, may I direct your attention to a wonderful small press that specalizes in them. Hard Case is a wonderful line of books that is attempting to bring back the glory days of pulp fiction. They publish books by some well known names (an aside, had to have my shoping companion keep me from buying the Micky Spillane books I couldn't afford but wanted so badly) as well as lesser known names, or those who only published one book ect. The covers are awesome, and both the men who own the press have written books for the line as well.

Yours in pleasureful readong

Lori

Duane, horse tacos, yum.

Actually, the horse did not get killed, it committed suicide, after it found out Hillary bet on it.

"She won't besmirch my good name."

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

Roddenberry now has small rodents crawling in and out of his colon, so all is good.

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

Harlan, you knew Rod Serling right?

Duane
I find it "sad" that Mrs. Clinton was betting on horses* at all, but maybe that is just me.

*"not a wholesome trottin' race, either, but a race where they sit down right on the horse!"

Anyone else think it's sad that the horse that Hillary Clinton bet on to win the Kentucky Derby finished second in the race?

The horse's name was Eight Belles, and she came in second place before suffering catastrophic injuries to her ankles. She was euthanized shortly thereafter.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/03/kentucky-derby-horse-eigh_n_99987.html

From the above Huffington Post article: "Eight Belles actually ended up finishing second in the race, just behind Big Brown."

Harlan,

A quick direct response, then I'll move on to spare you this memory:

1) First, thanks a lot for your informative reply.

2) Having blocked out of my own memory more chunks of obsidian than I could count, I completely sympathize. These days I only want to remember sunshine and flowers. That's all. Just sunshine and flowers.

3) The one thing that's really weird about that business, is that Roddenberry HAD allowed Shimon Wincelberg, aka, S. Bar-David, to use HIS pseudonym on an episode (it may have even been on TWO). So, I don't know why he was laying this double standard on YOU. Perhaps, as you suggested, you were something of a new kid on the block - and with an audaciousness that may have even offended him on some level - and you therefore seemed like ez pickinz to bully; I explore this possibility because it happens to just about EVERY newcomer in the business. It's important to know the tricks.

Anyway, I'm sorry about all that shit. I never like it when they fuck with your work.

HARLAN/JEFF R/ROB - I have added the below series of questions/answers relating to Harlan's serious case of Roddenberryberry to the HARLAN ELLISON FAQ page on the Forums under "General". If it should rear its head again, refer the newbies over that direction.
__________________________________________

Don H - Yeah, that's what is bugging me about Sarah Jane in particular. Yes, it's a children's show, but the stories/execution have been below the usual DOCTOR WHO standards. Likewise the new season of WHO. I'm just not getting Donna Noble as his companion at all. Can we please go back to Astrid/Rose Tyler/Martha Jones??? Sarah Jane?

Music to Calm Harlan By
Harlan,

Have a listen to Folk Songs for Far Out Folk by Fred Katz.
If you haven't heard it already.

If it sounds familiar, you may recognize the composer's name from the credits of Bucket of Blood as well as the original Little Shop of Horrors.
Such swell sounds shall sweep sweet sorrow swiftly.

Oops!
Sorry, just saw the post about my order, I'll opt for the 50th edition trade paperback for $25.00, and leave the $10 on credit.
Sure I'll spend that soon. Or feel free to send anything of your choice, that's $10. Any way you want to do it, just glad to get it.
I have to admit, my heart skipped a beat when I saw HE had typed my name in a post. Really scared me at first.

JEFF R.:

Yeah (said Ellison, his lips skinning back like those of a feral beast), yeah...indeed it does ring a bell. Like the bell between rounds in an iron cage death-match. I try to damp my apparently-unkillable loathing of what he visited on me, after my saving his ass and his fucking series from cancellation, in the lee of my devotion to the show, but my ire is again bubbling just from your brief post. It is not good for me to dwell on that man, and that swatch of Ancient History, at peril of lava...a la the book, and writing of the record.

Henceforth, I think, I will ignore any more queries on this subject. The rest of you might warn any newbies who show up. Refer them to the book (copies of which HERC has for sale at a delicious price) or to all the archive enties on the subject. But as for me, well, I'm trying to be a better, calmer, person. It is a ferocious task, and I ask your assistance.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ALERT ALERT ALERT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Susan and I need to hear from:

RYAN LEASHER (Do you want WATCHING signed or not?)

DENNIS THOMPSON (Advise on dispensation of your order)

LARS (Fedex tells me the chair was delivered to your house today)

Please, all three, contact us ASAP.

HARLAN:
In Herb Solow's and Bob Justman's INSIDE "STAR TREK": THE REAL STORY, they refer to your having received "a direct threat" by Roddenberry, as well as his solemn promise that you'd never work for Paramount again if you put Cordwainer Bird on the bastardized "City" script.

Ring any bells?

ROB:

I can only partially answer your query as to why "Cordwainer Bird" did not appear as Written By when "City On The Edge of Forever" aired. The answer is in two parts.

1) The Writers Guild set up, long ago, a bulletproof mechanism for taking one's name off a substandardly-produced (in the author's sole opinion) piece of work. It works thus: one registers an "official" pseudonym with the Guild at an early stage...that is to say, long before one is needed, purely as a safeguard, in expectation of something MAYBE going wrong in the future. (I logged on with "Cordwainer Bird" forty years ago, but have only used it three or four times in all these decades.)
When, if, they fuck up a script, or get bad rewrites, or any one of the thousand things that can go wrong surface, the scenarist invokes the Guild rule, and the production company MUST bow to the WGAw regs, and changes the onscreen credit, and all paperwork therefrom proceeding. They have no choice. They are bound by the WGA Minimum Basic Agreement (upgrading of said document lay at the heart of our recent Strike Action.) The producers can scream as loud as they want, and they can try to blackmail or threaten the writer into keeping his/her name on the job, if they feel the name has market value, or dignity value, or gossip value...or whatever. But unless the writer caves, they are immobilized.

Which answers part one of your query.

2) Not so easy to clear up because...

and this is unlike me...

and it may be Early Onset Alzheimer's...

But I'll be damned if I can remember why I acceded to Roddenberry's whinging and whining that Harlan Ellison remain on the aired version, though my version had been (in my sole view) bastardized beyond a pain I could not bear!

I remember he threatened to work tirelessly behind the scenes--not as nice a man as many would like to believe, in their fanboyishness--to deprive me of my royalties on the segment, but that alone would not have deterred me. Money has ALWAYS been the least reason for my doing ANYTHING.

No, there was yet another, scuzzier, level of ominous threat Roddenberry conjured. Remember, I'd only been out here a few years, I think two, at most three, when I did that teleplay; and I was hardly a frightened naif...but was still a little raw in the Ways of Skullduggery in filmdom. And Roddenberry went to a level of scurrilous behavior I was not, as yet, capable of matching...and I agreed to let my name stand. I wish I could be more detailed in responding but--until you mentioned it here--I'd forgotten that bit of maneuvering by the great bird of the galaxy. SOMEONE may know, may remember what happened, but dredge as deeply as I might, I cannot, for the life of me, raise that bit of minutiae.

But at least, I have written about it here for the first time. It isn't even in my book, that's how completely I'd blocked off that particular lousy behavior on his part. And people continue to ask me why I don't revere his memory...

Yr. Pal, Harlan

THE JUNGLE

Hee!
Shagin:

Thank you thank you thank you for that wonderfully evocative image. I'm putting it into every device I have so that I can call it up when I need to decompress and can't remember how.

Looking forward to yer first book tour...

Inner peace is watching a puppy dash through a cloudbank of dandelions and then chase after the remnants of his tufted wake.

Things have been a might hectic over the past few days, but nothing that a good stretch of the big picture frame can't handle. Thankfully.

Much thankiness for the support and words of go-gettum-ness, all. It's in the works and in the wiles. One of the major hurtles is the irony that different agencies syphon money out of different pots. Ah, the joys...

HARLAN -- Thanks for the encouragement about the bounce-back message. I will consider myself ahead even if the second submission (sent the day after I received said message) is rejected. I can't not write; I fell into that pit once, the closest I've ever come to an act the thought of which fills my husband with dread.

Nonfiction is a breeze. Fiction is dashing through a dandelion cloudbank...


shagin

Harlan-Related In the IMDB

Every now and then I actually find out there was SOMETHING I didn't know!

Before I proceed, let me cover my ass by pointing out that I've read factual errors in the Internet Movie Database before, so news that something here got skewed wouldn't particularly strike me as news.

Having said that, it states that when Roddenberry made changes in your TREK script he PROHIBITED you from using your pseudonym. That you WANTED to, but he wouldn't allow it.

If this is accurate, it's a detail that missed my radar in the past, and it explains some of my questions here.

DO producers have the legal contractual ability to do that if they choose to? If so, I sure as hell didn't KNOW it.

I thought any author could call himself anything he WANTED.

HE: A few of us chilluns is still saving our Puce Stamps for a new edition of Captain Wimby's Bird Atlas...

S. BARBER: The one episode of _The Sarah Jane Adventures_ I've seen so far made me want to throw something large at the television; fortunately my 15-lb. cat was in the other room at the time. I loved the interaction between the main characters, but the plot and the guest performances were gawdawful. I was planning to give it another shot last Friday, only to find that the Sci-Fi Channel had mysteriously vanished from my cable box(it finally reappeared today.) _Doctor Who_ isn't faring much better. (The tragedy is that these are both shows I _want_ to like, very much - and they're not holding my interest enough for me to remember to turn on the TV _before_ Battlestar Galactica comes on.)

FRANK/KOS: Should you find yourself in Oregon, Washington or a very few spots around Los Angeles and in need of a fast-Mex fix, skip the Del Taco and find you that little-known jewel of the Northwest, Taco Time. (Or as my sister dubbed it after reading Terry Pratchett's _Hogfather_, "Ta-KOH-ti-meh".) You will not regret it. (Almost makes up for the loss of Rubio's and Togo's in my move from California to here...)

Cheers!
Don Hilliard

Ohmigawd
Ohmigod, Harlan: