Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Archive - 06/04/2009 to 07/04/2009

Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

$$
Never mind, Harlan; I must've misinterpreted something posted here a few months ago. The human brain ain't perfect, after all. Happens to the best of us, right?

And it sounds more like you just need to give your internal dictionary/thesaurus and phrase book a little coffee break ("referring," "been," "dear old granny"). It's too early to inter you. The earth has yet to find a suitable inheritor for your particular talents, so your nameplate shall remain on your desk for a bit longer.

(Oh, and don't worry--I won't take the "dead granny" slip-up personally. HA.)

Do not hit
Press "riturn"!

Your last couple of posts put me in mind of an old Doonesbury comic when Joanie Caucus and Rick Redfern were sending out wedding invitations.

Zonker and Mike read the invitations, which Joanie and Rick found out (too late) had a misprint.

The invitation read, "We are pleased to announce the wedding of Joan Caucus and Bick Redfern". To compensate for that, there was a note enclosed with the invitation, which read, "Correction: the name of the bridegoon is "Rick Redfern" not "Bick Redfern"

Zonker: Bridegoon?

Mike: Hold on, here's another note...

Brian Phillips

Lieber
John Z: You should suggest that they just reprint THE LIEBER CHRONICLES: 50 Years of Fritz Lieber, published by Dark Harvest a while back (it's 600 pages, and has a great selection of stories).
-DTS

...and it should've been BEEN, not "benn."

Just inter me now.

-he

And it should've benn your DEAR old Granny, not your "dead" old Granny...

Long day, was it, Mr. Ellison?

Don't ask.

-he

And it should've benn your DEAR old Granny, not your "dead" old Granny...

Long day, was it, Mr. Ellison?

Don't ask.

-he

Two "r"s in referring, is it not so?

-he

SEMI-WRITER

What money? I have no idea to what you are refering. I'd keep it, if I were you. I'm in the dark.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

RICHARD COHEN

I suppose this reply comes under the reprimanditive heading, "Do not attempt to teach your dead old Granny how to suck oranges."

I read Schulberg, ALL of Schulberg that existed at that time, in 1950 or '51, I believe.

You come to the party half a century late, son.

I suppose better late than never, but jeeeeee-zus!

Harlan

*** Harlan *** Just a quick but sincere thank you. I had the Mills/Curtis half but the rest was spanking new. Hugs to you and Susan and the two children also running around in your house in the same skins. Be well.

- B

that was odd

My last post looks like it came from ATC - making it look like he's writing to himself.

In fact it was just from little ol' me. Perhaps I was typing too fast? Ghost in the machine?

Very, very odd.

Sorry for any confusion.

And the double post.

MM

adapting content-less properties

ATC-

Your theorizing about adapting the Asteroids video game reminded me of a job I had about ten years ago as one of two writers adapting a different Atari game - Centipede.

As you may recall, Centipede was an arcade game following the basic Space Invaders format: the player controls an icon which can slide left to right at the bottom of the screen, firing missiles, as crudely-drawn opponents plummet downward from the top.

In Centipede, the things coming down from the top were segmented centipede creatures, which, when shot, broke into smaller pieces that attacked from different directions, a lot of mushrooms that filled up space and made it harder to shoot the centipedes, and the occasional giant spider.

That was the whole game -- from which was created an entire world with a human culture in a losing battle against hordes of giant insects, in a ruined landscape where the old, healthy ecology is slowly being replaced by massive fungus.

There was, of course, going to be a new, fancier video game based on the series, and role-playing games, and even a series of prequel novels. I wrote five episodes and a prequel novel, and then the folks who were producing the show realized that they had massively under-budgeted what it would have cost to produce the series in CGI, and just like that the whole thing collapsed.

I remember one day in the middle of all that I was supposed to go to a party at a neighbor's house and I was late because I'd been writing all day, really getting into it actually, trying to add good character beats, keep some level of SF plausibility going, and at the same time deliver the action that the producers wanted. So finally I arrived at the party and made my apologies and explained that I'd been writing a kids' TV show all day. "Oh really?" said my neighbor, "what's it about?"

"It's about..." and of course then it hit me that we'd never really moved all THAT far from the source material... "It's about men fighting giant bugs."

But it was fun while it lasted.

MM

PS Your dad: yay!

L.A. Dating
It's impossible for Harlan to mention anything about his dating life without "The 3 Most Important Things in Life - #1: Sex" popping into my head. And that phrase, "staked out like a gazelle at the watering hole." Oh, dear.

But ya gotta admit... they don't make men like that no more! And no, that's not necessarily a bad thing. I met up with a guy that I've known in the comedy world since '02, and his great compliment to me (when I let my hair down and took my glasses off) was "I'd sleep with you." Oh, romantic lover, let us trip down the primrose path with a basket of chocolate-covered peanut-butter hearts... er, yea.

The good news is I've been approved for a bachelor apartment in my building--no kitchen, no cabinets, but I'll get a newly-refurbished bathroom and new carpet. The bad news is that it took Grandma's money to make it happen (speaking of which, I have suspicions that my uncle cheated his sisters out of some of the inheritance, but I think everyone is just happy to have settled things amicably and is willing to leave it at that). As detached as I am emotionally, however, I still can't watch the video that my cousin put together, though; he owns three funeral homes, and one of the services provided is a memorial video, of which I got a copy. Haven't been able to play it yet.

To do a flashback, a big thank-you goes out once again to the five people that helped cover my California registration earlier this year. (And speaking of... Harlan, can we/should we channel the Mine That Bird gains--wherever the funds may be right now, East Coast or West Coast--into something constructive? I consulted a financial consultant, whose only advice was to put it in a savings account for the interest. Whatcha think? Start it up as the HE Fund or something for future emergencies?)

On the other hand, if you winnow through the cinematic chaff, you'll still find some wheat. I just saw MOON at the Mayan theater. I got in about fifteen minutes before showtime and I was able to take in the beautiful Mayan Revival decor of the place. It was built in 1930 and is the last thing in Denver that could be called a "Movie Palace". High ceilings that disappear when the lights go down and all you have is the movie before you, no structure in sight.

MOON is an intelligent SF film of the "Old School", right down to the use of models instead of CGI to depict the lunar landscape, and an intelligent story that is as much a character study as a story of ideas. I saw previews of other attractions that looked very worth watching.

The good stuff's still out there. You just have to look for it. Sometimes, it even shows up at the local multiplex.

But, give me the Mayan any day. Now THAT'S a theater.

Chuck

JUST when
you think the culture has FINALLY touched bottom, they surprise you:

"DreamWorks eyes View-Master pic
In negotiations with Mattel to buy movie rights to the toy
By Borys Kit and Jay A. Fernandez

Remember View-Master, the Fisher-Price toy with those little 3D picture discs of mountains, rivers and caverns that you could rotate through a viewfinder? Well, DreamWorks is in negotiations to acquire movie rights to the toy from Mattel (which owns Fisher-Price) and has asked Kurtzman and Orci to do some "Transformers"-style magic on it."

For those who thought "Transformers 2" was TOO cerebral....

Jesus wept.

CINDY: NAG NAG NAG NAG NAGNAGGEDY NAG

Cheezus, woman! It's only about 20-30 years that you've been living with that bifurcated misrememberance. I haven't FORGOTTEN, I know damned well I owe you the clearance denouement to the episode. I'll GET TO IT, I swear on Sarah Palin's EKG!

Cheeeeeezus!

Adoringly, Yr. Long-Time Pal, Harlan

BARNEY ... reply re: AGENTS

When I got to NYC after OSU, I tried for months to get The Scott Meredith Agency to take me on. They blew me off till I sold 10 stories in 3 weeks, then their grubby li'l snouts smellt me, and I was with them through early 1956 to sometime in 1957, if I recall correctly. At that point I left them to hook up with a very nice man, Theron Raines...Theron W. Raines...who was working as a junior partner with a dear and sweet elderly lady, Ann Elmo, who had been an editor and agent in NYC for Pony's Years. He took me on, we did lots of business while I was in the Army, and then...for no particular reason I can recall, we went our separate ways, and I became a client of the late Robert P. Mills for about twenty years, till Bob was quite old, and not that interested in agenting--Jim Thompson, Alfred bester, me, others--all the Big Names of the time in sf/mystery--who hadn't been gobbled up by the Meredith whirlpool.

I was Bob's very last client. I think Ben Bova had been his penultimate. Richard Curtis took over Bob's remaining agenda, and all the work that had been sold under his aegis. I remember going to New York and actually, physically, carried the storage boxes of files across the hall, in the same building, where Richard had set up shop.

I've been with Richard ever since. Many decades.

I have no idea if Theron is still alive, though Ann died a long while ago and Theron kept using the Elmo name for the Agency, because it was venerable.

More than that, Barney, I cannot impart.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Why I am writing a novel
Because someone was paid $8,000,000.00 to write "Transformers 2".

That's right around about a million dollars per brain cell. Well, give or take half a dozen of the sparking little suckers.

As a creative act that earns money, it's right up there with writing down the numbers for a winning lottery ticket.

I can just imagine the meetings halfway through the writing of this shitstorm of cinema:

"This pass is pretty good, but I think the arc of Blastus Maximus still needs some work. We still don't fully understand his motivation in blowing up Gluteus Maximus."

I always am surprised when I am reminded, yet again, that shit floats and gold sinks.

KOS

Hello again Harlan and Susan,

The check as well as a letter letting you know our nephew' s name and your choice of words of wisdom sending out to you tomorrow morning.

To: Mr. Ellison, re: your Lissa
Mr. Ellison -

I found a listing for Lissa Morrow Christian in *Bayside, NY*, but no phone number. However, I did find a phone listing for Darrell Christian with *Bayside, NY* also listed as a residence. I am guessing this phone number is also your Lissa's.

The link below will take you to Darrell Christian's phone number:
http://tinyurl.com/m2alvb

Hope this helps,
Le

On The Loss of Anna Karen Morrow

Sorry Harlan,I failed in locating your former Gal and the Husband.Good Luck with someone else.
Glad to be of service,sire.
alan

ARGENDELI ------- YO!

Check nonsense notwithstanding, Susan cannot post it unless and until you tell me how you (if you) want it defaced.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ON THE DEATH OF AN OLD FRIEND

John Z posted that ANNA KAREN MORROW, the actress wife of the late Jeff Morrow, had died at age 94. Anna Karen was a friend of mine, as was Jeff. I dated their brilliant daughter LISSA MEGAN MORROW for a bright and contentious period, many years ago. Here in LA, when they lived at the Shoreham Drive address. Lissa went on to write a sports-astrology column that was widely published; then we fell out of touch. Her married name is Christian. Her husband is, according to the obits, Darrell Christian.

I am more than modestly hopeful of some one or another of you, tech-savvy or web-savvy, being able to track Lissa from the above clues--I believe there is a Darrell Christian who has recently been named as an exec at some sports-news franchise, which might not be too long a stretch--and without annoying anyone who is NOT Lissa--making a contact for me to call her to express my condolences, and my constant affection for her mom.

This is a solid, and I thank any(every)one in advance for whatever Good Offices, even if it's only getting this message to Lissa. The service was yesterday, I know not where, but I only learned of dear Anna Karen's passing from John Z today.

Thank you. Harlan

Ebert and the intelligent spectator
Roger responds to those readers who view his review of the new Transformers film:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/07/i_am_a_brainiac.html

It echoes some of Harlan's very own sentiments about this country's historic anti-intellectualism.

Just thought people around here might be interested in listening to or reading about a report on NPR's Talk of the Nation about J.D. Salinger and the issues surrounding what might happen to his works when he dies. They also discuss a lawsuit regarding an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye. It seemed relevant to a lot of discussions on this board about an author's right to his/her own works and characters.

I hope this link works alright.

http://www.npr.org/templates/sthttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106309617ory/story.php?storyId=106309617

Poontangs and pooches and posterity, Oh My!
AT-C: Thank you! :D That was the weirdest YouTube I've seen since Diversity beat Flawless in BGT. "Doubtless, without a doubt." Jack's moved on to a new home, but all I can say is, if my 95 lb German Shepherd Dog decided to bite me in a similar fashion, well, I'd have an "edwardina" hosting more bling than JLo on a red carpet.

A good candidate for euthanasia, I think.

And great news about your dad! I know you don't know me, so I haven't been piping up, but I've been reading, and I'm glad that there's improvement.

To all who responded to my query about books:

Thank you for turning me on to "Between the Lions." It sounds like a great show and I'm definitely going on their website for some reading material suggestions.

I'd love a set of those flashcards: wow, even the mention of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman brought me back to my days in grade school. I loved their biographies and, without TMI, the story of the iron that Ms. HT took in the face got me through a lot in childhood. Bravery in the face of adversity, the courage to put oneself on the line to save others, speaking up--now those are values that kids need.

We owe a lot, not only George Washington Carver, but also Charles Richard Drew, a pioneer in the field of blood transfusions. I was going to write of the irony of his death, as an account I read in childhood stated that he was refused a transfusion after an accident due to his race. However, some quick web research before writing this stated that allegation was unfounded and that he was treated well by the hospital.

I can only hope that this was true.

Gwynnie, look at this site:

http://www.aacbwi.com/

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

Alan, there is no hope.

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

Cindy, what about me? lol;

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

CNN finally gets it right about single payer:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/06/canadian.health.care.system/index.html

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

Katha Pollitt was the first to see through the fake bunting of Palinmania:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/anotherthing/351330

What? Me PC?

I'm not one of those politically-correct people. When the Stutterers of America came out against Porky Pig, I just shook my head in amazement and pointed at James Earl Jones. But I don't stutter, and am not close to anybody who does.

"Crippled" or "blind" are much more accurate terms than "differently abled."

Still, and all, it depends on whose ox is being gored, doesn't it?

In (relatively) polite society, we have come to frown upon certain terms: Nigger, sand-nigger, kike, wop, spade, gook, taco-bender, raghead, Christ-killer, beaner, hook-nose ... the list is long and ugly and hurtful, and unless you are one of 'em, generally considered declasse usage among the upwardly civil.

We're not talking about fish versus sea-kittens here, but about people.

(I can call myself a redneck-cracker, Oakie, coon-ass, hillbilly, because them's my roots. Steve Barnes can bandy the N-word about, but if I call him "Niggah!" best I be smiling when I do so.)

All of which is to say that of my grandsons, of whom there are five, one is on the autistic spectrum and one is Down's, so I'm pretty much done with using "retard" as a noun. Perhaps now I'm a little more sensitive to the term than people who use the term unthinkingly -- as I used to use it.

The autistic grandson has poor social skills, but reads four grade levels above his, can remember the license plate of a car he noticed passing last week, and can beat you at any computer game he plays. He is differently abled.

The Down's boy signs "grandpa" in ASL when I go see him and is the only one who is unhappy to see me leave when I do.

Sarah Palin's use of her children is, in a word, disgusting, and if she wen nova on the tundra and up in smoke, I'd not shed a tear. But her misuse of her own offspring in no way mitigates the pain other parents feel when somebody points at their son or daughter and, with a snigger, says "Retard."

I am as guilty of shooting my mouth off before engaging my brain as anybody. I'm working on it and it's a never-ending battle. However stand-up a guy Josh is -- and I'll take your word for it -- he could work on that a little, too.

About 35 years after getting a copy of "What Makes Sammy Run" I just read it and found it great. You Pavilion folks here who, having savored Harlan's Hollywood-related fiction and non-fiction might presumably find Shulberg's famous book of interest, to you I say: read it, if you haven't already done so, don't let decades go by as I did. (hang head, clear throat, move on)

The spur for me was the DVD release of a rediscovered TV adaptation from 1959. I wanted to read the book before watching that. A mistake, in a sense, since it couldn't match the novel. Once I did see the program I was less than thrilled. All the Jewish stuff out; lion's share of the environmental-determinant stuff out; strong-woman character largely adulterated. Still, it's interesting, has its good points, and maybe it'll improve on a second viewing.

In the DVD interview Shulberg tells how, when he wanted time off from Communist Party duties (e.g. anti-Nazi activities; writer's guild work) in order to write the novel, his party boss John Howard Lawson told him that would be OK only if the party oversaw the writing. Naturally Shulberg balked and that incident, together with growing doubts over mistreatment of writers in Soviet Russia, caused him to leave the party. He wrote "Sammy" and got a positive review in a communist paper, which favor he says was later reversed by directive -- merely, it would seem, from vengeful spite. A Richard Schickel review (http://articles.latimes.com/2006/dec/03/books/bk-schickel3) of a biography of Lawson criticizes the book for only briefly mentioning an attempt Lawson made to prevent "Sammy" being published. This may be a confused reference (the reviewer's?) to Lawson's party-oversight demand, I don't know. The review is generally unfavorable to the biography and Schickel is none too fond of Lawson, describing the well-known moment of his defying HUAC as "braying his...contempt." Does a right-wing attitude distort the review? I've yet to read the book being critiqued, but that "braying" and a few other things make me wonder. A few years back there was a local review of the PBS film on Kazan and Miller and its Oh-well-the-Blacklist-wasn't-so-Bad attitude pretty much kept that critic from addressing the film itself. For both the attitude and the dereliction I've never been able to read that guy since.

Well, I've strayed.

Briefly then, Ellisonians: read "What makes Sammy Run." I think you'll find it worthwhile.

Richard

Various
Were I in the situation, I would rather get the assignment to adapt ASTEROIDS as a movie than some novels I know: the very nebulousness of the concept would give me an awful lot of elbow room as a storyteller. Think: spaceship story. Think: you need one action set-piece with the vessel defending itself from asteroid debris. Think: you would then need to fill up the rest. And you could fill it up with anything. It could even end up being a good movie. Of course, what will most likely happen is the studio insisting on an asteroid-blasting scene every seven minutes, and any pretense of a story going out the window.

*

My Dad's improvement is accelerating. Last night on the phone, he was downright articulate. He has some distance still to travel, but time will tell how far and how much. Let us hope the physical therapy goes as well.

*

An oldie but a goodie that will brighten your day considerably. This TV report on an otherwise routine dog-bites-man story suddenly turns **beyond awesome**, and I do mean, **beyond awesome**, about a minute and a half in when the distraught lady who owns the dog starts to wax eloquent about her pooch's unnerving history. Watch this and you will be quoting her at odd moments for weeks to come. You need to see this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSYgikHRt3U&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeed.com%2Fexpresident%2Fcrotch-biter&feature=player_embedded

Fritz
Jonathan Strahan and Charles Brown are putting together a BEST OF FRITZ LEIBER for Night Shade Books and at http://www.locusmag.com have a list of possible titles. They would like input as to reader's choices from the list and suggestions for any titles they might have missed. They are looking to put Fritz's work back in print and would like to put out about 125,000 words to give you some idea as to length.

Heads Up on Frank Baum Thtuff
The Smithsonian magazine has a nice piece about L. Frank Baum, creator of Oz, at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Frank-Baum-the-Man-Behind-the-Curtain.html#

Dear Mr. Ellison:

Finally procured my DVD copy of "Dreams" last Wednesday. Friday night, my reading group watched all the features, including the movie: a sitting ovation. Most enjoyed the readings and the "pizza interview" with Neil Gaiman. Your anecdote about your service in the Army--how you typed letters home for your illiterate "comrades" after twenty-mile marches--again floored me the most. Number two: your reading of "Prince Myshkin". Wonderful.

All send belated birthday wishes. From myself, belated congratulations on the sale of your recent story. Will look for it, in some early, "legitimate" form, at WorldCon in Montreal.

Regards,

William Sherman
Boxford, MA

GWYNETH: While I can never remember titles, I would advise you to check out a children's show on PBS, "Between The Lions". This is a wonderful introduction to a number of books, both international folktales and more modern works. The show supports an anti-biased curriculum without being preachy. You can also do a search for the show's website on the web; they may have a list of books that are read on the show.

***

There are too many things to say on the subject of special needs in general. I've read all of the posts that touch on this subject with an interest ranging from frustration to annoyance to more than my share of chuckles.

I'm anything but PC (hell, I once referred to children with special needs as collectible trading kids: "I'll trade you two of my spastic quadroplegics for one of your spina bifidas." -- much to my co-workers' PC dismay. After the developmental pediatrician remarked that something may not have "gelled" in utero with my youngest son, I hugged my baby and said "Hear that? The doctor says you're half-baked."), but would any of you think of sincerely proclaiming "Jews are greedy" or "Blacks are stupid"?

Individuals with special needs are just that, individuals. They love, hate, grouse, and complain as much in their own way as the next person. Don't shackle them, or yourselves, by lumping them under a behavioral expectation. I've seen first hand their ability to react and interact with a depth of personality that may be slower in developing, even stunted in areas, but is certainly there.

As for whether Palin did what was "right" by not aborting Trig, I really can't say one way or another. I would ask you to check out CHOOSING NAIA by Mitchell Zuckoff, a touch over done at times but a wonderful study of the choices one family must face. Mr. Zuckoff interviews families who chose abortion, those who chose to keep their children, and presents each case with what I felt was an even hand.

There's no offense taken by any of it, and not a shred of PC. Any of youse folks who don't agree, I'll trades ya a recent autism diagnosis for a Williams Syndrome kid.



shagin

Gwyneth
I am the father of two young biracial sons (I'm white, my wife is black). One boy is a third-grader, the other is a pre-schooler in the process of learning to read.

My older son loves the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books, the "Spiderwick Chronicles" series, the "Magic Tree House" series and any book he can find related to Star Wars. My younger son adores the Dr. Seuss stories, currently his favorite Daddy-read-me-a-story bedtime reading. Neither boy is especially focused on "black" topics (though Seuss's "The Sneetches" is a pretty good parable for little kids about racial discrimination). On the other hand, they're both fascinated with Barack Obama, who of course is biracial, and my wife and I have lately seized on that opportunity to read them a children's biography of Obama.

Which suggests what I think is the most important thing, as I've said here before: The way to get and keep kids reading is to cater to their individual interests, and push them toward books about things they enjoy. The more interested they are in a topic, the more likely they are to read about that topic, and thus to have reading become a habit, and to keep reading about any and all subjects. If that entails, say, giving a biography of Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman to a black child interested in black history to encourage him to read, so be it.

The key thing is the child's own interests, whatever they are. Trying to get a kid to read about something in which he's not interested is not unlike trying to get him to eat lima beans - it doesn't matter how nutritious they are if the kid won't eat 'em.

I agree with Brian Phillips that options are important. If kids are exposed to a variety of reading material, and if you do all the other common-sense things a parent should (read to them, have books around the house, make sure they see you reading as a normal part of your day, etc.), I think they'll find their way toward becoming a reader for life.

Doot-doot...doot-doot...Pyew! Pyew! and a note to Gwyneth
Proving that the geek are trying to inherit the earth, the video game "Asteroids" is being made into a movie:

http://www.imdb.com/news/ns0000002/#ni0864278

For those of you that are only agog at the prospect of an old video game being made into a movie, this is a reallllly primitive game. It has no story line, it was in black and white.

You controlled a spaceship.
You fired at asteroids coming at you.
You shot at the occasional flying saucer.

It's not even "High Noon" in space!

Pong. Now THAT would be a movie.

To Gwyneth: As a boy of color, I was blessed with family that exposed me to literature from all over. Also, may the Lord bless Mrs. Tobia, since we are praising teachers.

My father came home with some Black History Flashcards. We went through them together and they were my first exposure to people like Sojourner Truth, Benjamin Banneker and George Washington Carver. Dad was shocked that he mentioned Carver to a co-worker (my father was a chemist for the U.S. Customs in New York) and the fellow didn't know who he was. So, he made sure I did and one of the first things he did was buy those flash cards.

Armed with an anecdote and the fire of race pride that a third-grader can muster, I walked into Elmwood Elementary School with a determination to get some Black History in our studies. It is a blessing not to know that students of a tender age don't dictate curriculum, because my teacher, Mrs. Tobia, a Caucasian woman who could have easily patted me on my head and smiled, secured a catalog of films and asked ME which ones should we order for the class to see. I requested "Black and White in Color", which we weren't able to get, but we did get "Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed", narrated by Bill Cosby. This was a book as well. My esteemed brother Stephen was very much interested in this book, by Otto Lindemeyer. I read what I could understand of it, because I greatly respected Steve (still do!).

What that woman did for me and for us as a class is now able to be read by the world and thankyou thankyou thankyou!

So, Gwyneth, do wake up, because I am now going to answer your question: I cannot speak for other children but I know I kvelled when I saw little boys and girls of color in books. And I still dug Donald J. Sobol's "Encylopedia Brown" and Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" even though they were populated by (mostly) White characters. So, I feel that I got a balance. I also read "Madeleine" by Ludwig Bemelmans. Not that there's anything wrong with zat.

I recommend, "Black Folktales" by Julius Lester (the Stagger Lee legend may be a bit racy for the younger set) with the beautiful illustrations of Tom Feelings.

I also recommend "Aesop's Fables". Do mention to a child that some of Aesop's fables are derived from fables told by an Ethiopian named "Lokman".

I think that it's best that a child sees options. Yes, there is "Charlotte's Web", but also, there is "The Drinking Gourd" by F.N. Monjo (not a classic, but a nice book). For me, my mother and my father read to me and had a lot of books around the house. I can still hear my father's voice saying, "Goodbye feet!" as Alice's neck stretches.

No, I cannot recite everything that happens in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", but I do know that my father read all of it to me over a period of weeks and if Dad liked to read, then it HAD to be cool.

And I still have that huge "Complete Works of Lewis Carroll" book that he gave me.

And it's very dear to me.

Goodbye Heboard (until I have something of worth to say)!
Brian Phillips

Harlan,
I didn't mean to insult Josh in any way with my post either-- my intent was only to convey what I thought. I almost kept still-- but found it made me
feel cowardly. Not unlike the time I thought about leaving my cross necklace at home rather than wear it in your presence. This is in no way a hint or reminder for you to write your recollection of that story..no indeed! It is merely a comparison that nags to be drawn.

I know, without doubt that Josh is a singularly kick ass fellow-- for many reasons, not the least of which because you and Susan have great warmth and deep affection for him.

Thanks for what you wrote, my friend.

Yer pal,
:)
Cindy


Josh,
I'm sorry if I caused you even a moment of annoyance or displeasure. I didn't mean to be unkind...especially to
you.

Cindy

The Best Kids' Books?
Straight out of the gate: STEVE YOU ROCK!!! Damn, you put that @$$hole in his place. How he got his head out afterward probably required a chiropractor. Kudos to you for standing up to him.

Cindy & Harlan, re: Sarah Palin and Trig. What you both said. She's an abhorrent (an Ab-Whore-Ant) mother. I remember most vividly when Bristol's pregnancy became media fodder that Obama's comment was to "keep the kids out of this." Too bad she didn't take his advice.

I'm posting in response to Nicholas Kristof's column/blog in the NYT titled "The Best Kids' Books Ever."

One of the comments posted was that the list was slanted heavily in favor of white middle class kids, stating that kids couldn't relate to books that weren't "about their world."

I was able to relate to Invisible Man and Sounder and the Boxcar Children as a child.

So I have a two parter:
1) Do kids need books about their race/socio-economic niche to be coaxed into reading? (Harry Potter would seem to indicate otherwise.)
2) What ARE some really good juvie books that fall outside of the "white middle-class" bracket?

Oh yeah, and has anyone here read Big Tiger & Christian by Fritz Muhlenweg? If so, would you recommend it?

Fight on and get your money from Paramount
If the WGA threatened to take Paramount to court over non-payment on the misappropriation or misusage of intellectual property or more specifically certain catch phrases that are identifiable with a known "property" (ie, Star Trek), then the case would have to be "heard" by a judge and entered into the records. No business or government entity wants to have that happen, then the "books" would have to be opened. But the "Guild" would have to be aggressive in their one and only duty to their members - legal representation in union matters. And it should be to the complete satisfaction of the union member, not the union in their "claims" of representation according to their interpretation of the by-laws. Complete satisfaction is the taking the Producers to court, otherwise it might appear to be fraud in taking money - "dues" - just to go through the "motions" Keep the flags of dissension waving, Mr. C. Bird

Forrest Gump Award;Does that come with Pia Zadora luncheon?

It's suddenly dawned on me,what with only 10% of Stimulus Package having been spent;we are witnessing what the Clinton's could only talk about,the total destruction of Military Industrial Complex.By simply talking and no acting to correct the Economy we fool Europe into thinking we are doing something to help their Econs. but in fact the grand scheme seems to be hatching slowly but steadfast in blending the lowest earners in US with Middle Class by retooling Economy to Service Industry Jobs paying only Minimum Wage.It might work unless Dems. loose the House and Senate in two yrs. Unfortunately we will have lost the Job Base our Parents once knew.I hope having the first Black President was worth it.
Seacrest out.

Sea-kittens, sea-kittens? hehe. haha.

Hey PETA, I ate some fried chicken last night. No free range for this boy. Sea Kittens. hahaha.

Speaking of sea-kittens, Sarah Palin quitting like the formless loser that she is was one grand gift to our side. Sure she takes good care of her baby, but isn't that her job?

I bet she sticks out her leg, pimping rides so that the hapless Republican party can make bank and beat the juggernaut that is Mr. Obama. Her whole career is toast. I feel so good. Internal fireworks.

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

Cindy, you hit that bird with one shot. Good on you sweetie.

I know someone with a Down Syndrome child. They are the sweetest people on the planet. I would never act churlish with anybody like that, even if they spilled hot coffee on my crotch. Their gift to the world has some meaning. Irony is one obvious sobriat.

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

Alan, one more and you get the Forest Gump award.

Eyes Wide Open--view this:

A cartoon cat tells us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Khut8xbXK8

Teaching
I never new my wife was holy, a saint for putting up with me perhaps.
She teaches fourth grade in a very poor neighborhood. ( They serve free breakfast and lunch to most of the kids ) Last year she was awarded teacher of the year. She is appalled by how little the kids know about the world, and the English language. Every day she tries to teach them something they can use when they get out in the world. I am very proud of her.

Newest (last?) Westlake
Since Harlan and many others on this board are huge Westlake fans I'm placing this here rather than the back room. I loved the Dortmunders the mostest although it's always a tough call. What a WONDERFUL premise to go out on for the gang.

(Dustjackety type spoilers if you hit the link.)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446178608/ref=pe_5050_12441850_snp_dp

Another recommendation from this series would be DROWNED HOPES. Or just read them in order. But DROWNED HOPES was fine.

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

Harlan,

I just picked up a copy of The Saint Mystery Library paperback anthology featuring LET HER KILL HERSELF by Rufus King and including (with flyleaf and back cover jacket copy while Jakes and Merril get bupkiss) your original story FIND ONE CUCKABOO by Harlan Ellison.

#128 (11) Let Her Kill Herself Feb, 1960
Cover artwork by Frank Kalin
Introduction by Leslie Charteris

Let Her Kill Herself by Rufus King
Find One Cuckaboo* by Harlan Ellison
This Above All by Leighla Whipper
Ten Lost Bombs by John Jakes
Dry Dust Judith Merril

Everything I know about this series of anthologies may be found here with a few details about your story in the 5th paragraph down;

http://www.saint.org/stlib.htm

I have no question about the story or the anthology series but I saw this on the copyright page - "By permission of the author and the author's agents, the Ann Elmo literary agency." I see this was a real agency and, just like me, was started in 1959 and is still a going concern as of 2009."

I suppose the question is, does this overlap Mills or anyone else? Were they doing mystery and another agent handling the SF for you? I just thought I would ask before putting this one up on the shelf and forgetting the question forever. I acknowledge it's not much of a question.

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July.

- Barney

A little advance piece on Torchwood
Including some brief quotes from Russell T. and the confirmation that the final three DW specials will air in the US close to the UK dates:

http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2009/07/tennant-doctor-who-torchwood-davies-.html

No need for any shame-face or otherwise. I fully expected to pay for any book. Thank you and Susan for finding a copy of a book club edition. Will get the check out to you this week. Hope you are both doing wonderful and we miss you both.

Thanks Phil
but which one is Harlan?

nyuk nyuk nyuk

Lest We Forget
Anna Karen Morrow,94. Molly Sugden,86.

That '77 F&SF Freas cover...
...can be viewed here:

http://www.sfcovers.net/Magazines/FSF/FSF_0314.jpg

I'm still holding out for the revelation that Sarah Palin and Mark Sanford are actually badly disguised space aliens attempting to sow discord and confusion among the people of earth as a prelude to full scale colonization.

The obvious incompetence and hypocrisy they regularly display in public is a key part of the façade, of course.

Palin's Loose and Hot to Trot
Gov'nor Sanford, I believe the ball is now in your court.

put-upon performers, cretinous audiences

Steve Barber:

Nice work.

I don't know if you are aware of it, but more and more stars of the stage have been rebelling against moronic, insensitive, and sometimes outright illegal behavior by people in their audiences: Patti LuPone, I believe it was, broke character to yell at a woman who insisted on taking pictures of her (or perhaps it was even video) with a cell phone, and Patrick Stewart let a guy have it for (I think) texting somebody during one of his shows. I'm all for performers -- and, if skillfully done, other put-upon members of the audience -- setting folks straight on their behavior at public performances.

Many years ago, in the summer of 1986, I think, I went to see Joni Mitchell in an outdoor concert on Boston Common. It was a fenced-off area, but I think the concert promoters were ultimately at fault because they allowed vendors of food and concert goodies to set up shop inside the fence at the rear of the audience area. Ms. Mitchell found herself distracted by all the movement and activity at the rear of the audience, in her full view, while she was performing and asked politely if people would settle down and enjoy the show so she could concentrate. Apparently they didn't, so a few songs later she walked off the stage and left us all in an uncomfortable silence for a good 45 minutes. People around me took umbrage -- "who does she think she is? we paid good money, etc., etc." -- but I was on her side in this. She was doing her job, this is her life work, and she has a right to ask for minimally acceptable working conditions. I wouldn't enjoy having strangers milling around my desk and yakking, either.

Eventually she came out again in a different outfit and finished the show, including a rendition of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," in honor of Marvin Gaye, who had recently been killed.

By the way folks, yer friendly neighborhood editor/proofreader wants you to know that the proper name is Down Syndrome. No "s."

Alex, Alex, Alex ... of course that wasn't Brad Pitt standing in for Harlan on that 1977 cover of F&SF.

And I know this how? Because in July of 1977, Brad Pitt was, like, 13 years old. Elementary, Watson!

Now, if you're going to suggest it was Paul Newman standing in for Harlan, we can talk.

What the Hell?
Every once in a while somebody in public says something so stupid and nonsensical that in a perfect world they would be required to shut up and go away for at least ten years. This is true even if they have said other things of the same calibre, and even if they make their living being provocative and incendiary.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Rush Limbaugh on the significance of the death of Michael Jackson. This is a transcript from his own website.

"Michael Jackson. I have an observation. I have an observation about this Michael Jackson thing, not about the details of his death or anything. Jackson's success, if you stop and think of it -- and this is going to really irritate some people, which I will enjoy doing -- Jackson's success paralleled the rebound
of the United States under Ronaldus Magnus. Michael Jackson's biggest successes, and as it turns out his final successes, real successes took place in the eighties. That was Billie Jean, Thriller and all this. I mean he was as weird as he
could be but he was profoundly, because of his weirdness, an individual. He wasn't a group member. He reached a level of success that may never be equaled. He flourished under Reagan; he languished under Clinton-Bush; and died under Obama. Let's hope the parallel does not continue."

Audio available at this link.

http://www.urbanswirl.com/content/view/1709/7/

I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

Ick! Brain Fog!

Unk --

Probably help if I learned how to *read,* wouldn't it? You said "pig," and that blew right past me, mutating into "dog." Good thing it wasn't a snake, it'da bit me ...

Mea culpa.

Perry

Harlan .....or Brad Pitt?
Okay, now that we know Pitt's been standing in for Harlan, an important question occurs to me.

David Bruce wanted to know when he'd see Ellison on the cover of F&SF. I remember seeing him there in July '77, all Kelly Fread-up.

So who was that a picture of? Harlan ...or Brad Pitt?

I think a lot about stuff like this.

The man who rowed Vasco Da Gama to sea
I've started a novel that could actually be the title of.

No, I am NOT using it!

But it was a funny thought.

I'm not afraid of much in this world, and when it comes to charging crooks with high crimes and misdemenaors, Bring It On.

However, I think it's one of those "feel good in the short term, regret long term"/"act in haste, repent in leisure" things when applied to the very highest offices for any but the most completely flagrant and obvious cases. Of course, that is where the argument really heats up. What is flagrant/obvious to you might not be to him, and further on to her, and then there's me.

Sure, charge Cheney and Bush, half a dozen or so others, Lock them up.

Then the NEXT thug to hold office, she does exactly what some pundits suggested Bush/Cheney do before leaving office:

Morning of January 20, 2009 -Bush pardons Cheney (unlimited power to do so). Bush resigns, Cheney is sworn in as president, and then signs a pardon for Bush. Two hours later Obama is sworn in as president, and no one can tough either of the miscreants without throwing the constitution and due process out the window. Baby, bath water.

So then you change the law to prevent that from being done again.

The third thug to get in there refuses to leave. "State of Siege". Martial law. Whatever. The details don't matter.

You can start down that path, or not. I think not.

It might go differently. There are likely infinite ways for a democracy to commit suicide. History has a plethora of examples. Perhaps we can ring a few changes upon them and come up with a new method?

That doesn't frighten me. Just strikes me as the wrong way to go.

Right way? Maybe there is a clue in what happened last November? The American people apparently are capable of being fooled. They also are capable, apparently even in these allegedly benighted times, of throwing the bums out. I prefer the political process of democracy to that of the courts, or the streets.

But I am old fashioned. I trust in the good sense of the body politic American.

I love silent films. When I first decided to try to learn all about moives, I enrolled in a film history class at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa. They had/have an excellent though small film department. The teacher of that class was incredible. He gave us an hour lecture on each film before its screening, then we saw a near-pristine print in a small campus theater. After the screening we discussed the film for another hour or so. It was actually better than any class on the history of film I later took at either UCI or USC.

I saw "Mother", "Battleship Potemkin", "The General", "Birth of a Nation", "Metropolis", "Nosferatu", "The Last Laugh", half a dosen or so George Melies short films, "The Great Train Robbery", "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and others.

Fell in love with silent film. Never fell out. Universal language. Writing with lightning.

Then sound came along, and the thunder stole the credit for lightning's work.

Years before I studied silent films, I worked in a pizza joint. We showed "Super-8" films projected onto a small screen in one darkened corner of the bar. One day we showed Buster Keaton's "The Ballonatic". A patron of the establishment, in his seventies or eighties by the look of him, had come for a beer. He sat at the bar, glanced at the screen, and began to tell me where the scene had been filmed. In it, Keaton was literally dancing on top of a balloon. In the ong shots, SOMEone was actually on top of that damn balloon, hundreds of feet up in the air, doing a jig on it! I have no idea if it was Keaton, or a stunrman. The guy at the bar said "That was over in Costa Mesa." Turned out he had been in movies, and had worked with Buster Keaton.

I was young and dumb enough I did not rush right out, buy a tape recorder, come back and interview the guy.

-sigh-

Cindy is absolutely right about Downs Syndrome people. The word "cretin" actually comes from Frencn "chretien", which is "Christian", and was applied to Downs Syndrome people long ago because they just naturally loved, could not seem to hate, were naturally gentle and meek. What could be more "Christian", at least to those who actually believed that that was what Christianity was all about?

They are sweet, sweet people. I don't for a moment believe Josh meant to hurt anyone other than Sarah Palin with his "reatard" comment. Perhaps he just let his distaste for Palin run away for a moment? No problem there. She's the onca and future answer to a Trivial Pursuit question. Whether she resigned because of an incipient scandal, or to further her 2012 run does not matter. She has taken yet another false step. You heard it "first" here (not really, just a phrase): She will enter a couple of primaries, finish third or lower, and be out.

No political future.

Somebody get me a beer. It's hot, it's the Fourth of July, and I am -thirsty-.

Make that two. It's a holiday!

KOS

CINDY:

Hey, sweetie. This is an unnecessary presumption on my part--Josh is more than competent to clarify his own positions--but Josh and I had a protracted telecon (a mere few minutes after Palin's press conference), so it being condign for me to post this, Josh being otherwise occupied today...

I am always uncomfortable with the word "retarded," but who the hell can keep up with the daily-changes in what is speakable and what is UNspeakable? PETA says we can't call them "fish" no more. "Sea-kittens," or some such madness.

So when Palin said, "What the world needs is MORE Trigs, not less," Josh's hair stood on end at the sheer lumpheadedness of her statement. Neither of us, when we screamed across the phone line at each other, were impugning her stand-up history with Trig. What Josh was reacting to, as do you in your post, is her indefatigable whoring-out of her entire family. The husband, the daughters, Trig...they are all merely pawns in her lunatic belief of her own publicity. She takes umbrage at Letterman, a paper tiger if ever there was one, but she schlepped--and CONTINUES to schlep--her family around like cheap geegaws the better to keep her, like a stye, in the watering eye of America.

No one, least of all Josh, a very compassionate and decent guy, denies vouchsafing Sarah Palin her props for doing the right thing. It just gets hard to wallow through her manner, her ignorance, her arrogance, her hypocrisy, and her (it seems) ruthless persistence in forcing her kids to "turn" political "tricks" with her as the pimpmistress Madam.

Your post was a good one.

And Josh meant no harm.

(I apologize, Josh, for gettin' up in your grille, homes.)

Love, Cindy, as always! Harlan

THE ARGENDELIcatessens

Susan found a Book Club mint copy of the 1991 ESSENTIAL for you.

If money weren't so tight, kids, we'd automatically send it to you with hugs'n'such. But it is. So it'll cost you twenty + postage, for a total (he said, crimsoning) of $25--and if you want it personalized, just tell me how.

Looking shamefaced, Yr. Pal, Harlan

STEVE PERRY: YOUR JOKE, PART two

No no no! No dog AT ALL. Woman is actually carrying a pig, which makes the set-up funnier because:

1) A woman carrying an actual pig HIDES the route into the punchline.

2) The internal logic, UNTIL the punchline is not broached: a "normal" pedestrian, seeing a woman with a PIG...WOULD ask that.

3) It isn't as meanspirited and random, though it IS inevitably just as nasty.

So, you see, get away from the mimetic, go directly to the surreal.

Now, THAT, I aver, is fawn-EEEEEE.

Yr. Merry Andrew, Harlan

TO MR. & MS. B.:

Re: silencing assholes, no matter their age or infirmity:

GAHDAMMM, boy! You rock. Yeah, it'd been me...well...do the wuhd "homicide" strike a familiah note?

Awestruck, Yr. Pal, Harlan

I was introduced to silent films by an Evergreen High School english teacher, Mr. Jennings. He was an afficianado of vintage films and in a class of his, Language of the Film, I learned a lot about the artistry of the silent era.

One of my best Halloween experiences was watching PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (Lon Chaney, of course) at the Paramount Theater accompanied by the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ.

Chuck

Various
Alan (in largo, not Mr. Coil): Steve Barber covered it. But, in truth, your post sounds rife with misinformation. Something I believe is prevalent in America due mainly to Fox News (and, as of 2007, before I left, other cable news networks -- because they followed the lead of Fox news, looking for better ratings). I watched Murdoch buy up quite a few news organizations while I wrote for various papers from coast to coast (to coast). Murdoch has made it known that _his_ opinions (and profits) are more important than facts. Fox News doesn't let an hour go by without selling some sort of fear (in their "breaking news" bits, oft-repeated stories or "ticker-tap" crap at the bottom of the screen -- I'm sure things haven't changed since I last took a peek into at that maw of madness). Ergo, you say what you say out of fear.

I hope you'll educate yourself -- read information that comes from sources both conservative and liberal -- and stop relying on others to tell you what to think (be they talking head newscasters, politicians or preachers). As for politicians who supported going to "war", we now know that most of them believed the lies (not all, like that slimeball Colin Powell, or Cheney, Bush, Rice, etc, were privy to the truth). Although I don't think that's much of an excuse, as even _I_ was seeing syndicated stories in the KC Star (buried behind page one, of course) indicating that the early intelligence reports were either unverified or dead wrong).

Enough rehashing.
We'll agree to disagree. As long as you DON'T refer to Frank Church as insane (unstable, maybe...).

Cheers,
DTS

I meant to write "get a check out to California". Sorry about the typo.

Hi Harlan and Susan,

My nephew just turned sweet sixteen and his Dad (my brother) has turned him on to your work. CIndy and I were going to get him a copy of THE ESSENTIAL ELLISON (Morpheus - 1991-hardback) if you have any in stock. Please let us know and if you do save us a copy so I can get out to California.

Thanks,

Jim and Cindy

Funny You Should Say That ...
Esteemed Avuncular One:

Faster payoff, yes. And funny.( Funnier, actually, but I think the room might need to be a little bit smarter, too -- one has to assume the audience knows the drunk speaking to the woman has mistaken her dog for a pig, and get that fast.)

Plus the Rule of Three and all. He speaks, she sets herself up, he delivers the punchline.

Of course, you could get that with the timing taking the second set-up. 1) Drunk speaks, 2) three-beat pause, and 3) Then says the pig ...

"And the Japanese businessman looks at the American after the putt rolls into the cup and says, 'What do you mean, wrong hole ... ?'"

Perry

ERIC IN BUCKHANNON

Welcome, sir. Any teacher, of any sort, whomever&wherever is welcome here. I'm growing weary of repeating it (however much less than ere we reached this point), but Teaching is a Holy Chore. Hang around.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ERIC IN BUCKHANNON

Welcome, sir. Any teacher, of any sort, whomever&wherever is welcome here. I'm growing weary of repeating it (however much less than ere we reached this point), but Teaching is a Holy Chore. Hang around.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

UK comedian and Have I Got News for You panellist, Paul Merton regularly tours here with a 'Silent Clowns' show, showing silent comedies on a big screen with live accompaniment on improvisational piano by Neil Brand. Most recently the main feature has been Buster Keaton's Seven Chances. The audiences - of all ages, including young kids - reportedly always laugh loud and often.

Merton thinks that most people have an aversion to watching silent comedies simply because they haven't experienced the films as they're meant to be seen. They've only ever watched awful prints (often with crucial visual information obscured), with an inappropriate honky-tonk piano score, on small TV screens, often reducing the films "to a bewildering succession of vaguely comprehensible actions involving big men in large fake beards being kicked up the arse in a monotonous fashion." (From a BFI website interview.)

REPLY TO DAVID BRUCE , CLEVELAND

SIR: Sadly, Mr. Ellison died 11 years ago. The "Harlan Ellison" whose life and work were honored at a citywide celebration in CLEVELAND (let us say it again, so those who are asleep from the neck up will get it...CLEVELAND) about a year ago, was--in fact--a hired doppelganger. Same goes for the motion picture documentary about the late Mr. Ellison, save in that case, he was played by Brad Pitt.

Respectfully,

Administrator of the Ellison Estate and Family Trust

STEVE PERRY: YOUR JOKE

Faster payoff on the gag:

Woman with pig.

Guy: "Where'd'ja get that ugly pig?"

Pig: "She came with the leash."

Ba-BOOM!

-he

The wonders of the ailent era
I probably posted something like this a while back. But one reason I really love silent films is that so many were made while trying to figure out this new art form. So, the pacing's different than what we expect today. The visuals are far more expressive. Acting's both exaggerated and sublimely subtle. They're more like dreams than nearly anything made today.

And I have had a hard time convincing people, even some friends, to watch a few with me. Like, nearly impossible. I managed to introduce a friend to _The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari_ 'cause the screening had live music. She was into all things gothy and Halloween-y, so that made it easier; otherwise, the closest I got was a showing of Dreyer's _Vampyr_ on TCM, and Herzog's remake of _Nosferatu_, neither of which are silent.

Comedies are harder. I dunno, maybe people think that they don't _need_ to see the silent comedies because, well, they've sort of heard of then and seen bits and pieces and maybe they don't think they need to.

(By the way, one of Harold Lloyd's sound pictures, _The Cat's-Paw_, was written by Clarence Budington Kelland-- a name I recognized thanks to our host. And I liked it.)

Josh,
What you wrote, " Trig is Palin's retarded kid." Ouch.
While I believe that Sara Palin needs to be swept from the
stage of politics and relegated or relocated to some moose hole in the Alaskan tundra-- the word "retarded" in that context is hurtful.

If those (here I use the word less controversially) " retards" who chose her to run for V.P. THINK she is fit to run for anything but milk and eggs, then we (the GOP/ America) will lose another round come 2012...either way.

She annoys the fuck out of me-- I don't know if it's her accent (which is funny coming from me--with my Texas speak) or if it's her rhetoric alone, but someone should take a giant vaudevillian hook and pull her into the abyss.

There is one area, however, in which she dazzles. All her faults aside-- the woman walked the walk with regard to that baby. For everyone who
gives lip service to the idea of right to life-- she stepped up to the plate when she had Trig. I have six kids of my own and I can tell you--raising babies is sometimes tough. Lack of sleep, worry-- fear that something will go wrong, they're standard issue. But to know you're going to have a baby with issues that could certainly preclude his or her becoming a self sufficient adult, means to throw your shoulder into a yoke that will never be lifted. She did that. I am in awe of her heart and courage.

Her political persona-- not so much.

One thing about Downs Syndrome babies, while they have one chromosome too many they come up short in one area-- the ability to hate. Human beings with Downs Syndrome completely lack whatever it is in us-- that allows us to hate. In that respect, I think Ms. Palin got it right about Trig.

That's all I wanted to say. Carry on, sir.
:)
Cindy

Steve B. --

Susan Powter, not Powder, unless you were being an enraged psychopath.
____________

alan in Largo --

Not to be a wiseass, but it's hard to read your posts when the space after punctuation marks is missing. Perhaps you need a new keyboard? Also ("also" is a reference to Sarah the Quitter, who loved to say also), I think we all enjoy vigorous discussions with differing opinions. Just take care that anger doesn't get in the way. Cool?

"too support"????

Also, and as if. You betcha. Golly gee, don'tcha know...

*ahem*

"to"

ALAN - I believe the illegality referenced by Dorman refers more towards the Bush Administration's apparent lying to Congress and the American people. Evidence is compelling that they deliberately slanted and at times withheld crucial information -- an illegal act. Which would mean that, if true, the invasion of Iraq (not Afghanistan) was an illegal war.
_____________________________________________

ACCIDENTAL JERKS - Last night Cris and I went to this wonderful new place in Rancho Palos Verdes too support her keyboard player's new regular gig. The place is called Think Prime, and it's an excellent steakhouse/piano lounge.

Our friend was at the piano, and her partner sat with a group of us in the center of the room. (The keyboardist and her partner are good friends of ours. They're our Disneyland Annual Passport buddies, in fact. Bought 'em together, and always go as a foursome.)

Roughly halfway through an elderly couple -- meaning perhaps in their 80s -- came in. They seemed to be on a date, and the man was clearly trying to impress the woman. Unfortunately, he spoke quite loudly, whether this was from a hearing problem or from a simple desire to be heard over the music I do not know. But it was easy to hear his comments.

His comments were rather unkind at times, ostensibly as humor I guess. The keyboardist is an attractive woman, with short bleached hair. Not Susan Powder short, but an inch or so long. At one point the man announced -- loud enough for everyone at our table to hear -- "Yeah, I figured it was a woman. Short hair, though". I could tell that her partner heard the statement. Her expression fliched for a second, but she let it go.

Then, a few minutes later: "She plays okay, but can't sing at all..." (Our friend, in fact, is a brilliant player with a veery soulful Ricky Lee Jones vocal style.) And again, I saw her partner flinch.

The last straw for me was: "They ought to get someone like Lauren" ...no connection to that name for me, and I know most of the regional jazz vocalists... "in here. She's much better."

I very quietly got up, wallked over to the man and hissed, just loud enough for his date to hear: "Sir? PLEASE, everyone in the place can hear you...and frankly you're upsetting everyone who came to HEAR her play. You need to keep it down."

Of course, *I* was now the jerk in his eyes, but it needed to be said. Five minutes later, after an uncomfortable silence at their table, they left.

Why am I posting this? Because criticizing artists is a major topic on this board, and it needs to be pointed out that sometimes that criticism crosses the line into distraction. Not for the artist, but for those around them. A valid critique is always welcome. But just sitting and bitching, without any real substance to that criticism, seems to be aimed to get some attention for yourself -- and is just plain rude.

And the second reason? If it had been Harlan asking the man to be quiet, I have no doubt it would now be on the blogs as a full-fledged assault by an enraged psychopath.

Just sayin'.
_______________________________________

I have never made a secret of the fact I am a patriot. In a good way, not in a knuckle-under, tow-the-party-line, Patriot Act sort of way. I have the flag flying on our front patio.

Happy Fourth of July.

replies
Thanks to Bob Ingersoll- my suspicion would be that the Kneales either don't know or just want to leave well enough alone. For anyone who loved Nigel his widow, Judith Kerr, is a fine writer as well as his son, Matthew. To DTS- I think you make a great point that all the faults people found in the last Heinlein works were there in the great Heinlein, just not so much. I wonder if his health crises all had something to contribute to that, shutting off some interior editor. I've always found a link to Heinlein and Hemingway and Hemingway's decline started when he longer was searching for that "one true sentence." The Hemingway of 1952 couldn't have written HILLS LIKE WHITE ELEPHANTS if you held a gun to his head. ( not a great choice of phrase, I admit...) Happy 4th to all, JZ.

Harlan Ellison may Chase-ten me for this, but...
...I believe it's usually spelled "Charley", not "Charlie", when referring to Mr. Chase.

I saw a short tribute to him over thirty years ago, and one of the guests said that he had learned a lot from watching Chase. I have always enjoyed black and white and silent films (though I have not traveled in such rarefied circles as Rob. Is "Don't-be-likin'" a species of fungus?), but I might have been unwittingly forced to do so.

My father saw no point in getting a color TV, reasoning that they were unreliable, and cable TV was darned near unpatriotic in his eyes, so everything was in black and white and most our TV's had handles. Since everything I watched was in B&W (which, oddly, does not stand for "Bountry and Western"), what was older and newer was not as clearly defined. The silent films merely tan at the wrong speed, due to an inabilty to compensate for older technology, a difference which thankfully seems to have vanished. "The Crowd" would have lost some of it's dramatic impact if people were moving unnaturally fast on screen.

TCM (Trequency Camplitude Modulation, I think) does a fine job showing silent films. I don't know how much Chase, Larry Semon or Harry Langdon gets shown, though. Thanks to everyone that brought back a memory of Charley Chase simulating a fight by attaching a shoe and shoe tree to a nail and swinging it back and forth. It really looked as if he was being kicked in the head.

One of the better uses of silent footage in recent times was in the American version of "Men Behaving Badly". Not only was the show pretty funny, the title sequence featured a collage of mostly silent film footage of men being slapped and the episodes featured silent footage with a voice-over to set up the next act of the show.

Brian Phillips

07/04/09
John Adams - God Save the American States

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=203540300429&h=3uV0y&u=yNAIT&ref=mf

BEGGING YOUR PARDON, D.T.S.

The notion of an ILLEGAL WAR is riding the waves of craziness.If you remember Politico's of both Party's were getting publicly pissed Prez.Bush was taking so long to react after 9-11.It was debated in the HOUSE and voted upon and the Prez. was given full authority until DEMS. realized those that think THEIR way of the World is the only correct way of the World were going to challenge their Party standing with mass misinformation and Air America with constant threats to change Candidates. The REPS.
were pissed Prez.Bush didn't go full Nuclear.And you might ask what the incentive for DEMS. to Vote a THIRD time allowing Military might?I don't remember the lady DEM.Senator whos Husband
was selected to supply the Cargo vessels to supply said War but He spread enough Green Backs around Congress to assure passage.
Sec.State Powell was fucked,Prez.Clinton had fucked up the DIA so bad with misconduct the Agencies were under staffed and didn't give a shit anymore.Now enters England for intel help,what they supplied was certified and even classified by former Prez.Clinton's NSC staff as believable.Now enters my earlier IDIOT comment on Prez.Bush.We expect better.That is a legal cover letter to your charge,if on Afghanistan you were meaning ILLEGAL WAR?

Happy Independence Day!
Mr. Ellison et al.:

Happy Independence Day!

Regards,

William Sherman
Boxford, MA

Vintage Films
I've said this one here before, but:
a friend of mine teaches film in Nebraska (he's head of the department)and his class had never heard of Jimmy Cagney. Ever.
Now he showed them some Cagney (PUBLIC ENEMY, I think) and they LOVED it and wanted more.
He tells me Buster Keaton also plays well.

But there are several generations out there now with no knowledge of movie history.
We keep the flame alive... but I wonder what TCM's viewership is??? and if they'll ever be tempted to pull an AMC (which used to mean American Movie Classics -- HA)and go commercial.

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

Happy 4th everyone. Headed to Philly to see the folks and then to NYC for fun.

A problematic but positive signal in Laurel & Hardy's favor:

It's enough to get people beyond the stupid-ass "'Don't be likin' no black n'white flicks" impasse, but with the right coaching and the right choice of features (in this case, Sons of the Desert and Chickens Come Home, both with Mae Busch), I had two friends who were, at the time, students at Cal State Northridge ripping with laughter, at least as the movie went on ("slow start" but then a bunch of unexpected zingers took 'em off guard during trade-offs with Busch...which REALLY are damn funny!).

It was an encouraging sign for me, as I'd grown up watching those two when they were prevalent on tv. I very much want Turner to try a revival, and continually show all the L&H shorts and features (perhaps alternating with Marx Bros. & W.C. Fields).

DTS, yes indeed...
Harlan has a blurb for Friday. It's on the first or second page inside, at least on the paper back that sits before me.

Incidently, I just received it the other day. Really looking forward to reading it after finishing THE STARS, MY DESTINATION by Alfie and some texts on diplomacy.

And indeed, as one of those 21st century Ipod jacked twits, I can confirm that Charlie has a charm that will last for centuries, and his antics cut through even the thickest neuro-fucked skulls.

Well, Gee
And here I am, the proud possessor of a life-size Guardian arch and nowhere to deliver it. Dang.

Judi is happy to be luvved, at least. She says backatcha, bick guy.

*

There are some stirrings coming out of Alaska that Sarah Palin's sudden resignation is NOT flakiness, NOT tin-eared preparation for a run against Obama, but the first gesture of self-protection prior to what's going to turn out to be a major legal shitstorm. Remember, she's already had a scandal-plagued administration, with allegations of misconduct. I think we're about to see the size of the bullet the nation just dodged. Keep watching those front pages.

*

It has been my personal experience that Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton ALSO have that effect on folks of minimal cultural memory; and you're talking to the guy who pretty much strong-armed one young friend into seeing DUCK SOUP and CASABLANCA, and made him a member of the cause. (I also turned another relatively young guy onto Hitchcock.) The problem is, when getting them to advance the experiment requires strong-arming, colleges are pretty much the only place where it is even possible at a greater than one-to-one basis. I had to restrain myself when a work acquaintance of Judi's recently opined, snottily, "I've never seen a silent movie, AND NEVER WOULD."

To: Michael+Richard, re: Dillon exhibit / Happy Fourth!
Thanks, guys, for the heads-up regarding the Dillon exhibit. I adore their work. Sadly, I can't fly all the way to New York for the exhibit. I checked that gallery website and was very pleased to see the woman seated with the armadillo on her lap -- definitely the Dillons's work. I saw that the gallery's cards are distributed in San Francisco, where I will be visiting at the end of this month for one week. I will look for any cards illustrated by the Dillons at the venues listed at the website.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hope everyone has a Happy 4th of July. To help the Americans among us celebrate, there is a terrific video online of Marilyn Horne singing three songs from Copland's _American Songs_.They were part of a concert celebrating the centennial of Carnegie Hall back in 1991.(This was the same concert that had the NY Phil giving a heartcrushing, transcendent performance of the Adagio finale from Mahler's Third Symphony, as a memorial to Leonard Bernstein.) Copland took traditional American hymns and orchestrated them. (There is also beautiful but very rare recording of William Warfield singing the selections with Copland accompanying on the piano.) Although the video only lists the opening "Simple Gifts," it also contains "Long Time Ago"(at the 2:15 mark) and closes with "At the River"(at the 6:06 mark) Her rendition of "At the River" is incredibly moving (even if you are not religious)...I always find myself reaching for a hanky whenever I hear this stirring, last hymn....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i-X4IJzkNM

Have a Happy Fourth, everyone!

REPLY TO FRANK CHURCH

Per your Chaplin query:

Had you asked about almost ANYONE ELSE, including the greatest of the Greats--Marx Bros., Laurel & Hardy, Keystone Kops, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Whatsizname, et al--I'd have opined, mmm well maybe, but likely maybe not. But Chaplin, even for the most doltish of the iPodPak, seems (SEEMS, I say) to retain an ineluctable universality that cannot be denied. I have actually been in the same venue with a couple of hundred of these arrogant/ignorant twits, and I cannot recall even ONE of them not falling apart when Charlie, for instance, goes roller-skating through the restaurant, or tries to eat the shoe.

So, Frank, my considered opinion is, yeah, Chaplin is called "immortal" for a reason, even if Charlie Chase--oh yeah, that was his name--gets reupholstered and subdivided in a world of Jack Black and Adam Sandler.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

RE: MRS. A-TC:

Per his Thursday post, in re doorways.

Thank you, Judi. Susan and I adore you.

Him? Not so much.

Harlan

She also mentioned the term "change" several times in her speech, as well. And we know what that's all about, don't we?

She's setting herself up to be the new conservative heroine, and with the usual media suspects leading the way, a significant percentage of voters will buy it.

Of her stance on important issues, there is much to criticize. But as the Letterman incident showed, criticism perceived as a personal attack will only fuel that movement's mouthpieces and footsoldiers, and elevate her to a place where she doesn't deserve to be.

I reel.

Sarah Palin said in her new conference today, in which she seemed confused and out of breath, "We need more Trigs in the world, not fewer."

For anyone who doesn't get why this is remarkable - Trig is Palin's retarded kid.

The only conclusion I can come to is she believes if there were more retarded people in the world, she'd have a better shot at a viable political career.

Truly, this is a grand day. America got her birthday present one day early this year.

Sarah Palin resigned, So what is she up to, eh?

John Zecock 's Heinlein question and Alan's response to Frank
John: The reason I'm rereading the later Heinlein novels is because I'd never read TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE or THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, so I wanted to read the others that are connected to the book (and to Lazarus Long); since I'm rereading THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS and TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET, I decided to reread FRIDAY AND JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE, which, I think are the two novels that a lot of people actually thought highly of (given the award nominations). Although many say Heinlein wasn't in top form during when writing the later novels, I actually found the books (starting with FRIDAY) quite enjoyable. And his somewhat sexist outlook (the reference to wanting to "rape" someone -- which meant a character was feeling so lusty he wanted to rip her clothes off -- still makes me wince), and his politics are on display even in the earlier novels, so naysayers of the latter years who complain about that aspect are reaching. As for enjoyable story lines (and playfulness and witty banter) it's abundant in all of his novels. Some are better than others, yeah; but I still enjoy the books that aren't the best he ever did (I think Harlan championed FRIDAY -- at least in a blurb -- don't have the book here in front of me).

ALAN: FRANK (and the politician from Germany, who made a similar comparison when Bush & Co. first invaded Iraq) may be using hyperbole, but they are right in their comparisons. Just because Bush & Cheney weren't as successful as Hitler doesn't make them any less facist or criminal-minded. That Cheney willingly sent thousands of young American soldiers to thier deaths (and seriously wounded thousands of others, and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians) strictly for profit and political gain, doesn't make him any less a criminal. And the fact that Bush is a mental midget (but not so stupid he didn't realize that some of the things he was doing were morally questionable) or that he is a bit crazy (deciding an invisiable god gave hime the okay is crazy in my book -- and in the books of MOST sane people who say listening to voices isn't wise), doesn't make him innocent either. And what first prompted the Hitler comparison by the German politician was not only the invasion, but the repeal of rights in the homeland (wiretaps, calling people unpatriotic when they disagreed -- a VERY Hitler-like move -- etc., etc.) As Harlan once said, you can't compare horrors saying one isn't as bad as another.

It's horrific or it isn't. Starting a war illegally is criminal, or it isn't. The only thing stopping Americans from doing the right thing (and demanding George W. Bush and Dick Cheney be dragged before a court for trial) is, as it always is in America, fear (FDR was spot on). In this case, fear of looking bad in the eyes of the world, or fear of not getting reelected (most of the politicians), fear of having to admit the truth to all those soldiers (that they fought the Iraq war for naught)...

Fear: it's whats for breakfast (and lunch, and dinner) in America. I've had a bellyful.

Cheers from Down Under,
DTS

We don't go
My Yugo Story:

It was years ago, and I drove one of those huge mid 80s Volvo station wagons. You know them: Good point was they were built like a tank. Bad point was, they looked like a tank!

I was near downtown LA, on the 110 freeway. It was a Saturday afternoon, with that weird sort of traffic LA sometimes gets on weekends. You roll along for twenty miles or so at speed, and then everyone comes to a complete stop for no apparent reason. In this case something distracted me as the stop happened, just long enough that I had to slam on the brakes. Hard.

Not hard enough. My car skidded and slewed into the rear of the last "car" in the jam-up.

I wrote "car", because it was (of course) a Yugo.

Aside from everything loose in my car having moved forward three feet, and one turn signal assembly having a broken plastic cover, the Volvo was undamaged.

The Yugo? Ah, the Yugo was like this:

The Entire Rear Bumper was gone.

When my Volvo hit the rear of the Yugo, the bumper of the Yugo more or less impaled itself upon my forward bumper, and the rest of the Yugo itself, sans rear bumper, sort of went "sproinnggg! and bounced forward a foot or so, leaving its entire bumper behind. Much like a desert lizard that could drop its tail for the predator to feast on while the reptile gets away to grow a new one.

The body of the car was at a weird obtuse angle to the wheels, and the center of the car seemed bent UP a mite higher than the front and rear ends. It looked summat like an Inch Worm frozen halfway through an "inch".

The accurate one word description is "Totalled".

After a quick moment to gather my wits, I tried to open my door, but the latch didn't work. I looked up, and a man, a VERY LARGE black man built like an NFL offensive lineman, emerged slowly from the Yugo, walked to the rear of his car, looked at where his rear bumper had recently been, then turned, looked at where his former rear bumper haf become my new "hoor ornament", and then simply stood, expressionless, for a moment. Taking the sight in.

By now drivers were honking horns, people jeered at us as they rolled slowly by (and why are people such jackasses when there is a crash? I remember two twenty something mooks in wifebeaters who leaned out from their convertible as they rolled by and tried to beat on the two cars with their fists. Humans!)

After a second or two, the huge Yugo guy walked to the front of my car, reached down with ONE HAND and PULLED the Yugo bumper fre, flipped it off into the ice plant along the shoulder of the freeway, turned and walked to my window.

I rolled the window down, since the door still wouldn't open, seeing in my minds eye a vision of that same huge hand PULLING me slowly out through my open window. I wondered if it might feel at all as if I were being born a second time?

The Huge Yugo Driver leaned down to me abd asked, very calmly, "You okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, Uh, I'm fIne, I'm okay. Uh, are you..."

He laughed and flashed me one huge smile. He wasn't pissed. Relief. He seemed, miraculously, frabjous day, well, happy!

"I'm just fine, man, Just fine. Couldn't be better"

He looked over my car as I got my license and insurance card for him.

"Your car's not really wr3cked at all. They really build these things"


I handed him my license and State Farm card.

"Yeah, you know Volvos. I guess your's got pretty banged up..."

He laughed. Didn't have to say anything. Then he smiled at me again and started writing down my info.

"I can't thank you enough, man!", he said as he handed back my documents. turned and went back to his Yugo to wait for the CHP and a tow.

It hit me about half way home.

He wasn't thanking me for the license and insurance info. He was thanking me because:

He didn't have to drive around LA any more in a Yugo. He was going to get SOME sort of replacement from my insurance company, and ANYTHING would be better than a Yugo!

I guess that was my Good Deed for that day?

KOS

Copyrighting a Character Name
"A copyright question-my friend, Gerry, a Cinemax fan, was watching an SF porn film and one of the characters was named Professor Quatermass. I know you can't copyright titles but is this something the Kneale estate should address or should they leave the film to its one handed viewers on the premise that calling attention to it would just make that much more people aware of it ? Happy 4th to all."


John,

You can't copyright a character name, as such. You can copyright works of art -- stories, paintings, movies, and the like -- once they've reached their finished form; but not a character name.

When Harlan wrote "Jeffty is Five," he got a copyright on the unique body of words that created that story. He got a copyright on the basic plot of the story, such that no one else could write a story that incorporated that plot (or significant portions thereof) without Harlan's permission. But he didn't get a copyright on the name Jeffty.

Anybody could write a story with a character named Jeffty without violating Harlan's copyright.

There is a way to protect character names, however. It's a trademark. The Edgar Rice Burroughs estate has a trademark on the name Tarzan. Walt Disney has a trademark on Mickey Mouse. And Harlan's own corporation has taken out a trademark on the name Harlan Ellison.

I'm sure that Kneale's estate has a trademark on Quartermass. I don't know this for a fact, but I'll assume Kneale took out a trademark on Quartermass and his estate maintained it. If he didn't take one out or the estate didn't maintain it, then there's little they can do now.

A trademark only applies to names and characters who appear on the packaging, not necessarily in the interior. In a comic book, for example, the characters have to appear on the cover to be trademarkable. That's why Marvel and DC used to have all those team-up books, so that characters who didn't have their own comics could be cover featured from time to time and not subject to trademark abandonment. That's also why, if the character was referred to by name in a word balloon on the cover, you'd get that awkward (tm) in the word balloon after the character's name.

In the case of a video, that would mean in the title or on the box. So, if the name Quartermass is used on the box of the video, there might be a trademark violation which the Kneales could act upon.

The producers of the video might also be claiming the use of Quartermass is a parody, thus protected as fair use. But that's a copyright concern. I'm not sure whether fair use applies to a trademark violation.

Hope this clarifies some of your questions.

Bob

Dave Bruce

Dave Bruce --

Let me give you a more civil response than my friend Frank Church did.

Yes, Harlan is still alive, but you should have known this from the internet.

Yes, Harlan is still writing. He recently told the Pavilion he had sold another story.

And there was a documentary about Harlan on the Sundance Channel. You can buy it, if you'd like. Fine establishments will carry it, even Amazon. It's called Dreams With Sharp Teeth.

News and a question
Sarah Palin resigning as of the end of the month. A copyright question-my friend, Gerry, a Cinemax fan, was watching an SF porn film and one of the characters was named Professor Quatermass. I know you can't copyright titles but is this something the Kneale estate should address or should they leave the film to its one handed viewers on the premise that calling attention to it would just make that much more people aware of it ? Happy 4th to all.

I have anger issues. They're filed in a long box between Angel and the Ape and Anthro.

Frank your level of INSANITY is inspiring.

The notion of comparison Bush/Cheney to Nazi regimes goes without my needing to call you on it.I'm sure you don't literally mean it,but having read some of your past postings that hammer Israel for wanting to exist in PEACE and not have anymore Arab psychotics in their backyards has made me wonder.I fucking hate talking politics because there is really is no way to change someones opinion unless they really want to UNDERSTAND the other sides argument.You've formed your opinions from what sources you've found reliable,okay,I have the absolute reversal;I think the Palestinians are inherently violent due to their constant CHOICE of violent protest.
Prez.Bush was an idiot!Cheney was UNLAWFUL. Ask any Californian who went through the Black Outs from the Grids being shut-down and Energy costs peaking for record profits only weeks after meeting with Cheney.Ask any investor in ENRON who saw all their retirement flush away only months after meeting with Cheney.
Yes,Cheney was a Hack,a UNLAWFUL fuck!A man coming to the realization all He once stood for is now questioned including his Homophobic leanings.
To quickly embrace the term TORTURE in these times is in these TIMES,I think,questionable of an individual at minimum.
A fan of Pulp Fiction recognize alot of interrogation that has been described of Terror-Mates as standard operating procedure by Law Enforcement for decades.I'll admit Water-Boarding and Strip-Stacking is reprehesible, but so was Twin Towers.

A little more info on that Dillon exhibit
(and thanks to Richard Cohen from this New York-area resident who hadn't previously been aware of it but will definitely check it out)

The Dillon exhibit is apparently still running, though it's unclear for how much longer - the gallery's website (fusiondesignsny.com) says only that it's "on view." The gallery is at 140 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn; it's near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway or a short walk from several subway lines. One of the partners in the gallery and accompanying boutique is Lee Dillon, Leo and Diane's son and an artist himself.

Sorry to doublepost, but I have to ask Harlan:

Harlan, do you think todays College kids could understand or at least enjoy the humour of silent film stars like Charlie Chaplin? I say this because we are having a mini-war about this in the forums. Thanks.

Ok, this guy Demjanjuk, an SS Nazi guard, is finally sent to Germany for trial. The guy is on the verge of death, being nearly 90 years old, but Germany still finds a sense of justice to try this old cocksucker. Note the irony. No, we cannot try Bush or Cheney for their crimes even though they are fresh crimes and about as evil.

Kudos to Germany. At least you understand reality.

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

Bruce, find a swimming pool and stay at the bottom.

I understand about play, Jan and not taking life so seriously. It's when people get so immersed in Star Trek, sports, whatever to the point that their marriage, job, and individuality is lost, I tend to get a bit worried.

Then again, if this is what gives them pleasure and makes them happy, who am I to judge, especially if they're not hurting anyone?

On a more positive note...Trekkies 2 showed a segment where Denise and company traveled to Serbia, a country plagued by war and fear. Star Trek had made a tremendous impact on so many, and had given them a reason to hope that there is a future where everyone could get along. I can't argue with that...I like those kind of stories.

Read the bit in The Onion, ATC. That hit the nail on the head with a resounding bang. Ouch!

Bob Ingersoll
Congrats, Bob. My wife went on disability under STRS, the State Teachers equivalent of PERS. It is a win-win, if you're ready to leave.

But your gain is Cuyahoga's loss. It annoys the hell out of me that my county is so hot to dump its most experienced employees to save a few bucks. It's a pennywise, pound foolish approach to government.

On Fandom
The discussion that ensued from my reference to Trekkies 2 prompts me to post a link to this, to my mind the most succinct and most cutting thing ever written on the subject of fandom in general.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/38664

* New Yorkers * Note:
Whoops: here's the reference for that
http://file770.com/?cat=164

Richard

* New Yorkers * Note:
Came across the Andrew Porter report
of
a DILLON exhibit which opened May 24
at Fusion Designs Gallery in Brooklyn.

It could still be in place, so you noveboracensic types
might want to call up and inquire.

Richard

Trekkies and fandom
In response to Mary's questions, I submit that one could just as easily say the same about any serious hobbyist. The most easily compared for me are sports fanatics. Some sports fans dress up like their favorite player, paint themselves their team colors, re-enact plays from Important Games, talk endlessly about statistics, collect memorabilia... Sound familiar?

Why do people think that Trekkies and SF fans are stranger than sports fans or Civil War enthusiasts when they engage in many of the same activities?

It's about play because not everything in life has to be serious and full of purpose. Some take it more seriously than others but they're doing something that brings them pleasure.

Jan S.

Yugos and cars in general
Car jokes are always a popular subject for me. I love all the variations of the theme that you get. Here in the UK Yugos tend not to be the main brunt of these gags, though I am sure they have been, with the main targets being Ladas, Skodas and a few other weird and wonderful manufacturers thrown in.

One that has always made me laugh was this one... What do you call a Lada/Skoda/Yugo (delete as applicable) with two exhausts? A wheelbarrow. There are a few other ones but as they are a rather sexist and not politically correct I will refrain from telling them.

The funny thing is that for me the foreign import car is the home grown one. Now though I drive an imported job, a PT Cruiser. American car, gearbox like stirring porridge filled with bolts... However I do like it. I used to have a Ford Puma (which sadly was never sold in the USA) and I loved that car. 0-60 MPH is a little over 8 seconds, stuck to the road like glue and had beautiful handling. However all my friends took the piss out of it, saying it was a hairdresser's car.... Hmmmmph.

All that said though I have always believed that a car should do exactly what is required of it. Namely get from A to B whilst not being at C too often (C being the Garage, petrol station etc etc). What it looks like is not that important. How big it is, likewise not that important. Colour? I'm with Henry Ford!

Big day for me - I turned 50 today!! To quote of one Harlan's favorites, Satchel Paige: "Age is mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter." My sweet wife Orit made a wonderful dinner tonight. I am truly blessed to have her as my wife. I don't want to imagine what I'd be without her...

David

Conventions
Tricky things, fan gatherings. While in Norfolk, Virginia in 1994, I witnessed the behind-the-scenes failure of a convention. It all disintegrated within a mere 48 hours of its scheduled start due to poor ticket sales. Plans for celebrity guest stars to appear (including a certain actor who was once thrown unceremoniously--albeit deservedly--across a bar by Harlan Ellison) disintegrated within hours. The vendors, who'd arranged for the trip out there, were HIGHLY pissed. (The fact that the Head Organizer was orchestrating everything out of the attic/bedroom in his mother's house was a good clue that someone's ambitions had exceeded their know-how.)

But then you have the successful ones that shine with an admirable level of skill and excellence... a world where "Star Wars" battles "Star Trek" and everyone walks away a winner... http://tinyurl.com/n2gnl9

'Scuse me! I mean "apprise yourself OF"......!!

To Mike Jacka,

Re: breaking bread with the good Governor Sanford...

You seem to be attaching the argument to that of casting stone, thereby missing what this is all about.

So, I urge you to run to the dictionary and look up a word.

It's spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y.

THEN apprise yourself about what Sanford helped do to Clinton in the 1990's.

After that, you can decide whether or not you still want to be Sanford's altar boy.

To Mike Jacka,

Re: breaking bread with the good Governor Sanford...

You seem to be attaching the argument to that of casting stone, thereby missing what this is all about.

So, I urge you to run to the dictionary and look up a word.

It's spelled H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-S-Y.

THEN apprise yourself about what Sanford helped do to Clinton in the 1990's.

After that, you can decide whether or not you still want to be Sanford's altar boy.

Yes but Yu-(don't)-go


CHUCK MESSER:

Loved the Yugo jokes. I'll never forget an ad-libbed remark by one of the hosts of Car Talk when they were counseling a guy who was trying to decide whether to spring for a fancy foreign car. Lotta fun, yes, but it'll be hard to get service and parts over here, they told him. Then one of them added, "Or you could just pick up a six-pack of Yugos."

Reading Adam-Troy's post reminded me about one particular scene in "Trekkies 2"...

One gentleman was distressed over another fan's insistence at wearing her Star Trek uniform to the Whitewater trials jury selection. He felt that really put the fans' reputation in the hole.

This coming from a man who belongs to an organization that insists on dressing up like Vulcans, Starfleet officers, and the like, filming their own scenes from the show, talking about the show, generally driving everyone nuts with their love of the show...yeah, I think their reputation was already pretty much gone at that point. But hey, to each his own. They don't hurt anybody.

I don't have a problem with a group of people loving something so much that they are inspired to become astronomers, astronauts, scientists, engineers as so many other fans have done. That's cool.

But if other types are going to make fantastic costumes, film scenes, that sort of thing, why don't they do something...oh, I don't know...

UNIQUE AND DIFFERENT?!?!?

Why can't they do something separate from the Star Trek universe? Why are they so stuck on it?

I like Star Trek, but I like to switch channels once in a while.

Or even better, read a book.

Thanks, Harlan.
To Harlan, should he see it--

Standard introit: I'm a long-time reader, first-time poster. I teach American literature and cultural studies at a four-year college in a small town in West Virginia. It's a life I love, and one that, in its most fundamental form, rewards me constantly.

When I was ten years old, my cousin, a goodhearted fella, told me, "Read _Deathbird Stories_. It'll make a better person out of you." I did, and kept going. And while generally such sweeping pronouncements exceed the reach of any single book, becoming immersed in your writing over the past 28 years has never been anything but a stone reward.

Every time I walk into a classroom I try to remember that, although there might just be one person here who's open to what we're reading, that one person traveled a long way, geographically and otherwise, to be in the class today. That student needs something here, in these words, and it's that student to whom I pitch the day's talk.

I've just spent an evening watching _Dreams With Sharp Teeth_ on DVD, the big-screen experience being tough to come by 'round here, and I sit now at my kitchen table, humming with pleasure at spending an evening in the (digital) company of the first living writer who ever hipped me to the fact that we all deserve to live the lives we dreamed of as kids.

To make a long expression of gratitude short: Thanks for your work, man. Thank you.

All best,
Eric

Bob Ingersoll is Fine, But...

R.I.P. Robert M. Ingersoll, Esq. July 13, 1981- July 2, 2009

Turns out that after twenty eight years, Cuyahoga County doesn’t want me anymore.

Twenty-eight years I’ve been a loyal, government employee. But now, that local government -- smacked upside the head by the recent economic downturn, escalating costs, and a football team that insists that post-season play doesn’t really add anything to the local economy, can no longer afford my services. In other words, Cuyahoga County wants to get rid of me.

And people like me.

People who have been working for the county for close to thirty years, who have reached maximum capacity in their pay scales, and who are close enough to retirement that we can smell it cooking on the grill. So, the county is buying us out of our contracts.

Now, don’t worry about me. This isn’t like some buy-out where the company gives its long-time employees a lump sum of money and tells them to go away, leaving said employees with the problem of figuring out what they’re going to live on once that lump sum payment runs out. No, in the case of the Cuyahoga County buy-out, the county is buying service credit for its employees rather than buying a cessation of their services. What it means is this...

We government employees in Ohio have both our retirement pensions and retirement health benefits vest in full after thirty years of employeement. So there is an incentive for us to stay for the full thirty years. Both in terms of how big our pensions will be and in terms of how comprehensive our retirement health benefits will be.

The county, on the other hand, has a disincentive in having us stay for 30 years because we long-timer tend to be the highest-paid employees in our departments and the county would like to get out from under our salaries. So what Cuyahoga County is doing in 2009 is agreeing to buy three years of service credit from OPERS from us long-timers so that we reach thirty years or more and can retire with full pension and full health benefit.

I, for example, will have only 28 years of service credit in July. It would not be in my best interest to retire then, when I was so close to the full pension and full health benefit. However, by buying three years of service credit for me from Ohio Public Employee Retirement Service in return for my promise to retire, I will have 31 years of service credit; the 28 years I worked and the 3 years the county bought for me and will be able to retire with both my full pension and my full health benefit.

When this is all over, the county loses my larger salary and is able to transfer my health benefit payments to the OPERS. And I get to retire. On full pension and health benefit. Three years earlier than we would have been eligible otherwise.

Can I afford to do this? Well, I’ve a famous financial consultant that question and the consultant’s answer was, “Signs point to yes.”

As I said, I’ll be on full pension. And this, mind you, is a pension funded by the Public Employee Retirement Service, not Social Security. The PERS pension funds are much healthier than Social Security. (Okay, at this point John Wayne is much healthier than Social Security, but you get my point.) I should be OK.

So, as you read these words, I will have retired from the Cuyahoga County Public Defender Office.

What will I do?

Start reading the hundreds of unread books I have backlogged in my house. Surf the Internet. Watch the huge backlog of Turner Classic Movies waiting on my TiVo and unwatched DVDs I have in my family room. Travel more.

Oh, and write and, I hope, sell more stories.

So yes, the County offered me a buy-out, so that it could get out from under my higher salary and benefits. I took the buy-out so that I could retire on full pension and full health benefit three years earlier than I would have been able to do otherwise.

It’s a win-win.

As long as I don’t end up in a Winnebago.

Interest in Harlan
Seriously, what is Ellison doing? Does he write anymore? I've always LOVED anything HE wrote/did. Have been following him since the late '60's in the LA Free Press when I was in high school. Once interviewed him approximately 1973 @ Kent State University. Is the man alive or dead? Best TV criticism EVER was the two 'Glass Teat' books, collections of his columns. HE is a GENIUS and I miss his work. You can only read 'Memos From Purgatory' so many times. I keep expecting a cover of 'Fantasy and Science Fiction' to have his name on it...

Jokes
I absolutely love the joke about Adam and Eve with the pigeons Mr. Ellison tells in an installment from AN EDGE IN MY VOICE.

I also loved the "You no lookie Jewish" joke he tries to tell (over pizza and wearing that stylish British Spitfire sweatshirt. I want a sweatshirt like that, only with a P-51D Mustang on it instead) to Neil Gaiman in DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH. It *is* old, but the way he tells it....

Steve Perry -- good story.

Hope everybody has a great holiday weekend.

Funny Story

Re: Ghostbusters. As it happened, I had a hand in several episodes of the animated show, which, in case you may not know it, was story-edited by none other than Joe Straczynski.

Joe is a very funny guy. And part of one of my all-time favorite Hollywood stories, one I thought passing amusing at the time. If for no other reason, I'll always love Joe for that outing. I won't inflict it on the readers here, but if you want to read it, have a look -- the names have been changed to protect the guilty.

http://themanwhonevermissed.blogspot.com/2009/01/mother-of-invention.html

Okay, I double-posted today, I'm off the air for a couple days.

Perry

Humor
The first time I encountered "Are We Having Fun Yet?" was in the 1981 Alan Alda/Carol Burnett film The Four Seasons. At one point she was told an outing would be fun, but she felt otherwise and kept asking mockingly, "Is This Fun? Are We Having Fun Yet?" Thereafter I saw it used repeatedly in the Zippy The Pinhead comic strip.

Humor is hard. I wrote 26 issues of the Now Comics Real Ghostbusters comic book (which was a spinoff of the animated series which was a spinoff of the first Ghostbusters movie). Since the animated series had lots of humorous situations and dialogue, that's the style I wrote in. In a 20 page story I tried to average 3 humorous lines a page. If I'd ever approached it from the point of view that I had to write 60 jokes, I couldn't have done it, so I just let the humor come out of the situations and the characters.

One of the best examples of how humor can be created was in a Cheers episode where Cliff Clavin wrote a joke he wanted Johnny Carson to read. Cliff was dragged kicking and screaming out of the audience for the Tonight Show (John Ratzenberger at his best) but Johnny Carson decided to read the joke anyway. It wasn't funny at first but then he read it different ways and finally his unique delivery made the joke funny. It was an amazing display of sheer talent and professionalism.

Sometimes the timing in humor is in current events. When they're no longer current, will people know enough to laugh?

How long before these jokes get blank looks:

Yu*go (yoo-go)
n. 1) Small, economical, Yugoslavian-built automobile.
2) 4x4 hood ornament.
adj. 1) What dosen't happen when you press the accelerator.

Q. How do you double the value of a Yugo?
A. Fill the tank with gas! (If it can still hold liquid.)
A. If not, put a gallon of milk in the back seat.

A man entered an auto parts store...
Man: "I need a windshield wiper blade for a Yugo."
Clerk: "Well, only if you throw $20 into the trade."

Two guys in a Yugo were arrested last night in Oakland following a push-by shooting incident.

What do you call a Yugo with a flat tire?
Totalled.

"Uh, what's a Yugo? Is it, like, a car?"

Chuck

the thief of bad gags...
uncle milty knew from humor, studied it as his craft and worked
hard to perfect it. if you want to know from humor, look to
the man in the flower print dress.

a ham sandwich walks into a bar and orders a bowl of chili and a beer.
the bartender says, "we don't serve food here."

lets not get started on bad jokes, lest the pie rates of penn's
aunts rears its ugly head again. thank you for your support.

Hunor and getting it
Saw a bumper sticker in the seventies, "Are we having fun yet?!"

Pointed it out to my friend driving the car we were in.

"What?" he said?

"Why do they care?" I asked

"Huh!?


"What's it to them if the rest of us are having fun?"

"Ir's a JOKE!"

"Huh!?"

He spent at least twenty minutes trying to explain before realizing I was not going to get it, EVER.

Saw a cartoon once in Playboy. Two construction workers in a ditch, working with shovels. Above them a temporary sidewalk, built from sections of steel grating you could see through. Walking across the grating are half a dozen gorgeous women in skirts and dresses.

One worker stares up through the grating, admiring the view, the other leans on his shovel, head down in thought, and speaks to the first worker.

The caption?

"I just don't get that guy Kissinger!"

(Historical note: Henry KISSINGER was Secretary of State at the time.)

I had to ask everyone around me "Why is this supposed to be funny?"

I was genuinely puzzled. I kept thinking it had to be a pun on "Kissinger". "Kissing Her?" I kept checking to see if one of the babes was being kissed. Nope, no one kissing.

I think that one can be traced to my having grown up in Orange County. We didn't have construction workers on every other corner whistling and grabbing their crotches every time a babe walked by. Even surfer boys act a little classier than that.

Actually, upon a nanoseconds' reflection: no, they don't.

Best explanation of humor I ever saw was featured in an episode of the early sixties sit-com "The Dick Van Dyke" show. The character of Rob Petrie, played by Van Dyke, appears at his son's school for a "show and tell" or "Career Day" event. The students ask him to do something funny. So he does a prat fall, and they bust up. Then Rob explains that it was only funny because no one expected him to fall. He gave several other examples, and talked about "comic" and "comedian" It was fascinating. I expect it was written by Carl Reiner, who produced the series, as well as wrote many of its episodes.

About five years ago there was a documentary on humor, based on that classic joke "The Aristocrats" Uneven, but hilarious at times.

The only joke I ever wrote professionally (featured in that lost classic "Screwball Hotel"):

"You treat women like they're pieces of meat! They're not meat."

beat

"They're poultry!!!"

But seriously, folks....

Hey, it was like two in the morning, and they wanted the rewrite in a day, and it was two AM and...

Sickest joke I ever heard:

What's the worst thing about bald pussy?

Beat

Beat

Beat

Nah, I just cannot bring myself to type it....

Somebody else will have to tell ya...

KOS

Hey Frank
"Humour is in the eye of the beholder. This is just like music taste--mysterious. Esthetics still exist, but even there we define what that means as well."

Frank, while that is certainly true, it doesn't explain the fact that there are universal constancies. Almost everyone laughs at Charlie Chaplin. Almost everyone Can enjoy Bach and Mozart.

For you statement to be true, that couldn't happen. But it does!

Just my two cents, I'll go back to the Pavillion now.

KOS, I will be nice, since you look silly enough. Kiss.

-----------

Humour is in the eye of the beholder. This is just like music taste--mysterious. Esthetics still exist, but even there we define what that means as well.

Humor

Brian --

What funny is fills lots of books, documentaries, and discussions around the water cooler. Years ago, I took Danny Simon's class on how to write funny -- Neil Simon's older brother and a veteran writer of the early days of TV, and the bottom line seemed to be, if they laugh, it's funny ...

Eddie Murphy tells a story about how Bill Cosby called him up after a routine and busted his balls for doing so much blue humor. Murphy, upset, called Richard Pryor.
Pryor said, "Was it funny? Did they laugh?" Murphy said yes. Pryor said, "Then tell Bill to have a Coke and a smile and go fuck himself."

Might be apocryphal, that story, but you never let that stand in the way of telling it.

Humor comes from character, or situations, and it's always at somebody's expense. Find a knee-slapper that isn't making fun of somebody or some thing. I've yet to come across one. I always ask when these discussions arise, and nobody has sent me one yet.

A lot of what catches people comes from the unexpected, sometimes called the reverse -- the listener or viewer doesn't see it coming, and surprise tickles them.

Drunk walking down the street sees a woman walking a dog. Drunk says, "Where'd you get that pig?" The woman, irate, says, "It's not a pig you fool! It's a dog!" And the drunk says ... ?

Right. "I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to the dog."

Offhand, from your description, I'd say the skeleton joke is too smart for the room.
In order to work, a listener has to be able to visualize what happens when a skeleton pours beer into itself. Some people are what scientists call aural -- they are more focused on hearing than seeing. And some folks simply have little or no imagination. They don't get it because they can't see it. Or they don't have the references to understand it.

Supposedly the Sherlock Holmes and Watson camping joke is considered to be the overall funniest joke by current standards, though it doesn't strike me that way, it is a great example of the Reverse.

(See it here: http://wilderdom.com/jokes/SherlockCamping.html)

Humor covers a wide swath -- from pratfalls to puns to complicated word games. And some of it seems funny no matter who tells it, while some of it works because of who delivers it, and how. The old saw is that a comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny.

Ask me what the most important thing about humor is.

Okay, what is the most import --

Timing!

As me again.

Okay. What is the most important thing about humor?

Beat.

Beat.

Beat.

T-i-m-i-n-g ...

If you have to explain a joke to somebody, they might get it, but it won't be funny to them. If you want to get laughs, work up different material and keep the ones that usually get the most laughs most of the time. In any crowd, there will always be people who won't get it.

In a room full of writers, chances are more of them will get the joke. (I find that room full of science fiction fans *always* has somebody in it who will get the most esoteric joke.)

Robin Williams, during one of his early stand-up routines, is doing his manic thing, about an atman inside his brain spinning dials and pushing levers to pump out funny stuff and he throws out a line, "Help me!" which is from the original movie version of The Fly. The audience laughed, and Williams allowed out loud something to the effect of Oh, good, they saw that movie. If you saw the movie and remembered the line -- and if you did, you can't forget it -- then the bit is funny. If not, it isn't.

Funny is in the eye -- or ear -- of the beholder.

Perry

RE: An Opportunity to Discourse on the Elusive Nature of Humor
I like it too, but it lacks traditionally expected 3-part rhythm.
How about : Skeleton walks into a bar, tells the bartender "I want two things. First a beer."
Bartender plonks down a beer, says "There you go. What's the second thing?" Skeleton says, "A mop."

Even in its single-movement form, though, it's surprising you got such a poor reaction.
We're a nation of cartoon-watchers and have seen the gag a million times, though usually with a somehow punctured body.
Would it work for those who didn't get it if, instead of a skeleton, it used the much-stabbed Julius Caesar, the bullet-riddled
Barrow or Harper or Dillinger?

Richard

An Opportunity to Discourse on the Elusive Nature of Humor
Got a joke for ya. It's short, not tasteless, good for all ages, but it presents a real conundrum. And since we've got a really smart crew here, including some who actually _write_ jokes, I'd like to ask for a moment of joke-dissection.

Okay. Here's the joke.

"A skeleton walks into a bar and says, 'Give me a beer and a mop.'"

When I heard that joke, I liked it a lot. It was fast, goofy, and thinking about it made it even funnier.

I've told that joke every so often, and an odd thing happens. About four-fifths of the time, people just _don't get it_. They get this blank look, and shake their heads a little. Then they say, "I don't get it."

Now, there's no way to make the joke funny at that point. But it's a litle insulting to _not_ try to explain it. So I try it again. I say, "Okay. A _skeleton_. Walks into a bar, and says, 'Give me a beer and a _mop_.'"

Again, the blank, the head-shake.

"Okay, What happens when the _skeleton_ pours his beer through his jaw-bone and into the area where his non-existent organs should be?"

So tThe light fades on. Obviously, there's no laugh at this point, and all I can hope for is that they'll think of it later and get a giggle.

But this is what vexes me. The joke is _not that tricky_. It doesn't require special knowledge or an advanced graduate degree in Humorology. I've told it to some very intelligent people, with good senses of humor, and still there is the blank stare. I _could_ chalk it up to "the way I tell it," but it's too short to be affected _that_ much by delivery-- well, unless you tell it by screaming it in Slovenian, maybe.

Is there something _about_ this joke that makes it so... odd?

Morning "Pick Me Up"....
James "Mr. Happy" Kunstler:

"When Michael Jackson dropped dead last week, the nation's morbidly maudlin response suggested a cover story for the relief of being rid of him and all the embarrassment he provoked. One CNN reporter called him a genius the equal of Mozart. That's a little like calling Rachel Maddow the reincarnation of Eleanor Roosevelt. A nation addicted to lying to itself tells itself fairy tales instead of facing a pathology report. Yet, like Michael Jackson, the undertone of horror story still pulses darkly in the background. The little boy who grew up to be the simulation of a girl was really a werewolf. The nation that defeated manifest evil in World War Two woke up one day years later to find itself stripped of its manhood, mentally enslaved to cheap entertainments, and hostage to its own grandiosity. Maybe in grieving so exorbitantly over this freak America is grieving for itself. All the loose talk about "love" from the media and the fans gives off the odor of self-love. America is "the man in the mirror," the gigantic, floundering Narcissus, sailing into the stormy seas of history. "

The rest:

http://tinyurl.com/nvb9eu

ADAM-TROY
That would be something - but I can't even imagine what horrific form HE's revenge would take . . . he would find a way to return the favor, plus a little interest, I suspect. I don't think even moving to Argentina and securing the protection of a US Senator in return for sexual favors would save you.

Just a quick observation ...
That mini-series EDGE OF DARKNESS has been re-made into a theatrical film coming out I think late this year, or early next year.

It stars Mel Gibson.

Yeah ...

Your minimum daily requirement of completely useless information

DREAMS WITH SHARP TEETH can be anagrammed (with a little re-punctuation) as: HEAR WIT, DEPTH, HAMSTERS.

Which - as long as you have a flexible definition of "hear" - is a pretty good capsule description of this Pavilion.

My Wife Thinks I'm A Sick Man
Judi called in sick to work the other day, and watched various cable movies while I was in the other room trying to tame the wild novel.

One of her selections was TREKKIES 2, the followup to the documentary about the sometimes appalling monomania of those who follow the various incarnations of a certain well-known franchise. As with the original, much of the fanaticism on-screen is wince-worthy, and Judi's reactions were loud, vacillating between "Oh Goddddddd!!" and "Well, at least we're better than THAT!" to, "Well, THAT guy was relatively sane..."

At one point I wandered in for a few minutes, and the scene cut to a convention dealer's room, where the entrance was framed by a pretty artful recreation of The Guardian arch from THE CITY AT THE EDGE OF FOREVER. It was a nice piece of work, capturing both the texture and the flashing lights of the original.

I turned to Judi and said, "Y'know what? If we ever have a lot of extra money, let's surprise Harlan with that. Let's wait til he and Susan are on a trip far from home, call a work crew, and erect one of those things at the entrance to his driveway. Let's make sure that it's made of some durable, earthquake-proof material, like marble, and let's make sure it's set in a nice, deep foundation, and install batteries so the flashing lights go on 24/7. We'll carve a legend on top, HOME OF HARLAN ELLISON, SCI-FI GUY: OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Let's make it a permanent fixture, so people come from all over LA to see it. We'll hang a WELCOME HOME banner from the top for him to find when he and Susan drive in from the airport. Wouldn't you want to hide in the bushes and see his facial expression? I'm sure he'd appreciate the living fuck out of it."

As somehow happens with most of my off-the-cuff flights of fancy for kind gestures to perform for our friends should we ever get an unlimited amount of money, Judi just regarded me with nausea and dismay at this whim of the man she married. "Why," she inquired, "do you always fantasize about torturing our friends?"

God Bless TCM
While getting dinner ready today I had TCM on during the cutting and the chopping and the mixing. Watched 4 Perry Mason movies from 1936 and 1937. B movie programmers. But I was entertained more in the 5 hours than I've been in the last 10 movies I've seen.

Ellison @ UCLA / New classical piece/ Schindler's List music
Another great article on Ellison. What ever happened to those sideburns? But I am glad his signature has stayed the same. I've always loved his angular signature. I am going to seek out that September 11 anthology referenced containing a contribution by my favorite living writer....
http://tinyurl.com/lfgjbs

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On an unrelated matter, earlier this year I heard on the radio a live performance this gorgeous violin sonata. I listen to a lot of classical music and am especially drawn to bowed-string instruments, but I had never heard this piece before. This piece was very romantic, not in a "gushy" 19th century kind of way but was closer to the piercing anguish of Shostakovich. When the piece was over, I was surprised when the announcer said it was a new work by Philip Glass (love the music used in WATCHMEN to accompany Dr Manhattan's sublime segment on Mars and the beautiful sight of his giant crystal ship emerging from the Martian sand, like Superman's Fortress of Solitude, and then sailing over the Martian surface), and that I had just listened to the world premiere!

The violinist was Maria Bachmann; I hope she comes out with a studio recording ot it soon. Here is just the second movement:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2kLQxrOF74

Oh, for the John Williams fans out there, while we're talking about violin music, this is the finest interpretation of the SCHINDLER'S LIST theme I know of. It is by Bing Wang(http://tinyurl.com/n7vmtu), Associate Concertmaster of the LA Phil. The moment when she restates the theme in the upper register at the 2:45 mark and the violin wails...devastating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1UvabfIbl8

An admission that lessons my personal tortured soul.

Being a listener of what has been called avantgarde modern music,(i.e. Kate Bush,King Crimson,Roxy Music,Heather Nova,BeeBop Deluxe,Gentle Giant,early Genesis and Floyd)it has been really difficult to admit I loved Mr.Jackson's THRILLER to any that would ask.With Harlan stepping forward without the cultural guilt of mass commercialism of it's success,which I don't feel commercial success in itself is inherently condemning,but let's face it,if there is any truth to the rumor that the late Mr.Jackson used bones from the skeleton of Elephant Man Merrick to restructure his face,History will forget the positives of His life.I remember seeing THRILLER for sale at Museum of Fine Arts and numerous other Art Houses.I was in awe.R.I.P.Michael,the suffering is at long last over.

PS
Ouch, typos galore.

"rePent"

Go For It, Frankers!

KOS

Sole Mates and soul mates
A governor once visited a South American nation
Seeking some pleasurably illicit relations

When exposed, he cried, expressing chagrin
"I reoent! I failed!" he moaned with quivering chin

(And besides, it;s all the fault of that godless administration!)

ANON.

Oh shit.

Karl Malden died. I loved that guy's work.
:(
Cindy

re: Ethics
Whenever I'm faced with an ethical dilemma, I ask myself, "What's the classiest thing I can do here?"

Maxfriend
Too often, we don't get the seeming luxury of liking the decisions we have to make. It is, however, possible to make decisions that allow us to live with ourselves. I believe that, being a friend of Harlan's and of this Pavilion, you possess the fiber and character to make the right decision.

Go get 'em, Champ - give 'em hell...

My favorite Joe Don Baker performance was as CIA agent Darius Jedburgh in the wonderful British mini-series EDGE OF DARKNESS from 1985.

City on the Edge of Forever --- Versions
I'd be grateful if someone would explain
what the relation is between the "City on the Edge of Forever" script
published in 1976's SIX SF PLAYS (ed. Roger Elwood) and the one
in Harlan's 1996 C-ON-THE-E-OF-F.

Is the '96 script one of HE's later 1966 drafts and the '76 earlier (the first draft?) --
or was the '76 a cut version of the one printed later -- or what?

Richard

NOTES:
Apart from a number of minor differences, some scenes in the '96
publication are noticeably longer:

--- Kirk, Spock & the Guardian discuss Time & the problem of Beckwith
(#44 pp143-146 {1996}
compare the equivalent portion of the same scene #43 pp59-60 {1976}

--- the Tri-corder is consulted
(#59-60 pp156-162 {1996}
cf. with #58 pp73-74 {1976})

Other scenes in the '96 also have a bit more:
#70 (more tricorder & waiting-for-beckwith - see pp175-6) {cf #67}
#81 (about the beer truck - see pp193-4) {cf#76}
#118 (longer epilogue - see pp222-3) {cf#114}

and #76 is not in the '76-script at all, where the tight-shoes incident
is only spoken of, rather than depicted.

Steve Perry,

My apologies, but I am forced to disgaree with you slightly on the Mark Sanford situation. It is not a question of casting stones, but rather of condemning blatant hypocrisy. Sanford was completely over the top in his condemnations of Clinton's affairs. To quote Sanford:

“I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.” Sanford on Clinton, The Post and Courier, 9/12/98


“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust. And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.” Sanford on Clinton, CNN, 2/16/99

Even setting aside his comments, there is the issue of fraud. He used state money to fly down to Argentina repeatedly to dip his wick, so to speak. I would strongly disagree that this is a question of a marital infidelity that became public, this is a violation of the public trust, a misuse of public funds for private benefit, and he should be removed from office for this offense.

I am sorry, but I do not see any real points of comparison against what Bill did.

Mark

Liege, LIEGE, LIEEEEGGGGGEEEE....

KOS, believe me, I will be watching every jot and tittle you post from now on. When I see an error, I will jump like a junebug on a blade of new grass.

Love ya skittles.

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

Mayhew, watch it. You must have forgotten that Chomsky is an anarchist and a linguist.

I will be watching you too. My red pencil will be dribbling monkey blood.

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

"We are all prisoners, it's just that the bars are spaced real wide."

Stone Casters - Apply Within

I'm not the guy to leap to Republican defense -- it's always fun to watch somebody who stakes a claim on the high moral ground squirm when it becomes known he's renting a place somewhat farther south and much warmer. When Rush talked about putting those nasty dopers under the jail, the reek of hypocrisy took the paint off the walls. But, still ...

Half the married men in the country have -- ah -- stepped over the line vis a vis their marriage vows and more than a few of them have gotten caught. Remember Wild Bill? Wetting a cigar is not sex, nor is whatever is staining that blue dress? Oh, please!

Yeah, yeah, this makes payback ever so much more fun when a holier-than-thou R trips; I'll admit to cackling when one is caught in a bathroom stall or a motel and starts to sound like Porky Pig when he tries to explain, but it's more for that reason than anything.

We all liked to see Spock laugh, didn't we?

(I didn't care what Slick was doing with his willie -- he wasn't screwing me, nor, in my view, the country, so it was between Bill 'n' Hill. Nor was it a major surprise that he *lied* about it when he got caught. C'mon. If you are willing to do it, you are willing to lie about it, and being put under oath won't make a difference.)

The old saw says there are only two things worth writing about, if you are attempting fiction -- love and death. To that, one might add a dash of redemption. We in this country do enjoy to see the mighty fall, but, if they are contrite enough, and willing to roll on their backs and show us their bellies, we are also fairly quick to forgive.

We aren't talking Nixon here. Sanford, who is obviously something less than the sharpest knife in the drawer, is floundering about for a life raft and in so doing, has splashed enough to drive any close enough out of reach. He is gonna drown, and yes, he shoulda thought about that when he flung himself into the sea; if you can't do the time, don't do the crime -- unless you are OJ or Baretta ...

We all make mistakes and some of them we get to slide on. They don't get blown up to silver screen-size and shown around the world. Of course, that's the risk when you put yourself into the political fish bowl, but even so, there probably aren't a lot of folks who drop round here who risk getting hit by a motor boat when they go out to collect the morning paper. Certainly it ain't me, babe.

Some mistakes, we have to pay the man, and Sanford is paying. It's fun street theater, but what he's done isn't really Art, is it?

Perry

Bwuian Siano: You are correct this one time. Though I'm not offended, I must say your preoccupation with trivia borders on the sick. I was so transfixed by Joe Don Baker's performance I barely noticed, nor do I care, who it was that commented so arrogantly on his art. Joel is just as evil as Nelson. The early Baker was a most underrated performer and I mentally cast him as the hero in every one of Harlan's stories ever since I discovered him.

Mark, did I call you Mike last time? I meant you. (It's two names I always mix up.) You should ask Joel why they wanted Harlan in prison and, if they haven't changed their minds, make them sign the petition. There have been too many jokes about it and too little action.

Low Water Mark Sanford
Mr. Adam-Troy Castro!

If memory serves, and it always does but it never waits, the Myrtle Beach area has more golf courses than any other part of this country. Combine the bottom line action of that game with the Governors' inability to cope with his Nostradamusitis and the people of South Carolina will surely understand why they may have paid for transportation, communication and other costs associated with this adultery in the land of cloth.

And 'crossing the line' means different things to different people. A line to one may be a hazy horizon to another. Maybe crossing the line to Sanford means he never asked Senator John Ensign to join the tryst by finding employment for his Argentinian 'hiking partner' at faith-biased initiative offices.

In the meantime, a plush garden would supplant the Gobi and the Sahara with the rank mix of bullshit emanating from Sanford and his spiritual advisors.

And I'm very much enjoying the irony of how the dna of the Wooly Mammoth has more relevance than the right-wing radio run republican party.
---
Much more important than that stuff, I hope your father forges a full recovery.

Richard Halasz

Rob

Do not speak too harshly about this specific quote from Governor Sanford. Yes, there are many other reasons to question the governor, and many of his statements just add questions (and nothing here is meant to even remotely defend what the governor has done or is doing). But the quote you have provided shows a man who may be trying to come to grips with having done something horribly wrong. It may show a man who has found a somewhat parallel story that he can turn to for hope. It strikes a chord with me. Shortly after my divorce from the wrong woman (I am in my 27th year with the right woman), I was trying to come to grips with what such an incredibly stupid decision meant to me personally. And I actually thought about the story of David and Bathsheba. Why did David do it? (Why did I do it?) To quote a famous man, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” And David’s good idea went much more horribly wrong than mine.

Good ideas go bad, and when they go bad we all search for something to ensure us we will get out of it. I’ve seen many posts on this site where people have mentioned quotes, stories, and readings that have helped carry them through. It doesn’t matter the source – fiction, non-fiction, gospel, comic books – it just matters that there is a truth that helps you get through. David’s story has a message that there is forgiveness (internal or external, depends on if you want to call the story fiction, non-fiction, gospel, or comic book – your interpretation may vary – I’m not passing that particular judgment here) and it is an important thing to remember. No matter how stupid you are, you can go beyond it and do good things. I’m not saying the governor means it, and I’m not saying he has really come to grips with how screwed up he is right now. Recovery time from a good idea gone bad can take a long time.

What I see in the quote is the potential (emphasize potential) that this man is struggling in the dark trying to find his way. Yes, he has made other statements that lead to questions. But if he is truly deep in the recovery phase, he is still making many mistakes. And, because he is a public figure, those mistakes/statements are out there for all of us to see. Having made a bad choice (okay, a number of bad choices), he may actually be trying to find his own personal redemption. And, we have to be careful that we don’t play dog-pile on the rabbit - pouncing on every word, phrase, sound bite, and quote as an excuse to point fingers in shock and outrage and secret joy. We come close to becoming the enemy by using their own tactics.

Mike

A-T C: Heh. At this point, I have a "to read" book case. (It seems that every time I go into Barnes & Noble, they have a Buy 2, Get 1 free sale, and I feel a moral imperative to partake.) I've always felt that your library should be as much about where you want to go as where you've been. I'll be finishing Silverberg's Nightwings today or tomorrow; next of is Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination.

Do not attempt to make sense of the Mark Sanford situation. If the man wishes to retain any shred of dignity and self-worth, he'd quietly resign. It all boils down to "He let Little Mark tell Big Mark what to do". Frankly, I don't think it was the type of immigration reform the Republicans had in mind.

Of *course* Limbaugh is right--no one ever committed adultery until Obama took office. No one ever abused drugs, either. Yet I know people who hang on his every word (or worse, hang on to Gen Beck's every word).


Mike Valerio - For Your Eyes Only is definitely worth seeing. Octopussy and A View to a Kill, not so much. The Bond girls are stunning, but beyond that, the only thing they have going for them is that their themes songs are not as retchingly putris as Die Another Day.

Various
(Shaking head) I have never, ever, EVER gotten offended by anybody saying that my book was on their "to-read" shelf. I understand and approve of such shelves. Nor have I ever gotten offended when somebody said that to me more than once, months apart, with my book not seeming to drift anywhere near imminence; or when they said one year that my book was three down on the beside end-table and one year later, not realizing my long memory, that it had actually descended to number four. As writers, even writers with a personal claim on the eye of any particular reader, we're members of a crowded cocktail party, each shouting for the chance to relay our favorite anecdotes. It's HARD to be popular.

That said, I'm currently reading an ARC of HARBINGER by Jack Skillingstead.

*

I don't necessarily say no to low-paying markets, but it helps if I know the folks involved and have sympathy with their endeavor. That's howcome I twice ended up in HELIX. But, otherwise...I tend to hold on to my stories and hope for better opportunities, a stratagem that has worked for me, a number of times.

*

A number of pressing questions about Governor Mark Sanford.

1) Governor Mark Sanford says that his mistress was his "soul mate" but promises that he will try to reconnect with his wife. Why? I'm not saying that adultery is proper, but if the other woman is indeed his soul mate, as opposed to a mistress of convenience, isn't everybody -- including his children, with whom he can attempt to reconnect after a divorce -- better off if he stops living a lie?

2) Governor Mark Sanford says that his mistress was his "soul mate" but also says that he has "crossed the line" with several other women. So wait a minute. He cheated on his wife AND his soul mate? What kind of scumbag cheats on his soul mate?

3) He has said that "the line" he crossed with those other women does not necessarily mean sex. Is this something like "depends on what the definition of 'is' is?" How close to actual sex did he come, when crossing this unspecified line? Did he, like, meet with one of these women in some anonymous motel room, put on some mood music, rip off her clothes, nibble on her ear, talk dirty, throw her on her back, climb on top, and THEN say, "Bye"?

4) Even if his cover story had held water, what kind of governor would he be, leaving his office for a wilderness adventure without making arrangements for a means to contact him if his State suffered an emergency? What would we think of Charlie Crist in Florida if a major hurricane destroyed Tampa and it took several days to find out that he was in Spain, running with the bulls?

5) As Governor Sanford struggles to hold on to his position, his reputation, and his family; as he paints his transgression as a moment of human weakness that should not reflect on his capacity to serve the voters who placed him in high public office; as he urges us all to forgive him and says that he will not disappoint us again, will it occur to him that only the worst hyopocrite in the world could now fail to offer an apology for the things he said about President Bill Clinton?

6) Rush Limbaugh has blamed Sanford's infidelity on the demoralizing effect President Obama's handling of the economy had on so many of Sanford's party. I'm not kidding. He's actually said this. To Limbaugh, even Sanford's open fly is Obama's fault. But since Sanford's affair began in early 2008, when Bush was still President, Wall Street was still intact, and Obama was still neck-and-neck with Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries, was Sanford a clairvoyant, seeing headlines a year ahead of time? Are we expected to believe that Sanford was sitting by himself one day and said, "You know what? A year from now, I'm going to have some difficulties with the party in power, so I really oughta fly off to South America and get laid?" And while we're at it, isn't it fun to watch the gyrations so many pundits and politicians who spent years at Bill Clinton's throat must now perform to say we really shouldn't make such a big deal about the extramarital activities of another southern governor?

The Maxifriend Support Across-Tic.
May your ethics,
Always stay free of
Xenophbic bias,
Irritable reaction and,
Folding too easily.
Renew the moral strength,
I know you to possess. If,
Ellison supports you, we give,
Nary a thought to,
Doing the same.

Brian Phillips

Three-lobed and more
Dorman: Thank you for following up. We are as cool as a summer basement, better yet the root cellar. And good luck with your house move. (The writer-me agrees with your rant, too often demands on a soapbox that every story deserves pro rate -- but more often submits to small publications that print impressive stuff. And the editor-me is ashamed that I cannot offer big bucks, continuing to bookbind by hand and refusing to include advertising. In both writer and editor roles, my love for the craft of short fiction sometimes seems limiting. Indeed, I keep retreating from the second novel ms. to indulge so.)

Harlan: Thank you for your sagacious advice. There is no more potent fuel for my gut than that from one I admire.

Lars: You're correct, it is Three-lobed. No tossing or hurling of optical organs implied. Just the multi-lobed variety. And striving not to be HPL fan fiction.

MAXIFRIEND: We are alongside you with a testudo of support and good wishes! Please ask if we can help. May you come through unscathed.

~Andrew

The Bible-Thumping Sociopaths Head Count Drives On:

"And so I've been doing a lot of soul searching on that front and what I find interesting is the story of David. And the way in which he fell mightily, he fell in very, very significant ways, but then picked up the pieces and built from there. And it all really began with the larger quest that I think is well expressed in the Book of Psalms and the notion of humility. Humility toward others, humility in one's own spirit."
- Governor Mark Sanford

Or, I suppose, putting it another way, we ALL look at the world each through the prism of our own personal reality.

Or, perhaps putting it another way, "I tried to get out of the room but the slut was all over me! It was a true nightmare, but I NEVER stopped thinking about my wife and kids!"

Or, perhaps even, "With the most devout of intentions, I meant only to leave my donation with a women's church"

Prickly Egos

KOS - your story of your friend and the "to read shelf" reminds me of a tale told about George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill in the introduction to the odd-and-wonderful book, Fair Play For Frogs.

According to the book, "Shaw invited Churchill by letter to the opening night of his newest play. 'Hope you will come and I enclose two tickets so that you may bring a friend - if you have one.'"

"To which Churchill replied, 'I have received your kind invitation and tickets. Matters of state will prevent me from attending the opening and I am returning the tickets. However, I would appreciate two tickets for the second night's performance - if there is one.'"

I figured as you are a student of history you'd either a) know this one or b) want to know it.

MM

PS You can try to correct Frank Church's spelling but you'll never succeed - he's an anarchist.

MAXIFRIEND - Make the choice that's best for you, the choice you know you can reconsider through the lens of hindsight and decide you wouldn't change a thing. Never give up!


Sandra

MaxiFriend: I've had some ethical dilemmas of my own recently, and it all came out OK. We're rootin' for ya.

even before gee
I've let it go for weeks and weeks, allowing as how it might be an oversight, fitful nervous tic or simple typo, but it is now Official:

Frank Church, this is an Intervention. You need to read this. "Liege" is spelled "L-I-E-G-E" whether it be in the sense of feudal loyalty or a city in Belgium. "I E"!!!

I'm glad we could have this moment.

Hug. "Taffeta, Darling!"

A-TC- I knew you knew all that. I was trying to chime in with you about the overuse of close-ups and the dearth of medium and wide shots of actors working together. Of course you knew all the details about how actors are supposed to be able to react to what is not there and so forth. Just talking to the gallery and trying to agree with you, in a largely inchoate manner, as is usual when I don't take the time to be clear.

I was aware, previous the recent discussion, of Three Lobed Burning Eye Magazine. Andrew's nudge got me to send a story there, without realizing he was the editor. I should have rewritten it one more time before sending it. -sigh-

I never look down on a paying market, even if it is payment in copies. Professional is as does.

When "Friday" was published, a friend and a medium ranking woman SF writer of long standing (she was first published by John W. Campbell) told me she had received a letter/phone call (memory fails on which or perhaps it was both) from Heinlein, telling her she was one of the women in the dedication for "Friday". Heinlein explained to her that the dedication to the women, all of whom were writers of SF, was in thanks for their books, which Heinlein had read during his lengthy recuperation from a carotid artery operation that returned his brain to form. He sought to thank them each and severally in a public fashion, a typical and courtly Heinlein action. She further received a signed copy of "Friday". Heinlein even circled her name in the listing of dedicatees, with an arrow leading to "RAH" in his distinctive hand.

Heinlein was genteel, and formal in his manners. He was a naval officer, schooled in such forms. He would never, not in a million years, have meant it as an insult or backhanded compliment. He was sincere in his thanks. I corresponded briefly with him, I know a few people who knew him very well (were guests in his home multple times over decades of friendship), and their experiences match well with mine. He could be misunderstood, he could be taken as arrogant or egotistical or any of a multitude of possible personality flaws, but he did not actively seek to be perceived as anything other than correct and proper by his own standards.

His ethics were sunk in concrete and rooted to bedrock.

As an aside: The Nitrosyncretic Press web site (James Gifford, who wrote that "Heinlein Readers'Companion" book a few years back, runs the press) has an article about those "Friday" dedication names, and attributes the listing of my friends' first name to ANOTHER female SF person. I've tried to get them to correct it, but there is no valid email for the site. Whatever. Errors accumulate, and we name them history.

Point is, my friend never indicated anything other than complete "How cool is this?!" delight at being so honored. Different people, different result. Soo-Prize.

So what sort of writing DOES pay a buck a word (US or OZ buck?), and how do I get into that market?

I am betting it is some form of expert knowledge DTS has. Good for him!

Writers are prickly creatures when it comes to their literary egos, for want of a better term. I recently wrote a friend that their latest novel was on my "To Be Read" shelf, meaning it as a compliment, as in they were moved to the head of the line among all the books that accumulate hereabouts as flies on molasses. So the writer replied with a mildly snarky note that he hoped when I did get around to reading the novel he hoped I would enjoy it.

-sigh-

SO I wrote back immediately explaining I had meant "To Be Read NEXT shelf", that I still have all your books, even the ones published in mass market PB thirty years ago, that I still search out your books when they are released, that my "Sig. Other" reads them in large part because I placed them in front of her, and on and on...and then I sent the email and thought "enough with the handwringing and forelock tugging, Get Over It Already!"

But I know if it were MYYYYYY book, I would probably be just as touchy. I do like to think Iit would not be so, though we are all as bitches to Reality.

Wasn;'t it Ray Bradbury who averred he wrote a million words of fiction before he made his first sale, and that it was all Bad? I believe he said most beginning writers need ro get about a million "bad" words out of their system in order to learn how to write well. Politely I wonder out loud: how many words did Harlan Ellison write before he started selling?

KOS

Ellison Twitterland
I was wrong, Harlan: Your aphorism, "Ethics should not be constructed like a temporary pig sty. They must be sunk as deeply as The Rock of Ages," including attribution, is under the 140-character limit, so I'm posting it un-compressed on Twitter @DailyCurmudgeon.
Jon Winokur

For MaxiFriend
Huzzahs, encouragement, and all that good stuff hereby sent your way. You'll make the right decision, I'm sure.

a brief note for anyone
If you find yourself dervishly whirling around the horns of that mythical beast known as dilemna, and the nature of that beast is deemed very serious by polite society and other unspeakable things by not so polite society, then you may ease your mind and be secure in the knowledge that your choice of the best available ethical solution is unquestioned by those of us who are in the know about that sort of thing. Further, the choice you make will not weaken you in anyone's eyes nor will it endanger you physically or your standing in the community.

in short, suck it up and go git'em tiger!

further, deponent sayeth not.

swp

(Odd that I would see Harlan's Karma Komment right in the middle of a three hour call listening to lawyers drone on over a customer contract negotiation.)


MAXIFRIEND: You will do right. Listen to your heart. It'll tell you what you need to know.

Go get 'em.

Adding to the Huzzah

What Harlan said, Maxi.

MaxiFriend -- May you find the Right solution.

*****

Semi-Writer -- There is certainly nothing wrong with writing 'for a sale', but at some point, I hope you can write what is dearest to your heart.

*****

Brian Phillips -- I listened to all 4 hours because I knew they were going to be changed soon. Enjoyed them all (to varying degrees, naturally), and will be back next month. Particularly enjoyed your Bip Bam by The Drifters, and, from Memory Lane, I think, Devil Woman by Marty Robbins.

"Hey, kiddo, when you speak to the MST3K loonies, would you pass along that I always considered it a badge of honor to have been the heckler line in one of their film sessions. Next to the Caldecott or the Nobel, well, what further can I say...?

Tell'm I was honored."

As Mark already mentioned, he'll be the one to possibly meet the cast of MST3K (the lucky bastid), but I'll be glad to pass this on to anyone who is crazy for the Satellite of Love and all its progeny.

It does seem to be the month for taking it in the nuts, Harlan. Sorry to hear about Don Coldsmith. He sounds like a neat guy. I take it he liked THE END OF THE TIME OF LEINARD.


I am glad to see a ray of hope shining from Adam and his dad. I hope his recovery continues upward non-stop.

It's also nice to see that Dr. Mabuse, Der Spieler has been sentenced to 150 years. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

And in reference to Al Franken's legal and political victory: IT'S ABOUT FUCKING TIME! Now MN can get some goddamn representation.


I'm glad you're happy, Frank. I loves to please.


Lastly, I send out a hearty "Have at them, Tiger! Dazzle, nay, befuddle the bastids you face with classy and effective action. Show 'em and shame 'em" to the Mysterious MaxiFriend. Shame the Devil.

Wour Yelcome. Chuck

HEY, WYATT !!!

& The Webderlanders (a big band):

Every once inna...I think I've come up with a good one. So, Rick, if you get a moment, could you put this one in a line-rule box and mount it at the Doorway to Ellison Webderland, so anyone just stumbling in can glom it and understand? Thank you.

Here are my words:

"Ethics should not be constructed like a temporary pig sty. They must be sunk as deeply as The Rock of Ages."

Harlan Ellison

An MST3K correction
Jan, I'm afraid you are on the cusp of an error. The episode of MST3K in which Our Host was referred to was _Mitchell_, a mod-1970s cop movie starring Joe Don Baker. That particular episode was notable as being Joel's _last_ episode. You may have confused it with the time Mike and the crew took on another Joe Don Baker film, _Final Justice_.

Yeah, this is one of the few shows for which I'll be a trivia fan. I saw the Cinematic Titanic crew here in Philly about two weeks back, and they were excellent.

Okay, having multiple actors in shots in movies. I'm with ATC on this one, folks. I recently bought the Robert Harris-restored versions of The _Godfather_ films, and there is a lot of texture and nuance in these films created solely by having the actors present, in the shot, and aware of each other. And when Diane Keaton takes a tentative nibble at the food on the table, or when Andy Garcia strides through the opera house, or when Joe Mantegna assumes a regal pose in Al Pacino's office... the way they place and hold themselves enriches their performances.

And let's not forget the need for actual _sets_ and _props_ to be present, to offer an actor a change to inhabit more than his character's mindset. Yes, the use of greenscreen and digital compositing enables George Lucas to place his actors in massive horizon-stressing vistas of wonder and spectacle... but his actors are still on a small stage trying to imagine what their characters are seeing.

Ray Bradbury
Le: Regarding Ray Bradbury's remark, "What you're all looking for -- but maybe you don't know it -- what you're looking for in your writing, in your life is for *one* person to come up to you and say, 'I love you. Because of what you do. I love you for what you do.'" That happened to me once, coupled with a squeal of delight and a big hug, though because the compliment came regarding a series of real-life/derivative fiction stories, I couldn't fully appreciate that enthusiastic response. The work and the ideas were mine, true enough, but the people whom I turned into characters? Not my inventions, not to mention that whole genre is considered repulsive to the majority of writers. Which, yea, it sucks when you hamstring yourself creatively like that.

Today brings things back to that old '80s adage, "Life is getting hard. Please send chocolate." Turns out that one of my roommates is bailing next week and leaving the second-floor apartment we stay in. The roommates on the third floor (who have this apartment under their name as well) are planning to give up their place (which is $300 more per month) to move down here in August. And my idea was to simply move down the hall into a bachelor apartment for a mere $595 a month. Simple, huh? But... NO, such an event is apparently too convenient for the universe to let happen. Because I don't have a four-digit-per-week job. It ain't even about the money or the credit--I've got a great credit score and enough in the bank to cover at least the next six months' rent (and the security and damage deposits), thanks to a recent inheritance from my grandmother (who passed May 23, 2009). It's not even about having a good reputation--I've been here for five years without any negative incidents or police actions or what have you. Nope, now it's all about showing off a paycheck from a five-day-a-week job (the two-day-a-week check stub that I gave them wasn't good enough). So tomorrow, I've gotta see how well I can explain my situation in writing, and to stretch my legs in that wonderful art known as bullshit.

When life gives you lemons... make sure to use the rind for cleaning and for freshening up the garbage disposal. "Waste not, want not" and all that. Either that or leave 'em intact and lob the little yellow bastards at any passing Bentleys, Porsches or Rolls Royces, then run like the dickens.

OOP!

That should've been

THANK you,

not

"Yhank" you

unless I'd put "chain"

in there somewhere.

My apologies to Hank, and his entire Yhankee Family.

(Geezus, where's my hat?)

-he

DORMAN

I have asked Rick to delete a couple of sentences from your post of a few minutes ago. They were not inflammatory, sexist, racist, pornographic or mean. But they did fall smack in the middle of the intersection of DON'T PUT MY BUSINESS OUT IN THE STREET and THIS AIN'T FUCKIN FACEBOOK OR TWITTER AND NOT EVERYGODDAMTHING NEEDS TO BE REGURGITATED ONLINE BOULEVARD.I could not have extrapolated that you (or anyone) would make the linkages you did, nor that s/he would then innocently drop said construct into a public post. So despite the conundrum created for me by your--again--innocent observation is my burden to bear, I've swiftly gotten rid of it. No harm, no foul--for the millionth time. You're cool, I'm cool, Rick's cool; and you'll figger it out. Kindly make no reference to this again.

Still Yr. Pal, Harlan

MaxiFriend, Germany is behind you, America already notified. Your health and survival is imperative!

YOUR GOOD KARMA REQUESTED

One of our mutual MaxiFriends here is currently aswirl in a very serious Ethical Conundrum. No one can say more than that, but I seek the benisons of your "Go git'm, Killer!" and "We are dead certain you will choose the best available ethical solution," and "Protect yourself in a manly, standup-guy way."

MaxiFriend has been put between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Give'im a hey you go baby!

Yhank you. Harlan

MST3K - Actually, Mike, Joel wasn't involved in the episode, as it was a (great) Mike episode. (I hope this is not too confusing.) Your friend should ask Joel to pass it along to the robots. I'm sure they'll love to hear it.

ATC - Who are the guilty directors? I agree and have often felt the same way but would enjoy some names or titles. The Bond movie I haven't seen. Regarding master shots, Hollywood has simply gotten used to accomodating television and DVD, and then there's today's "creative" cross-pollination between the media. TV shows now look like movies, and a lot of young movie directors have watched too much badly-directed TV (and MTV) at an earlier stage. It has all merged in an unhealthy way.

Frankly you also need good actors to achieve a good close-up, as well as a script that has some substance or intent. A lot of modern close-ups show us how people look at a given moment, if their eyes are still in the same place. And when they begin to talk, they cut away to something even less relevant because they don't want talking heads.

One of the commercial movie directors who does not follow these trends is Tarantino, and it has been paying off for him. I expect a lot of master shots, two-shots, well-edited action and so on in Inglorious Basterds (though the story may be a bit thin).

Erratum
Oops! That's "had to LAUGH," not life!

Ellison and cats / Ray Bradbury on writing
I read "The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore" (which I think is an absolute masterpiece, though I can't pretend I fully "get") again for the nth time last night, and had to life when that cat gets sawn in half, and, with the help of a taxidermist, is made into bookends!

I remember how Mr. Ellison joked in passing on the Hour 25 radio show back in the 80s that he hates cats, that every time he sees a cat, he wants "to grab it by the neck and squeeze till its eyeballs pop out!"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I remember when Ray Bradbury gave a talk at my college. He encouraged the aspiring writers in the audience, but he said that those pursuing writing must write every day. He said he challenged anyone to write badly for 365 consecutive days.364 days, YES, but not 365 days.

Ray Bradbury has always been a moving speaker, but I was especially touched by this address he gave back in 2001. (See link below.) An excerpt:

"What you're all looking for -- but maybe you don't know it -- what you're looking for in your writing, in your life is for *one* person to come up to you and say, 'I love you. Because of what you do. I love you for what you do.'"

The story he tells after that practically had me in tears. To find out what he says, go to the link below. The address is long, over 50 minutes, but I wasn't bored a single minute...very moving.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-r7ABrMYU

Selling stories for cash
(Since I'm gonna be offline for a while, wanted to clarify):
ANDREW: I was in a rush (in the midst of moving house) when I posted that comment -- didn't meant to sound like I was insulting you. Didn't notice that the site was yours until I went back and looked twice (saw your editor title). The comment of "13 lousy bucks" was made as a reference to the state of the short story market in general (especially as regards the internet). I know _you_ are familar with the work that goes into writing short stories; after all, we've been acquainted since I "bumped" into you as a publicist (and emerging short story author). In any case, hope I didn't bruise any feelings.

HARLAN and FRANK: I figured my hurried comments would be misunderstood, as soon as I reread them (and looked at Andrew's site again). My comments were made (in a hurry, as noted above, and therefore in an imcomplete fashion) as sort of groan of pain over how the craft of writing (good writing) is still so fuckin devalued. I know short stories are written for love -- of the craft, of the art form, etc. -- because the market pays out far more for novels. But to see that there's been little or no improvement in the years since Harlan first started is really disheartening.

In my humble (and ill-educated) opinion, short stories, when written well, are (like good poetry) what makes fiction transcend the arena of entertainment and ascend into rareified heights of Art (with a capital "A"). Novels very rarely (if ever) reach that pinnacle. So in a time when money is tossed willy-nilly (even during an economic "downturn") at those whose only talent is to add to global warming via the hot-air of their televised blather, the idea that even good (or great) short stories still hold so little value is, well...if not disheartening, at least a damn shame. Hell, as I pointed out, I can make a dollar a word pounding out articles that only take a day's work (maybe two, if I include my having thought about structure for a few hours here and there, ahead of time).

It was just a bleat of frustration at the indifferent universe (and sadly lowered attitudes toward creativity and venues from which art can emerge) -- not a turning up of the nose toward Andrew and those (unlike Guantlet, or Prime) who genuinely want to shepherd good writers. (Hope we're cool, Andrew).

Cheers,
DTS

Why it is Three-Lobed
Three-Lobed Burning Eye takes its esoteric name from the final words in H.P. Lovecraft's last-written story, "The Haunter of the Dark," which HPL dedicated to the great Robert Bloch, his correspondent at the time. At the end of the story, narrator Robert Blake (based on Bloch) writes in his diary, "I see it-- coming here-- hell-wind-- titan-blur-- black wings-- Yog-Sothoth save me-- the three-lobed burning eye..." As many here know, Bloch and Lovecraft took pleasure in killing representations of each other in their respective stories.

My apologies for a double post, but I just wanted to share some excellent news from the world of politics:

Al Franken was just unanimously declared the winner in the US Senate race here in MN. The Supreme Court unfortunately did not give the governor a timeline in which he has to sign the election certificate, but with Coleman conceding upon hearing the ruling hopefully that will be a moot point

Welcome to a 60 seat majority in the Senate, now let's see what the Dems can do with this advantage

One more thing: Happy Birthday to Frank Church!

I will be silent for a couple of days now in penance

Mark

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream Movie Trailer (well, sort of)
Look what I found on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvR6baW4SlY&feature=channel_page

Wouldn't it be SWEET if that was for real?
-Jordan

ps- If there ever is an IHNMAIMS movie, I get to do the soundtrack. I called it here and now.

Cry for Me, Argentina
South Carolina, home state of that dastardly, already-married drifter who slept on my floor while secretly meddling with my life partner, now sports a governor who apparently promotes such range-roving "partner quests" out of ole Dixie.

Feh! How could a proud Argentinian stoop so low?

Harlan, my leige, I was just making sure. Holding back the slapping machine was kind of you.

Your rant about publishing stories was spot on. Better to get 15 bucks for a good story than 5000 for some shitty horror novel or romance novel. At least you still own your soul.

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

Messer, Chuck Beautiful Thighs Messer, you just made me cum in my pants. I am awash in sticky produce. My balls feel like chickpeas on fire. Not only do I get Mike and the boys, the mysterious Joel comes back from the cellar. I am one happy little pervert.

I know, ewwwwwwwwwwwwww.

I don't know why it didn't come up, but that heading should've been

IS IT "THREE-LOBED" ???

Harlan

IS IT
(Though I may have the name of the "magazine" incorrect, y'all'll be able to scroll back a wee bit and pick up the nubbbin of this exchange. I think this is important for any of you--including Andrew--who expect to be paid for your creative product, so PLEASE pay heed, and sow these words where necessary):

Don't sneer at a market that pays only fifteen dollars a story, or one cent a word, or a "favored nations" set price for any and all lengths. DO NOT DISMISS SUCH MARKETS.

I began my writing career at a penny-a-word, two cents, occasionally the Valhalla of 5 cents a word. I have done stories for people for $1 or for barter-in-kind-&-worth. DO NOT GET ALL UP IN YO'SELF AND DISMISS OUT OF HAND!!!

ANY market that may not have deep pockets--as did OMNI or does NEW YORKER and PLAYBOY--but has enough classiness to respect that a "workman is worth his hire," and offers what it can, is a market worthy of my, and your, consideration.

I am not saying that every cheap chiseling publisher, such as the mooch who runs Gauntlet Press, should be condoned in their petty sleaze practices, hell no, nowhichway; BUT the world is full of hopefuls, wannabes, poseurs, parvenus and just plain amateur lovers of the printed word, who want into the Game. They have minimal bucks BUT they know they have to pay on the line for a tank of gas, a pizza, dental work...and they UNDERSTAND that even if they're walking a thin wire, that the people whose creative product fills their venue and is their raison d'etre...must be accorded respect and payment.

And so, they do the best they can. Ten bucks, 15, a hundred. Whatever.

I was offered, after haggling, a measly $250 for my new story, which that market had commissioned and to which I'd committed the work, just about a month ago. It was only when negotiations foundered on their signing MY standard contract, after they'd accepted the story, that I withdrew it. And sold it shortly thereafter for $1500. But the two-fifty was fine with me; it wasn't the money that killed the deal.

But when one of the packaging companies for, say, Warner Bros. calls me and wants me to do an on-camera commentary, and offers NOTHING, and gives me that "everyone else is doing it for nothing" bullshit, I go up in flames. They are ignorant (by choice), arrogant (by having been endlessly accomodated in their pillferage by fuckin' amateurs), and too ignorantly arrogant not to say, "Oh, sure, payment. Let me check how much we can offer." And if they come back and say Nothing, IIIII say, "Adios muthuhfugguh." But if they make an offer, no matter how miniscule, or they say, "Well, EVERYONE is being paid the same amount of XXX.XX dollars," I say: I'm in.

So.

Andrew, and Dorman, ALWAYS go for the most you can get, and whatever they at first offer go "Mmmmmm, that's a little thin. Can you better it?" AND THEY WILL! EVERY TIME!!! But if 3-Lobed, or whatever, offers only $15 a story...

You don't have to accept it...it is ALWAYS the Creator's Choice to accept or reject...but it IS an offer, and may be the best they can do with amateur financing...but they may not mean any insult to the Creator.

It is ALWAYS your choice.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Heinlein
Zeock --

Of the 1978 Worldcon, in Phoenix -- the third or fourth con I attended as a pro -- I have some fine memories: Harlan in a visquine bubble, writing in the lobby, still smoking a pipe. (And that brown velour leisure suit ...) Jesse J.F. Bone, a childhood idol upon whom I fanboy gushed; and Gene Gold, who asked me for a short story that I half-wrote on a napkin in the bar. And I sat next to Ginny Heinlein at the autographing, because Bob was having -- as I recall -- an endarterectomy to relieve clogged carotids. She had a rubber stamp, "By the Authority of Robert A. Heinlein" she used on books, then countersigned with her name. Nice lady.

I had met Bob at an earlier Worldcon, in Miami, I think, through the aegis of Hank -- now Jean -- Stine.

Bob and I went on to exchange a few letters, back in the snail mail days before computers arrived and began to morph into Skynet ...

The story goes, that after he started getting my oxygen to his brain, Heinlein looked at the book upon which he was working, and scrapped it. He then produced *The Number of the Beast,* which makes one wonder what the book he tossed might have been ...

*Friday* had a dedication that included a slew of women, many of whom were writers in the SF&F genre -- you can see the list here:

http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/dedications.html

I had occasion to speak to several of these women writers, and they were, um, less than impressed with the novel. One of them allowed as how Friday was naught but a man with tits, and that as far as she was concerned, the dedication was along the lines of "Here's how it is done, girls."

Heinlein's later works were produced by a man who was not in the best of health, and I can't help but think that this contributed to their somewhat uneven quality.

writers
To DTS-May I ask a serious question-with the exception of JOB and FRIDAY I've always had problems with the later Heinlein novels and, with respect, I want to know what you see in them. If I was speaking to you, you would know that I'm not questioning your taste. I don't see it and I do want to know what I'm overlooking. To Harlan-I was torn. I thought you'd want to know but I knew it would upset you. But I have to thank you again for RUNE STONE. If I wasn't aware because you mentioned it I would see the title and day," Oh christ,another Tolkien rip off." But now there's a world of new reading out there for me. To Hemingway fans- Sean, Patrick's son, is editing a new edition of A MOVEABLE FEAST out very soon. Why ? When Mary edited H's Paris sketches she wanted to please Hadley and so she included the most negative references to Pauline and left out the positive items. So Sean, Pauline's grandson, is putting out a "restored edition."

A-T C, that is wonderful news. Even if is incremental, I think you can take solace in the fact that your Dad is moving in the right direction.

Harlan, my condolences on the loss of your friend. I was unfamiliar with him, as I do not often read Westerns, but you have not steered me wrong yet on book suggestions so I will definitely keep an eye out for novels by him from this point forward.

It was actually me, and not Chuck, that was going to see the MST3K guys this week. A friend of both of ours, Jody Wurl (she helped out Susan with Neil's copyrights), will be the guest liaison for Joel Hodgson, so I will pass the message along to her.

All the best,

Mark

Various
My Dad still has tremendous distance to travel, mostly in the realm of physical therapy and short-term memory. My Mom, a "glass-half-empty" kind of lady, is pretty stingy with any acknowledgment of hope. But I must report that he bounced back from his latest setback, and was tremendously more coherent, the last time I spoke to him. His speaking voice, which has for a month been so sludgy and slurred that it was difficult to understand him, clarified all at once, so much so that I said, "Wow!" on the phone. As I've said, this is not to say he's all the way better; it was a victory, last couple of days, to sit him upright in a chair. And walking, even with assistance? At this point, still fuhgeddaboutit. But you can *talk* to him now, even if he is sometimes confused. Let us continue to watch with renewed hope.

*

Sigh. I'm well aware that reaction shots in movies have always been filmed separately, and that much of film acting consists of, "Look surprised, never mind why." When Rick Blaine nods to the orchestra during that stirring scene in CASABLANCA, Humphrey Bogart the actor did not know why. And Cary Grant's performance during the nonsensical but still classic crop-dusting scene in NORTH BY NORTHWEST is just a series of physical moves, stitched together. I know that. But that is not what I talk about when I complain about excessive close-ups ruining performance. Those reaction shots were INSERTS and just part of the mechanical process. They worked because the context allowed them to integrate with the rest of the performance, because *for the most part* actors were able to interact with one another on screen, developing relationships. When there are no medium shots, when there is no body language, when the language of a film consists of one huge closeup followed by another huge closeup, when interaction is nothing but those reaction shots, the connection is lost.

*

Two upcoming anthologies read as review copies: THE IMPROBABLE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Nightshade Books), edited by John Joseph Adams, with reprints, approximately half of them fantastic, by Stephen King, Anthony Burgess, Neil Gaiman, Anne Perry, Naomi Novik, Rob Sawyer, and others; I report that many are quite good, but that one in particular, Tanith Lee's, strikes me as one of the best Holmes stories of *all time*. SON OF RETRO PULP TALES (Subterranean Press), edited by Joe R. Lansdale and Keith Lansdale, with quality stories that include a terrific weird western by Lansdale and a down and dirty gunfight by David Schow and the first all-prose story by Tim Truman and a (new, or at least newly-published) novella by our host that is a deliberate throwback to Ellison the still-somewhat fetal wordsmith who used to crank 'em out to pay the rent. (And great fun.)

3LBE
As DTS points out, Three-lobed is not a magazine that pays professional rates. I do not, in any way, intend to mislead anyone, or insult KOS. Enjoy the stories if you stop by, is all.

Recommended reading: Aravind Adiga
ALL (I'll be gone for a few days, Rick -- moving house -- so I wont be posting for a while): Been reading the latter Heinlein novels lately because I picked up TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE and now can't stop until I finish THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, FRIDAY, THE CAT WHO WALKED THROUGH WALLS, JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE and TO SAIL BEYOND THE SUNSET (after reading several so-so novels of late, I needed a good ol'fashioned dose of one of the writers that made a full-time reader out of me). Whilst doing so, I picked up WHITE TIGER and (the just-published) BETWEEN ASSASSINATIONS by Aravind Adiga. He's one of two (along with Jhumpa Lahiri) Indian-bred authors that have impressed the hell out of me in the last 6 or 7 years. Lahiri has been publishing a while but Adiga just hit the (book) publishing scene last year with WHITE TIGER, which won the Booker. And this year he's published BETWEEN THE ASSASSINATIONS, which was apparently written at the same time as Tiger. BOTH books are terrific. And they certainly evoke modern-day India (and it's inhabitants for me). Between is a bit more mainstream in it's subject matter, set after Indira Ghandi's assassination (and before the killing of Rajiv, her son), it follows the lives of disparate types: an Islamic terrorist, a middle-aged communist, a journalist, young children, etc. But the structure is quite interesting -- and playful -- and the descriptions of India, of course, spot-on. "Tiger" is a bit wilder (pun intended if you smiled), written in a largely epistolary style (the protagonist is communicating with the premier of China, who will soon visit India), it examines the caste system via the protagonist's experiences (Balram,the protagonist, is a chauffer who is not racist, but eventually becomes a stone-cold killer -- but he's still likeable).

Just wanted to hip you guys on the other side of the pond (if you hadn't read about him already) to Adiga, who, I think, is one helluva writer.

Off to finish packing. Play well together.
Cheers,
DTS

Note to Alan Coil
Dear Alan,

You wrote:

Are you part of Rockin' Radio? There is a Brian Phillips there.

http://www.rockinradio.com/now_playing.htm

Yes, that is me. It's an almost four year-old labor of love. Please listen (that goes for anyone here) and let me know what you think. I can be e-mailed at my gmail address, luciuscyrene

Thank you very much for noticing my show. I enjoy doing them and I always appreciate feedback. The other three shows are a lot of fun as well.

Note to Harlan Ellison: Even though shagin is more articulate, my condolence for your loss is no less heartfelt.

Brian Phillips

HARLAN - There are too many ways to say "I'm sorry for your loss", but never enough comfort. I will hope, instead, that his was an easy passing and that Mr. Coldsmith's memory lives on in the imaginations of his readers.

***

KARL K. - The story is "Direction of the Road" and was written by Ursula K. LeGuin. Check out the site below that discusses a 2007 re-release of the story.

"Direction of the Road" is one of my favorite LeGuin short stories.


http://pdxwriting.blogspot.com/2009/05/from-library-ursula-k-le-guins.html



shagin

CHUCK MESSER

Hey, kiddo, when you speak to the MST3K loonies, would you pass along that I always considered it a badge of honor to have been the heckler line in one of their film sessions. Next to the Caldecott or the Nobel, well, what further can I say...?

Tell'm I was honored.

Harlan

REPLY TO KARL KELLEY

Sat here and cudgeled my memory, but I don't think that "looming tree" story is mine. Maybe, y'know, I've put it away nin my memory...oh WAIT A MINUTE...do you mean the story that first appeared as "Planet of the Myth" and when I anthologized it later I called it ASANOTHER SEES US? Could that be the one?

Yr. Pal, Harlan

RE: THE DEATH OF DON COLDSMITH

My long-time friend, and one of the most percipient editors who ever blue-pencilled a manuscript, Pat LoBrutto, published Don in hardcover at Doubleday. Back around 1980, Pat sent me TRAIL OF THE SPANISH BIT, saying that he knew I had a special, VERY selective taste for a small number of writers of western novels: Steve Frazee, Loren Estleman, Lee Hoffman, Lou Cameron writing the FARGO novels as John Benteen, Frank Roderus; and he thought I would chew down Don Coldsmith's first book in a proposed series as I would a sterling silver ramekin full of good Sevruga Mallisol.

So I read it. Oh, my! Then when Tom Dupree--oh, golly hey, speaking of exemplary and exquisite editors--when Tom took over at Doubleday after Bantam bought it and Pat was somewhere else, and Tom continued publishing Don, on April Fool's Day l994 (a year before it ws actually released), Tom sent me Don's "magnum opus," RUNESTONE. Oh me, oh my! John Z: Am I a fan of Coldsmith? Oh me oh my oh me omy.

I believe I have read all but one or two of the thirty-or-so Don Coldsmith novels in the Spanish Bit Saga, his novels of The People, the stand-alones, and the one Rivers West title. In my gift copy of his gorgeous February 1995 CHILD OF THE DEAD, a Plains Indians novel of breathlessly inspiring clarity and craft--"Running Deer watched the big lodges come down, one after another."--Don wrote to me on the title page:

FOR HARLAN ELLISON...a colleague whose work I greatly admire...hope you enjoy...I don't think you have this one yet. All the series titles will now be this somewhat longer size. Hope all is well with you-- DON

News of his passing hits me with greater force than the death of Michael Jackson, whose music I liked a lot, but whom I only met once. Don's joining this week's death list, is the hardest one to take. H, like Louis L'Amour, another pal, was a Stand Up Guy and a Writer of Great Parts.

JohnZ: while I cannot love you for letting me know, I am certainly grateful to you for having done so. Thanks, old friend.

Sadly, Harlan

Title of an HE story I read long ago
Years ago I read a short story by Ellison that was the personification of a tree. The tree had to "loom" as cars approached and recede as cars went away from it. Was this actually an Ellison story or a story by someone else in an anthology edited by Ellison? What was its title? Thanks for the help.

Dreams with Sharp Teeth
Brought the DVD home with me to show it to the old man. He couldn't stop lauging and smiling. He couldn't stop nodding when Harlan spoke about the powerful hold radio has over our imagination. Tomorrow we will be watching all the neat extras together.

Dreams with Sharp Teeth
Watched this Saturday; watched the bonus features tonite. In between (that would be Sunday), went down to dip into my collection of dog-eared paperbacks and dustjacket-torn hardbacks so I could continue to hear that exuberant frenetic forceful elegaic effervescent voice shouting and pounding in my head. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You brought fifteen back to me; you brought my father back too, who first handed me "The Deathbird Stories" -- my god, 35 years ago?

Just thought I'd drop in, say howdy to my friends here and thank you all for you kindness during this time.

The hard part right now is getting Dad engaged, trying to keep him in the here and now, or he'll sleep 24-7. He was doing his damnedest to do just that during my last visit, even to the point of wheeling himself over to his roomate's bed to sleep there, since I was blocking his bed. I finally gave up and laid him down in his bed, which my stepmom, Ellie, said is a no-no from now on.

Looks like Dad and I are going to be bumping heads. Still a stubborn old coot. Can't let him give up.

Onward.

Mark wrote:

"I will be seeing the guys from MST3K at a Con later this week and may ask them if they have ever lampooned that particular film"

To which Frank replied:

"Mark, why not ask them to bring back the show. Have it online if need be. We need their humour about now."

Good news, Frank! They've already done that, though under different show names and formats. Mike, Kevin and Bill Corbet are doing RIFFTRACKS in which you can download their riffs on movies like 300 and JURASSIC PARK and sync them with your DVD. They're also releasing DVD's of RIFFTRACKS, including NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.

The rest of the gang are running something called CINEMATIC TITANIC, which is very MST3K-like and is available in downloaded and DVD form. One tidbit: in their premier, THE OOZING SKULL (aka BRAIN OF BLOOD), you see the mad scientist's hulking henchman playing with a toy car on the floor. Frank Conniff pipes up with, "George Bush on his first day in office."

There you have it, an answer to your prayers.

Thanks to all,

Chuck

Always wanted Michael Caine as 007

To many pretty-boys and fake fight scenes.Mr. Caine would probably take some tough punches to make the scenes work.He always thought his last movie would be his last movie.That's an ARTISTE.

Mike--
Actually, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY is the closest that the Roger Moore era came to a serious action adventure

Personally, I think SPY and EYES are Moore's best watermarks

Maybe check out FOR YOUR EYES ONLY since the producers KNEW that after MOONRAKER they had really taken the series as "far out" as they could and knew they needed to get back to basics

and I just realized this is past my daily limit....so sorry Harlan. I'll just watch for the next couple of days. Promise

For Andrew Laubacher
.
MOONRAKER.

Holy hell, what a crappy motion picture. As a lifelong 007 fan, I was so offended by the sheer rottenness of MOONRAKER that I actually skipped the next three Roger Moore Bond epics, waiting the franchise out until it re-tooled with THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS.

To this day, I have not seen FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, OCTOPUSSY or A VIEW TO A KILL.

Am I missing anything?

Older Movies - Reply to KOS
KOS typed:

'First rule of todays style of action directing: "When in doubt, have something blow up."'

I watched original THE HAUNTING again last night on DVD with a glass of red, Vegemite on toast, and the lights out. Every shot is engrossing, the dialogue is engaging, and the scares are still nerve-jangling.

The were no explosions, unless you count Eleanor's slow mental implosion as such.

-Rod-

Response to Mr. E.
You're very welcome, glad I could help. I'll let you know the total once it clears my bank and I know what the exchange ended up being. I know it's equal or less than you reimbursed me for the lion thimble which is why I didn't lose time posting to ask you.

Jan S.

Andrew Fuller's recommendation
ALL: I checked out the site for the 3-lobbed Whatchamacallit magazine after seeing Fuller's post and recommendation. I looked at the submission guidelines and noticed how much they offer for stories of 500 to 7000 (!) words. Thirteen bucks. Plus one comp issue. That for one-time electronic and print rights and "non-exclusive" archival rights.

Thirteen bucks. For 500 words or more. On publication.

I'll be getting paid a dollar per word (American), on acceptance, for an article that was written yesterday morning and afternoon, then copy-edited and turned in last night. Not the highest sum one can make per word, but not too shabby.

$13 for the blood, sweat and tears that someone will pour into a short story (and I've tried my hand at them -- I _know_ how tough short stories are). $13 lousy bucks for a 500 to 7000(!) word short story...

'Nuff said.
--DTS

Don Coldsmith, R.I.P.
Harlan- I don't know if he was a friend or someone whose work you admired but my sympathies for his loss but my thanks for alerting me to him so I could read the amazing RUNE STONE. Anything I can do...John.

So, Harlan...
For those of us who may have missed it: Where IS a good place to start on SIMENON?

JAN SCHROEDER:

I love you. Hippowise, of course. Susan always says to me that she never worries about replacing something we have lost and long to have replaced, because, as she puts it, "You're magic; and everything comes back to you eventually." I just smile, being a Skeptical, non-superstitious-to-a-fault kinda guy ... but ... goddam, Jan ... she may be right. Either way, I love you. Whatever I may owe you for this Return from the Land of the Lost, you will receive, just hip me to the amount.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Gawd! Do I envy Bob Morales. Just called him, told him where to start reading SIMENON, my idol, the inspiration for my writing-in-public gigs, and gave him half a dozen of Simenon's (wait for it...!) 300 fabulous titles; and now he is about to go off the high board, not understanding that he will be at the Deep Deep Deepest end of an auctorial pool that plays residence to a talent whirlpool that will draw him down and down for years! Oh, geeeez, do I envy him discovering Simenon!

Yr. Pal, Harlan

NOTE TO FRANK CHURCH

Billy Mays is NOT the pitchman on the Sham-Wow infomercial (by the way, it's a shit product, avoid it, I wish we had). In fact, Billy Mays, who was a delight, DESPISED that Sham-Yuchh ad.

As for reading into what I said an assertion that Billy Mays was of greater value than Michael Jackson, well, it wasn't anywhere ANYTHING like that, but you can damnwell intimate anything that gladdens your pixie heart. Do try, however, not to put said assertions or intimations into MY mouth, Frank.

Michael Jackson's value to you, and Billy Mays or Farrah Fawcett's values to me...are utterly unconnected. You are being presumptuous. Not enough for me to prickle, but silly and bumptious enough for me to suggest, mildly, grasshopper, mildly, that you return to my ACTUAL words, read them slowly, and comprehend that subject and predicate DO align.

Mildly, calmly, friendlily, Yr. Pal, Harlan

That Old Movie Magic
I wonder if film directors eschewing the medium shot, going for TV style close ups and reactions, could be not only sloppiness and bad directing, but a realization that their work will be seen by most viewers on a small screen? Between Cable, Pay Per View and Home Video releases, I rarely see a film in theater unless I make a real effort for some high profile production. Scorsese I will always make the effort to see in a movie house, for example.

Yes, A-TC, a director telling a high paid actor/star to "look here" "twitch your shoulder" and so on is exactly what happens. This is not new, though with the TV style direction of today it may be done more often. In film school I saw clips of Grace Kelly as the Sheriff's wife in "High Noon" being talked through a series of reaction shots. She stood alone on the set, camera close on her, and the directors off camera voice told her "look here" "look over there" "smile" "frown" and so on. It was sad and funny and of course part of the way you get such shots and sadly that sort of thing when seen just totally destroys a lot of the magic of a movie so I don't dwell on it because these reflections of reality in the fun house mirror must be believed as received wisdom, true perceptions of reality or we can never quite "let go" and enjoy them.

Don't expect coherent film theory from me. I am confused by what I just wrote as much as any reader of it.


I have not seen a Bond film since Octopussy. Just lost my taste for them. I think it's a maturity issue. I'm just too old to find them interesting, and the loss is mine. I ought to see the most recent Casino Royale, though. Just to check how the franchise has developed.

When I write a scene, I put in all of those camera shots and angles and lighting suggestions and little bits of action/business and doo wah diddies that make directors and producers throw their hands in the air wildly, pull their hair, kvetch and generally act like a dinner theatet production of "Shylock: The Musical!", wailing and telling me "awright all ready would ya leave something for the director and gaffer and actors and caterer to do, fer cryingoutloud!", to which I shrug, sheepishly grin and tell 'em to go fuck themselves, twice, without Astroglide (TM), and in the wrong hole.

I s'pose this explains why my scripts lie on desks like a pod of dolphins on an Australian beach, basking in the Antipodal noonday sun of some agent manques gimlet gaze, bloating and generally languishing.

Whatever.

Say, what does it mean for the future of western civ that last week, in the supermarket bargain bin (which we alwys check. That was where I once laid mitts upon and purchased a quart bottle of Glemmorangie single malt for ten bucks, after all!) they had half a dozen heavily marked down bottles of Astroglide (TM)?

I was SO tempted to buy them all, and then include one with each, every and several future submission of mine. But one does not catch a monkey by being obvious. Softly, softly.

Still, you are not gong to get away with telling me there isn't a crying need out there for more and better social lubrication!

Semi: I saw the fun and not too shabby play "Tamara" years ago at the old Hollywood American Legion building. What a great piece of architecture and talk about atmosphere!

My best example of getting confused by a movie not delineating characters well is when i saw "The Departed" in theater. The Matt Damon and DiCaprio characters were, to me, hard to keep straight for the first hour or so. Now, I have really bad vision (a medical condition, not just "need glasses"), so that may well have been part/all of the problem, but since the two actors look a bit alike, were playing cops early in the film, in similar uniforms, and the movie kept cutting back and forth between their separate lives, I kept losing track of "which one is it now?" Then again, maybe Scorsese was playing with us and doing that on purpose. Probably.

The frenetic story telling pace of films, as well as the short attention span of the audience thing, is also out there in the reading world. One on line mag rejects my stories beacuse the whole plot is not obvious in the first couple paragraphs. Admittedly, the magazine has a taste for Flash Fiction, buying stories of no more than 500 words as often as anythign longer, but still this is just silly. What, I cannot take a page to introudce a fucking character and tell the reader about what makes them tick before I start blowing things up?

Reminds me of one of those Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, probably the second, where within five minutes of the title screen they had a huge gunfight scene. No exposition, no explanation, no ser up to speak of. Who needs all that shit, right? KA-blam!

First rule of todays style of action directing: "When in doubt, have something blow up."

They make Ford's "The Quiet Man" look like "My DInner With Andre".

KOS

H is for Hippo
Dear Mr. E.,

I'm happy to announce that I found your hippo and that it's on the way to the HERC address. The seller in Australia was nice enough to send it direct instead of to me and then I would send it to you. I gather that it should be there in the next 7-10 days.

Please post when it gets there and whether it's in good condition so I can leave feedback for the seller.

Jan S.

Courage to KOS
KOS -- Do not be deterred! The moment it takes to release a heavy sigh is the last sliver of time you should give to a rejection slip. Write as well as you can and keep sending them out. The story is the thing, and if it's good, someone will discover it.

I've had 18 stories in the wind for the last six months. With at least one rejection coming back per week, the doubt creeps in every time. Sometimes it's pause enough to edit and rethink a story. But I usually send the piece back out within a day or two. The exception is this week with three flash fiction pieces accepted at Ruthless Peoples, Ink-filled Page and Everyday Fiction -- in one week! This time I leapt and clicked my heels. Had one published last month, but before these it was April 08 (my first pro sale). Over a year of doubt. And before that it was two years. Before that it was three years. I know that these gaps widened because I stopped sending out anything for months or more at a time -- because I doubted the stories, couldn't find the next market, was depressed by divorce -- all sorts of explanations, but none of them good excuses.

As an editor, I can echo what Harlan says about human resources. Editors are diligent and seemingly superhuman, but they have their limits. The slush piles grow like pesky bamboo -- especially at a magazine of some renown. My magazine side project has been a labor of love for 10 years, and now receives three submissions per day, and this is often too much for me to keep up with. Going from personal to form rejections is one of the time and sanity saving devices to which I've had to resort. Missing the 90-day response time happens too often. If you're writing speculative fiction, have you tried Three-lobed Burning Eye magazine? http://www.owlsoup.com/3LBE

Andrew
I know your question was for Thomas but if I may?

For what they were at the time (or perhaps more to the point, what the last handful of films had BECOME (popcorn eye candy) I still like large chunks of MOONRAKER
For it's time...the opening sequence involving Bond being pushed out of the plane and then him diving down towards the pilot, who HAS a chuts, wrestling it from him and kicking him off....still stands (in my opinion) as one of the greatest stunt sequences ever filmed/edited together. I think it took nearly 100 seperate jumps to get enough footage so they could create that sequence, though maybe they could have left JAWS up in the plane for a more dramatic piece. Instead they ruined it all with his chute not opening and poor Jaws desperately trying to flap his arms in a vain attempt to fly.

But then...how does a lumox like him learn to fly a plane so he can land? Although the stewardess could have taken over, maybe.

Still, that sequence is a wonder to watch. 30 years later

But, thats me.

Anyway- for my money...Octopussy has more of a plot (heck, better looking babes, better stunts....) than View To A Kill
anyday of the week.

Harlan, hope you are not implying that Billy Mays was more important to the culture than Michael Jackson? I hope I was misreading. No matter what you thought of the music, MJ was a musical genius who transcended race and age--the kind of universal figure we rarely see these days. Even Peggy Noonan likes him.

Sure, MJ turned out to be a flippin weirdo, but I blame stardom at a young age.

But I do admire the Sham Wow.

----------

Mark, why not ask them to bring back the show. Have it online if need be. We need their humour about now.

Just watched some goofy ass seventies flick that had Sonny Crockett running around Arizona with a know-it-all dog.

I think it was called CORVETTE SUMMER.

------- Thanks Messrs Rapoport & Perry for your responses to the unremembered-writing biz.
Still wonder at the *how-could-I-have-forgotten* aspect of the thing but as to the
*hey-I-rather-like-this* aspect: Steve, your blog post makes the too-excellent point
that often we like what we write because we write what we like. Practically speaking, then,
there may not be all that much value in setting aside one's manuscripts for
therapeutic-distancing purposes, since you can't really hope to escape the corollary,
Rodgers&Hammerstein problem: Do I love it because it's beautiful, or is it beautiful because I love it?

-------- Hey, Kevin Kirby: the local Public Library system has a form for patrons to make new-item suggestions;
I occasionally use it and !Hwaet! ; they sometimes actually buy the things. I hadn't thought to suggest "Dreams...",
but now, because of your "In Toothy Dreams" message, I will. (I did.) Thanks.

Richard

Re: Simenon
What should I read first?

TODD HANEY: Your package arrived. Thank you...but please...no more. I have too much stuff here already. You mean well, and I am acknowledging your graciousness and thoughtfulness but, please, don't ever send me anything unless we talk about it first, and I say yes. Otherwise, it becomes yet another clog in my system, more paper on the never-diminishing stacks that now dominate my office, that paralyze me with PLEASE REPLY, PLEASE SEND A THANKYOU, PLEASE DIVERT, DIVERT, DIVERT, like a Cyberman or Dalek infestation...and those very stacks, winnowing through them, is what keeps me from getting to the writing.

It is pretty much kindly, well-meant thread-drift.

So. Please!
----------------------------------------------------------------

PHIL NICHOLLS: The box arrived. You've got your year's comp at HERC. Susan is working on it.

To both of you: Thanks. Yr. Pal, Harlan

Josh
Mr. Olson, ditto to everything you said about today's film-making and film-makers. Thank God, that as I descend into my dotage, there is still TCM. Anybody know how I can get Bob Osborne's job?

There was an interesting devlopment in the Iranian election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked for an investigation into the killing of the young woman Neda Agha Soltan whose image has become closely linked with the Iranian oppostion movement. He blamed "unknown agents" and "enemies of the state" for her death. No word yet if OJ Simpson has been tapped to head up the investigation...The full article can be found here

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_election_591

Sorry Jim Thomas (and others), while I thought QoS was a really confusing and badly done film, it pales in comparison to the atrocity that was Moonraker. I will be seeing the guys from MST3K at a Con later this week and may ask them if they have ever lampooned that particular film

A-T C & Chuck, keeping you guys in my thoughts and prayers

Mark

Harlan: OK, I've got to ask--Russian *half* noodles? Is this anything like Eric the half-bee?

Susan: Harlan speaks so rapturously of this goulash; could you be persuaded to post the recipe?

Andrew Laubacher: Damnit, man, after years of meditation and therapy, I had finally banished Moonraker from my memory, only for you to dredge it back up. Thanks a lot. And, yes, any movie that features pigeons doing a freaking double-take is pretty damned bad. Also, I think Michael Lonsdale was on Thorazine the whole movie.

A-T C, All and sundry: The talk of QoS, in particularly of director's coming from television, reminded me of an article I read a while back on the BBC's Shakespeare series back in the 80s. All of the directors came from British cinema; the first several plays were shot using big screen camera angles and blocking, and the results didn't look good on screen. As the directors got a better feel for television, they directing style changed, becoming much more suited to the small screen. The watershed they cited was "Julius Caesar", in particular a VERY tight closeup of the conspirators glaring directly at the camera--a shot you just couldn't get away with on the big screen.

Oh-oh seven
Andrew L - with you on Moonraker (ugh). For Your Eyes Only is one of the few I own on disc, though, and still like it quite a lot.

I'm a bit more forgiving of QoS than most, but recently checked out the first couple Bourne films for the first time and it's more than apparent that the 007 crew were trying to do another Bourne Supremacy and didn't pull it off. As with the two mentioned above, I have hope that they'll learn the right lesson from it and offer up something better the next time round.

To Thomas, Jim Thomas
Worst Bond film ever: OCTOPUSSY or A VIEW TO A KILL? Maybe; however, I contend that both flicks pale next to the sheer awfulness that is MOONRAKER. This film gives the science nerd in me a headache just thinking about it.

Pogue,

I am so with you on Q of S. The biggest mistake they made was taking the wrong lesson from all the hosannas the last one got, and hiring a "respectable" director with no action experience. There's one fight scene - the one on the scaffolds - where I had no clue which character was which as they were both wearing similar outfits, shot from the rear (when you could make out anything) and had similarly colored hair. As with all action scenes from this particular school, you had to wait til it was over to figure out what happened. Just terrible.

Here's the truth (Not telling you anything you don't know) - there are fewer and fewer directors today who get cinematic geography. If you don't know where things are, and where they're going, action scenes don't work. And it's not just the young guys. Ridley Scott's a major offender - the action scenes in the wildly overrated Gladiator are mostly incomprehensible, for instance.

The defense for this ineptitude has become "It's an aesthetic choice," which is, of course, horse shit. It's not. It's bad directing. That some REALLY bad directors now ape this ineptitude doesn't justify it.

Some audiences are starting to buy this, too, which is just terrible. It means there's even less pressure to learn the basics of the job, and the result is - and will continue to be - even worse movies. Sorry, Franky, but if you're watching scenes in slow motion to figure out what you've missed, it's because the movie is badly directed. You're being conditioned to think this is a good thing. It isn't.

Breaking news, of potential interest to Harlan and others here: A federal judge just sentenced Bernard Madoff to 150 years in prison (yes, that's the correct number), the maximum possible sentence. The judge said he was sending a message that Madoff's crimes were "extraordinarily evil."

Amanda Palmer
Harlan,

Amanda Palmer pours immoderate praise all over you in her latest blog entry, and even includes a photo of you kicking her ass at gin rummy. Check it out.

http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/131863184/the-fastest-longest-slowest-blog-in-the-west

--Alex

Steve Barber

Your adventures remind me of the day before Phoenix hit its hottest temperature ever – 122 degrees. The day before, it was only 120.4. That particular day, my band was scheduled to perform at a steak fry. This is a standard event for conventions in the area – grill up bad food and provide bad country music. Our role is the bad country music. We arrived at the event at 4:00 to set up. The location was a cement slab that had been baking in 120 degrees all day. We asked if they were sure they wanted to hold the event outside – that people might balk (not to mention bake). No, no, no they assured us, the show would go on. An hour plus to set up. (Did I mention the baking sun?) We were tuning up and ready to go when the event coordinator came to us and explained that it was too hot, they had decided to move indoors. Wonderful for the people, not so wonderful for us. We then had to tear down and take everything to the other side of the resort.

Needless to say, I arrived at home that evening a tad warm. The only time I’ve ever jumped in the pool after a job. (A pool that, at eleven o’clock at night, was still in the 90s.)

Mike

Brian Phillips --

Are you part of Rockin' Radio? There is a Brian Phillips there.

http://www.rockinradio.com/now_playing.htm

RIP Gale Storm, by the way...

Re: Bond
I think the producers may have taken notice of all the criticism of QUANTUM -- they hired Peter Morgan of FROST/NIXON and THE QUEEN fame to co-write the next one.

I thought CASINO ROYALE had script problems, too (i.e., if a large chunk of the plot hinges on money transfers to a bank... then why does the bad guy have to go to a bank and take out all the money and put it in a briefcase... and then, in one of the hoariest of old movie cliches, the chase for the briefcase goes on and on and on -- why not just, I dunno, TRANSFER the money into an account???)

So we'll hope the next one makes more sense...

Various
STEVE BARBER: And thanks again. (We may be seeing a upswing. Keep your fingers crossed.)

*

POGUE: The "throw everything at the screen, edit in a cuisinart and hope the audience is too dazed to resist" style is a major irritant, but here's another, far too common today. The overuse of closeups.

Used to be, actors played against one another. You were able to see them react, not just with their faces but with their bodies, to what the others were saying. You had people inhabiting their environments, where characters were lent much-needed definition by the spaces that bounded them Now, in part because many directors think it's edgy, and in part because they learned their styles from television, what you too often get instead is a series of colossal close-ups, each actor filmed individually and only while they're speaking. (Sometimes you get somebody cracking a smile, or several quick shots of people cracking smiles, after another makes a joke.) Often this is done in shakycam style, which is even worse. I sometimes think that directors who film their players in this manner must give instructions like, "Now twitch your shoulder slightly! Smile at something to the left of you!" And so on. This is even worse when the actor who's speaking is a highly-paid star. You must see him in Sergio Leone style closeup constantly, never mind the context.

It is my contention that this kind of editing, which is intended to make things more immediate, has done to to the character-based scene, either dramatic or comedic, what the nauseating, and disorienting quick-cut action style does to the action scene. It distances. The medium shot, which includes not just the actor speaking at any one moment but also those who react to him AND their physical relationship to one another, has been emphasized by moviemakers for over a century, and there's a reason for it. It makes any character more than just a face. It makes them characters. It makes interaction possible.

Wow...
Now it's RIP to Fred Travelina. This is just a bad week for popular culture, huh?

With holiday weekend coming up, Hollywood American Legion Post 43 is celebrating the Fourth of July along with its 80th Anniversary in the Memorial Clubhouse (built at 2035 N. Highland in 1929). Veterans are most welcome, of course, as are regular folk. (I'm gonna be stuck inside monitoring the phones that day, but I thought it'd be nice to spread the word.) Give 'em a phone call for times and details on the events.

REPLY TO LINDA BAKMAZ

Susan. 24 years together, 23 married, sometime mid-next-month.

Respectfully, Harlan Ellison

marriage
You obviously still believe in the institution of marriage. Why is that?

Another overshadowed passing
I noticed that our esteemed host made mention of the passing of Billy Mays and I promise not to turn this board into one-upmanship for the deceased but...

I have been an unabashed fan of radio for many years (Harlan Ellison and I share a love of "The Goon Show"). There were two other shows that I thoroughly enjoyed, "My Word" and "My Music". Both panel shows were educational and funny. The host of "My Music" was a pianist/composer named Steve Race, who passed away on June 22. People here may know him from his liner notes for "Time Out" by Dave Brubeck.

His obituary can be found here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/5604727/Steve-Race.html

For those with faster internet connections, you can see him in action here introducing a very pleasant song, "Night Talk" by Bill LeSage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V405Vm5UbGY


His gentle wit (my favorite quote of his was, "When you turn thirty-five, something terrible happens to music."), fine voice and wonderful piano playing graced a number of programs and I am grateful for his enormous recorded legacy.

I won't even mention Ali Akbar Khan,
Brian Phillips

reply to Franky4post
While I certainly wouldn't mind the return of Moneypenny and Q and a little more humour (no need to go as far a Roger Moore), it is not so much re-inventing the Bond formula that bothers me, but simply the way this and so many other things are filmed now days...this herky-jerky, mile a minute, attention-deficit disorder style where the eye is not allowed to linger on anything more than a few seconds.

I'm of the John Ford persuasion: plant the camera and let your actors do the work. Speaking of Ford with his great scenic compositions, there seemed to be a lot of stunning scenery and locales in the QofS, but, unfortunately, we were not allowed to linger on any of it as it went by in a blur.

It is just this assaultive, yank-you-in-by-the-lapels style of story-telling that I object to. Give me time to savour the story...visually, aurally, emotionally, intellectually. It's a movie; not a carnival thrill ride or a video game. And quite frankly, this kind of film-making doesn't provide me with even any basic visceral thrills. It's just big, fast, and loud.

My favorite activity of all is to spend weekends with my wife just having fun.

She gigged today in a far-off land called "Fullerton", where the temperatures neared 90 with no wind and a patio surrounded by walls which effectively stilled the air further. A wedding, for a friend of ours who was thoroughly tickled that her band was playing his party.

Ten minutes before downbeat the bride -- in a bout of mercurial splendor allowed no one save a bride on her wedding day -- decided to move the entire reception indoors to an art gallery next to the patio. So, having set up the band out on the hot tiles, we suddenly had to pick up an move indoors (naturally, there being no direct path between the two sites).

Hot and overheated doesn't even begin to describe my condition by the time we were done. But it was the right move, and the pary went off without any further hitches.

Afterward, car packed and the two of us exhausted from the heat and the four hour gig, we went to CPK for one Thai Chicken Pizze (Cris) and Wild Mushroom (me).

No other point, I just felt like sharing.
___________________________________________

Last night we watched Disney's SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS. I know this is one of Unca Harlan's faves and was reminded again why.
___________________________________________

Mark, Chuck and Adam-Troy. The year sucks. So far the 21st Century has been an ugly one. I hope each of you begins to see some light at the end of the dark tunnel. Hold on to your friends and family and let them help you get through this. We're human. We need each other.

Ah, but Franky
If you have to rewind and/or watch in slow motion, or whatever, to watch and enjoy an action sequence (or any sequence in a movie), for anything but the most analytical of purposes, that scene was a total failure.

To Pogue...on James Bond

I disagree a bit on Quantum of Solace
(and from what I took from the literal breakdown of the words in the title that (since this is a direct sequel to Casino Royale) Bond gets very little time (Quantum) to have comfort (or 'Solace') for the loss he suffered from the previous film (from Casino Royale)
I can't reveal anything else since I'd be pressing into spoiler territory which isn't fair to those here who have yet to see both films

While I do agree the editing and the pace were unrelenting (after all Bond was in a chase to hunt down the bad guys) it was in a way (for me) refreshing.
I have found that if a film's action sequences go by too quickly, I usually pause the DVD and then press the slow forward button to enjoy all the details you would miss if the film is running normal speed

Both Casino and Quantum were a vastly different kind of Bond which for me, was as I said, a refreshing change from Brosnan's rendition of the iconic hero. (The invisible car was a bit much, even for a Roger Moore type of film)

Word is that Craig would like to bring Moneypenny and "Q" back and see what they would be like in this new format of the series. (Or at least until Craig's current contract of 4 total films expires)

There is also word that the producers are fully aware that long time fans, while they like Craig's hard assed protrayal, would like a return to some humor and gadgets and they are working on the script with an eye towards a 2011 release.

We shall see.....but you can rest assured that, as always,
Bond will return.

JORDAN OWEN'S INVITE

You lucky,lucky some-beech.Should you find yourself in need of male companionship,I,I,would consider myself available to you for dastardly acts of sexual perversion,I,I,will willingly surrender myself to your wanton na,na,needs uh uh of dee,dee,desire.
No!No!I won't!I won't do it!You son of a bitch!Don't put your hands on me,damn you!damn you man!No house is worth this humiliation.Well,maybe Harlan's.No!No!Get away from me!

Today is a sunny, lazy day in Southern California. I am listening to Bela Bartok's magnificent "The Miraculous Mandarin." Susan has made her heavenly beef goulash for dinner, over which said savory will soon be poured, nay, christened atop the Russian half-noodles I bought at the Persian market last week. Congo Bill was never, in my world, stupidly transmogrified into Congorilla; I have been reminded of what a magnificent human being Balfour Davidson was; I have accepted that the pitchman Billy Mays, whom I have lately come to think of as a delightful and unique cultural icon, has died, too soon, too soon, at age 50, and that no one will notice in the wake of tears that has become a World Weeping Extravaganza for someone else who went at age 50; and today ---

My good wife TiVo'd a lovely movie for me to watch. It was on the Sundance Channel, and it was a funny, sad, entirely fine little motion picture documentary directed by Erik Nelson. It is called "Dreams With Sharp Teeth," and I watched it for the first time as it was telecast on Sundance. It is just a swell movie, and I give the same two-fingered brow-salute to Mr. Nelson as James Cagney once gave me on Beverly Drive, in Beverly Hills, just after I DIDN'T BUT ALMOST ran him down, as he was on his way to Nate'n'Al's Delicatessen. This movie is really keen, in my opinion, and I must say that anyone who cannnot smile and enjoy it is ----

Well, s/he's a poopyhead.

Have a day, folks; have a spiffykeen PEACHY day!

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Chuck and Adam-Troy
Guys, I can only dimly imagine what you're going through. I recently visited someone I hadn't even liked much. He's suffering from dementia, and clearly didn't recognize me or the family member I'd come with.

As I say, I never liked this man. But I found myself yearning for recognition of some sort from him, a sign that he was still there. It was painful to talk to him.

To have a parent in that condition -- it must tear at your hearts.

I wish you strength. It's all I can offer, even as prayers.

Pogue--

Awash in the (deserved) success of Casino Royale, The guys at EON signed all the contracts for QoS without a script in hand; the result is that narrative trainwreck. While it's hardly the worst Bond film ever (I waffle between Octopussy and A View to a Kill for that "honor"), it has more than its share of problems, problems that are magnified in the shadow of CR. It does have some strengths, though, namely the developing rapport between M and Bond. The concluding few scenes concerning the necklace--in which Bond does in fact get a quantum of solace--for me at least, made up for a _lot_ of faults.

Just don't bother with Pirates 3. The characters from the previous films aren't the problem--the problem is that it makes no fucking sense.


Everyone

I'm currently reviewing the new Criterion release of For All Mankind, a 1990 documentary by Al Reinert about the Apollo program. If you have any interest whatsoever in the space program, you owe it to yourself to get this disc. Compelling, lyrical, joyous.

Last week, as you recall ...

ATC:
Whaaa, the Asimov stamp actually came about?? In THIS country? When? Last I heard, it was still in limbo. To the best of my knowledge, this mock-up (http://tinyurl.com/l94hs7) is about all we have to cherish. (Majestic, though, isn't it?)

ezra:
"Doing both I can slip you a few style points for Vla-DEE-meer rather than VLA-duh-mir but really who gives a shit?" Were Vlah-DEE-meer still around, I'm sure HE would; that's enough for me. As for Rand and Nabokov in conjunction, I have delighted over the years in imagining a chance encounter between the two of them here on The Rock, say perhaps in Grand Central Terminal. Enormous tragicomic potential there. (Conjure up the slowly escalating volume as they "discuss" the Meaning & Purpose of Art.)

Kristin:
"You can't blame it all on Americ'ns then." You're right. Not all, only most. And Sting DOES have that Poetic License (on the wall right next to his teacher's certificate), so he gets a pass in this case.

-----

Hey, and speaking of what I've been speaking of, I had a revelation Wednesday evening. While visiting my favorite NYC independent bookseller, I brought up the subject of Nabokov with a handful of the delightful, astute, well-educated folks who work there, and it turns out, quite unexpectedly, that the fact of Nabokov's American citizenship and all-around April-in-Arizona Americanness is NOT widely known! Indeed, they've filed his works in the Russian Lit section rather than in the American (based on a decision-making process characterized as "more art than science" ... though perhaps only because artistic claims, unlike scientific ones, are not so readily subject to Popperian falsification). Further, not a one of them knew that Nabokov's first language was English, not Russian. Very sad. Evidently the basics of Nabokov's biography are not nearly so widely appreciated as I'd supposed. Something worth taking into account, perhaps.

-----

Finally, a note in passing on the late, globally lamented Michael Jackson. MJ's singular lifestyle occasioned the most flabbergasting sentence I believe I've ever read in the NY TIMES, from an 2003 article titled "Debt Is Seen Taking Toll On Jackson's Lavish Style" (http://tinyurl.com/ngrfw5). The sentence in question: "But according to accounts of his close advisers and industry friends and court records, he is also an extravagant spender whose wealth is being consumed by an appetite for monkeys, Ferris wheels and surgery."

That line, or rather the last part of it, bounced around in my head for almost a month.

An appetite for monkeys, Ferris wheels and surgery.

Whoa!

re: PERSONAL MESSAGE TO JORDAN OWEN
Mr. Ellison-

Your apology is most deeply accepted though I should point out that even to receive those eloquent, personalized insults was a blessing unto itself.

Nevertheless, I rise knighted by your words and humbled by your most generous invitation. It may well come to pass that I will be out in LA in the months ahead if my band gigs out there. If that is the case I will be there with my golden ticket in hand and ask only that if I should get thrown out for some reason you'll have a team of Oompa-Loompas ready to throw me down the garbage chute whilst singing a happy tune.

Yours,
-The Abdominal Mr. Owen

In Toothy Dreams
Every day is one day closer to the time when the library here gets its DVD copy of Dreams With Sharp Teeth.

IAIN !!!!!!!!!!!! REDUX!!!!!!!!

I've got to be losing my mind. There is NO WAY, I now discover, that I could have seen the Lobey Dosser statue to Bud Neill in 1985, when I met Susan, because it didn't EXIST till 1992.

have NO explanation for this clearly, frighteningly, alarmingly up-ended memory, assertion, reality, daymare.

Harlan (I think)

PERSONAL NOTE TO JORDAN OWEN

First--and you may not remember this, but I do, because I have downloads between us about the John Clute Question right near the top of the "to be attended to" mountain on my desk--I told you I chose not to answer you in specific because "I don't trust you."

I apologize for that remark.

I had no reason for feeling that way, save a gut-reaction, as with the recent "Gary" posting. It just felt twitchy to me, and I was cursory with you. I am sorry for that breach of courtesy.

And second, by way of restitution, I herewith extend to you an invitation to make a brief interior visit--BRIEF, he reiterated again redux twice--when/if you ever get to LA. I beg you NOT NOT NOT to cobble up some vagrant hegira just to collect on that maybe-15-minute pass through the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars, but if the winds of Fate waft you herewards, normally and not especially, well, consider yourself with invitation in hand.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

PERSONAL NOTE TO JORDAN OWEN

First--and you may not remember this, but I do, because I have downloads between us about the John Clute Question right near the top of the "to be attended to" mountain on my desk--I told you I chose not to answer you in specific because "I don't trust you."

I apologize for that remark.

I had no reason for feeling that way, save a gut-reaction, as with the recent "Gary" posting. It just felt twitchy to me, and I was cursory with you. I am sorry for that breach of courtesy.

And second, by way of restitution, I herewith extend to you an invitation to make a brief interior visit--BRIEF, he reiterated again redux twice--when/if you ever get to LA. I beg you NOT NOT NOT to cobble up some vagrant hegira just to collect on that maybe-15-minute pass through the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars, but if the winds of Fate waft you herewards, normally and not especially, well, consider yourself with invitation in hand.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

IAIN !!!!!!!!!!!!

How wonderful wonderful wonderful!

Thank you for the photo of the Lobey Dosser sculpture. I saw it for myself, up-close&personal the very same day I met my beloved Susan in Glasgow, 1985! I nearly burst a stitch, and fans had to explain to me what it was!

I haven't been back to Scotland (sigh!) but I never forgot the two-legged horse.

What a swell surprise. Thank you thank you thank you.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Reminder
that you can detail your latest movie-going experiences in the Annex or Forum, where, if someone wants to respond, they can do so without annoying Harlan the same way you do.

Gaaah.
"that he do." (Jesus).

Everybody
Thank you for your supportive comments about my Dad.

I need to clarify something, as his circumstances are being mixed up with other ongoing situations under report here (in part because I've been vague, at times). My Dad's diagnosed problems do NOT include Alzheimer's, nor have I ever said that he do. He has suffered tremendous physical trauma as the result of a fall down a flight of stairs, head trauma and subsequent complications that have caused some mental confusion on his part, but we do not know, and at this point have no way of knowing, how much he will recover, physically or mentally, an unknown quantity that may very well include any degree from "no improvement" to "total recovery." My Dad suffered some days when he did not recognize me and has shown other short-term memory confusion of late, including some periods of total delirium and others where he has been unreasonable or not quite cognizant of how he got to be where he is, but he is compos mentos enough to crack jokes, to speak with us, and to tell me (on the phone, just a few hours ago) that he loves me. Every setback is a heartbreak, at this point, but I have not lost him, and his recent return to ICU was a short one as his lungs cleared and his condition improved. I am serious when I say that I want him back, and that I worry about him tremendously, but he is still a recognizable voice, albeit one blurred by distance and injury.

Old Stories

Richard --

I had a similar experience recently. Rather than bore uninterested readers with it, a link to a posting I did on my own blog:

http://themanwhonevermissed.blogspot.com/2009/06/empty-cup-at-well-of-memory.html

DOC - I want to marry you and pump out your little larval sociopaths.

Steak Brain? haha. I like that. At least KOS has some flesh up there. You cannot say that about most Amurricans.

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

That legendary encounter
Sinatra's name came up here recently. For those interested (and in case there are people who haven't read it yet), below is a link to the article by Gay Talese describing that famous meeting between Ellison and Sinatra:

http://tinyurl.com/5f6veh

I was never much of a Sinatra fan, but I think his recording of "All the Way" is extremely beautiful. Michael Feinstein also has a lovely rendition.

Not bonding
So I finally got around to watching Quantum of Solace last night (a stupid title). As much as I like Daniel Craig, this may be the worst Bond film ever. First of all the plot is almost indecipherable (and I'm very good at following convuluted plots)...very much dependent on knowing too many details from the previous film.

If you are going to be a sequel and can't succinctly recap the info the viewer (and one who might not have seen the previous film) needs to know in less than five or ten minutes and integrate it easily into the flow of the narrative, then don't do a sequel.

My contention is even a sequel should work as a stand-alone film and not carry over a bunch of crap from the last one that has no dramatic impact because,if we saw it, we all saw it a year and a half ago, and can't remember the details (I still haven't been able to watch the 3rd Pirates of the Carribean movie because it is so rife with plot points and characters I don't remember).

Characters appear and disappear so fast without any kind of establishment or development, I don't really know who they are or why I should have any feeling about them. Even Judi Dench is boring.

But worst of all, the action scenes are so choppy and kinetic that you cannot get any sense of perspective or know where you are or just who shot at who or who threw what punch or who jumped down from where. An example: the film opens with Bond in a black car pursued by villains in a black car. The cars are not clearly established. The cutting is so quick and jarring, I couldn't tell who was who half the time. So much of the action is in fast cuts and close-ups or such obvious CGI that you get no sense of spectacle at all anymore.

And that was what was fun about the fights, chases, and stunts in a Bond movie, there was a sense of spectacle and amazement and it didn't happen at such a frenetic pace that you could absorb it, take it all in, and enjoy. You could revel in the details.

And you also had enough slower-paced scenes where you could actually hear the dialgue, get some exposition, and follow the narrative. Not anymore.

I know the younger generation is supposed to be able to assimilate images and info faster, but it's not a race! It's a story! Luxuriating in its journey...its nuance, colour, and detail...should be the point. I found this assaultive and it just wore me out. Maybe I'm a geezer, but I'll take Goldfinger.

Chuck and ATC
Dear Chuck and ATC -

Goddamnit. Goddamnit, indeed.

The only comfort I can offer (and it's not much, at that) is that, whether your respective fathers recognize or remember your presence, your participation - doesn't matter. Not to sound flippant or callous or dismissive, but when it's all over, when the trial is concluded, when they are finally, sadly gone, ultimately - it doesn't matter.

What matters is that YOU recognize; that YOU remember. You were present. You participated. You did all you could. You did your best. You loved. And if the gentlemen your fathers produced are any indication of what sort of men the fathers themselves were and are, that's all they could have asked. Did the circumstances allow, they would certainly recognize, they would absolutely remember. And they would be proud.

Inside of me, there is a little boy who loves his Mommy, but who will always feel that he failed her - he couldn't make her better; couldn't cure her, couldn't save her; couldn't make her stay. That feeling travels around with me, some days more loudly than others, but always there. The only thing that saves me, some days, the only thing that keeps my head out of the oven, is knowing and believing that, despite my lack of a magic wand, a genie lamp or super powers - I was present; I participated; I did my best, all I could. I loved. And I keep on loving.

Just like you do. In the face of our powerlessness over the evil shit that Time visits upon us and those whom we love, we persevere. We love. That's all we can do. That's what matters.

If you need me, my email address is right up there. If you want to talk, I can get you my number.

Cheers,
Doc

I finally saw Oliver Stone's 'W' this weekend, having missed it completely in its initial release.

For what it's worth, I think it's great. It left me with trepidation for how easily the American people can be duped, and what they're willing to buy into before the ship sinks beneath the waves.

Now, living in California where Schwarzenegger declares we have no need for Obama's money and launches an onslaught of massive cuts aimed at the middle class and the poor, even at the expense of the handicapped (I know, because my ex-girlfriend's mother cannot even leave the house, and her money has been reduced), while insisting he can build a surplus without raising taxes (in other words, his wealthy bros, as always, get the welfare), I connect with Stone's film, unassuaged.

I'd drifted from Stone over the last few years, but he did a damn good movie here, incisive and alarming. I'm rediscovering Stone.

At the other end of the multiplex - and I know there's a crowd who'll usher me out the the nearest Exit for saying this - but I also finally saw The Dark Knight:

I found it boring and predictable. I didn't like the look either. Fuckin' thing resembled any network tv drama airing right now. I'll stick to Burton's first outing, or The Crow with Jason Lee.

ATC and Chuck, I add mine to the stockpile of best wishes and hopes already sent your way.

Semi-Writer, in terms of the media foregoing the recent celebrity-death cascade, I think you have to draw a distinction here. Major newspapers and magazines will soon set such matters aside, I think, though it may take a bit longer than Sunday night. But TV news, especially cable? The folks who have 24 hours a day to fill, and tend to fill it with infotainment crap even under normal circumstances, AND in this particular case have reams of Michael Jackson-related video that they can keep showing as a ratings-goosing backdrop for their coverage? Forget it. They'll be obsessing about this from now till doomsday.

Richard Cohen: this isn't quite the same phenomenon you're describing, but there are times I've had occasion to reread articles I wrote years ago that I had forgotten or only dimly remembered. When that happens, I tend to have one or both of these reactions: 1) "Hey, this isn't half bad." 2) "Damn, I'm glad I write better now than I did then."

Finally, since we all could use a laugh, Possibly the Funniest Movie Review Ever:
http://io9.com/5301898/michael-bay-finally-made-an-art-movie?skyline=true&s=i

Le Chateau de Ellison
Mr. Ellison-

It has come to pass. I have stood at the gates of Valhalla and gazed into the shimmering spring waters of that infinite paradise. I have watched as bare-breasted maidens bask on the sun drenched shores of Heaven. Though I staggered up the steps to that glowing pantheon of Promethean majesty against the arid burn of withering fatigue in my lungs and the sweat of my brow turning to blistered steam on the narrow stone path that stretched before me, I have glimpsed Nirvana. I have been granted the sight known only to a blessed few mortals who have been so fortunate as to commune with the Gods.

I have seen the inside of your home.

Don't worry- I refer only to footage from the Dreams With Sharp Teeth film, which I watched today for the first time. I was held transfixed by the wondrous sights before me. Like a child invited to play in Babylon's playground, I watched as I toured one of the few real-life Wonka Factories. One of the few real life Hogwarts. The penthouse on the tower of Babel.

See, I've heard many people comment on the majesty of your domicile's interior and I've always attempted to have an equally interesting dwelling place.

But I fell short. Way short. You know what I did to have an "Ellison" style home? I went to Lowe's at Edgewood, just past Little Five Points here in Atlanta, and purchased the wackiest, most eccentric, most utterly bizarre lamp I could find. And that was it. Seriously. I plugged in that lamp, next to my plaid couch, and thought "hot damn- now this is what I've wanted. Now I have a home as out there and cool as Harlan Ellison's."

But once again, despite reaching out to the most distant limits of my Lovecraftian imagination, I have once again been left standing with my trousers down and my dick in the wind. This house of yours is not a house- it is a portal into the imagination. Forget the stories- forget the essays- forget any tidbits and scraps that you might cast down to me as I grovel next to you as you dine at the Master's table- for-fucking-get-all-that. Now I want to know: Where did you find all that cool stuff??????

Also, I've decided that my home renovations will not be complete until I have a Susan of my own. Lowe's assures me that they don't carry such things, nor could they order one. Please advise.

Yours,
-The Abdonminal Mr. Owen

Another Question for Writers; +Quotes; +Wishes
------ If you had put aside some manuscript and hadn't seen it for 11 years,
would you still remember it pretty well, do you think?

I would have thought 'Yes,' but recently I read something I'd stowed in 1998
and was surprised to find I recalled almost nothing about it -- sort of the ideal
opportunity for the 'fresh eyes' reading some people hope to give
their less-extravagantly sidelined mss.

It all came back to me when I'd read it through -- though damned if it didn't
hold my interest (that was pleasing!) -- but the point here is that I would have
never predicted, even after 11 years, that I could so completely have forgotten it.

Anyone have similar (or other) Set-Aside-Ms experiences worth relating?


------ Regarding Harlan and his furies, recently discussed,
here are a couple descriptions of a fictional predecessor,
Smollett's famously super-sensitive ("as tender as a man without a skin")
Matthew Bramble:

"His blood rises at every instance of insolence and cruelty;
and ingratitude makes his teeth chatter..."

"I can't help being sometimes diverted by his little distresses;
which provoke him to let fly the shafts of his satire,
keen and penetrating as the arrows of Teucer..."


------ Hoping for the best for the Messer and ATC families

Richard

Nick Mamatas -- didn't he write "The Term Paper Artist," about writing term papers for money? I wonder if Harlan would have an opinion about that.

One of Glasgows oddities
One thing I have always found odd about my home city is The Lobey Dosser. An old cartoon strip from the local paper, circa 1950 something. Imagine a texas sheriff from Glasgow on a two legged horse.... Also imagine a bad guy called Rank Badjin, his arch nemesis. Now enter the weird imagination of Budd Neil. A true genius of the comic strip.

There is a statue of this hero on Woodlands Road in Glasgow which has always fascinated me. I love to walk past it. Every time it makes me smile. But it also makes me a little sad. That wonderful humour and wit has been lost, to be replaced by wannabe ganster rappers with broad Glesga accents. Where is the Clyde wit and banter that brought us Fairy Nuff and all those wonderful characters. What killed it?

For those who may care.... or the curious.

Mr Lobey Dosser.

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=80256342&albumID=177022&imageID=30041469

I thank you

Iain

To Adam-Troy, Chuck, Mark and anyone else...
I will continue to pray for all. I went through similar trials with my Mother, Mother-In-Law and Father.

*subject change*

Also, a note of encouragement to writers from Steven Moffat. Read the first paragraph.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0595590/bio

REJECTION SLIPS---ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S
RE: ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S, the website www.ralan.com lists AHMM's response time as 7 months. (Great website for short fiction markets in the sfish field.)

I got a rejection from a major sf magazine which had my previous address in the heading of the response letter, whereas my ms and SASE had my current address, so at least I guess I'm in their computer---my version of GRASPING AT STRAWS.

Rest if you must, writers, but Never Give Up!

I ain't got no mule
I ain't got no plow neither.

All i got is this here stick, and a whole lot o' vumption.

But I am fixated on getting this here forty acre of rock tilled and planted, Kumquat May.

I write every day, I submit everything that is finished, and it goes back out the next day when the slip of doom hits the wall.

As Harlan has said over and over, it's work, honest work, like any other labor.

I notice two things as I write more and more: the joy of writing never fades, for all the frustration of "almost nailed it, maybe next time..." when a scene begins to come alive, a story almost works, it never gets old. The other is that determination to wrestle this fucker to the ground and pin it grows steadily, stronger and meaner with feral grin with each attempt at corralling some bit of experience into words.

Hey, Frank has something there...

This crazed anarchist goes up one of those "Space Elevators" (often called beanstalks in many stories), and he has this gold coated bomb shoved up his ass, the gold coating keeps the bomb from being spotted by the x-ray machine somehow (some handwaving there), and the anarchist (who is known in the anarcho-community as "Jack") plans to "lay an egg" to destroy the beanstalk in order to stop some evil corporation types from, well, being evil corporation fucks.

Needs work.

Bet Stanley Schmidt would love it!

To all who replied: David Silver, Adam-Troy Castro (who is rapidly becoming one of my favorite writers), Semi-Writer and Harlan Eklison (if I left anyone out, I apologize) many sincere thank yous and bows.

You can put your clothes on now, Frank.

KOS

KOS

Harlan's Marvel comics apparently going digital, too - marvel.com/digitalcomics/creators/Harlan.Ellison
"Ellison Not Only Lives, He Writes!" - trashotron.com/agony/news/2009/06-15-09-news.htm
Roddenberry.com Dreams review - www.roddenberry.com/communityblogs/index/detail?id=265
And for Harlan's pleasure a new review of Idrogeno ed Idiozia - www.debaser.it/recensionidb/ID_27918/Harlan_Ellison_Idrogeno_e_Idiozia.htm

REPLY TO KOS

Kim, I wish I could lie to you and say, yes, you were climbing the editorial chain before getting the bounce note. But I would be lying, as best my sixty years' experience, including my rejection by The New Yorker last month, advises me.

You went into the slush pile. The "editorial staff" at Hitchcock's--as is the case nowadays, and in these "economic downturn" times, with ALL hanging-on-by-the-fingernails little magazines of fiction--is likely only the editor, who is a lovely and smart woman, and perhaps one part-time intern, who have to read hundreds (probably thousands) of unsolicited mss. every month. She, or they, undoubtedly just fell 'way behind in reading the slush pile.

I am supposing all of the above, but I'd bet a buck I'm dead-on.

And, if there is any solace in having been rejected, that you got a form bounce note, and not aven an encouraging scribbled notation, means far less than it appears.

Never give up. Never concede. Continue to till the field.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

REQUEST FOR "CLIPPING SERVICE"

A small favor, mayhap?

Could you somehow convey my phone number (or GET a viable phone number) to Jake Zucker, the Boston Examiner whose review URL you posted, I guess yesterday?

I like his review, and wanted to say, "thank you." And to let him know that "the news of my demise is a bit premature."

If you can, easily, handily, I am in your debt. Can you not, for whatever reasons, fergit it, no harm no foul.

Respectfully, Harlan

Submissions
KOS - at least you have the courage for submissions, which I don't. I had a "submission period" back in the early '90s where I peddled around some work to literary agents and magazines, all to no avail. The editor for "Story" sent me three rejections within several months, the last one reading, "Sorry I have to turn this one down, too." The unauthorized biography was rejected by literary agents because the guy wasn't a big enough celebrity. Et cetera. Et cetera. I gave up on that path with much disappointment and have gone nowhere writing-wise since then, save for a few magazine articles and newspaper articles. So, yea, keep trying. 'Cause when you stop, the universe don't care.

Harlan - a few years ago, I had my own disappointing and devastating experience. Granted, it didn't involve something near a Sinatra-level type of celebrity, but it WAS something that impacted on my ability to earn an income and it WAS something done to me without so much as a single warning issued in my direction. Worse, not one of the three parties involved in the mess sent me so much as a phone call, letter, email or other notice that my rights had been infringed (re: trampled) on. So I feel for ya. And like you, years later, it still stings.

Can I send a plea out to the media? Run yourselves ragged on the subjects at hand until Sunday night, then can we PLEASE let the celeb death news drop off the map? There's a whole big world out there full of real news stories which Americans are already missing out on. Reminds me of Eddie Ifft's joke about going to England: "War? What war? There's a war going on? They don't tell us about things like that in America..."

CHUCK MESSER'S GODDAMNIT

There is nothing to say that will succor in the face of such exquisite exposition. Yeah, goddammit, indeed, Chuck.

Harlan

SIDE NOTE TO DAVID LOFTUS

This is so moot, it barely needs the waste of either of us's time. Nonetheless, old friend, merely to clarify:

I was always a righteous Sinatra buff, had (and still have) all of his records from big band Dorsey days, through all the Capitol sessions, on to his own label, Reprise. Damnwell LOVED his phrasing, timing, timbre.

Then I had my run-in with him.

After, sadly, weepingly, oh-damn-it, I couldn't listen to him. Just couldn't. My problem, no one else's. And as irrational as it was inescapable. But that's what happened. Without my paying any attention, nearly without my noticing. Stopped, then couldn't go back, to listening to him. I had little use for his ring-a-ding style ala the Rat Pack and Vegas and lounge-louge altering and masticating of great lyrics, his vogue late in his career; but he was a Great Singer and I am still bereft at his personally turning me away from his enormous talent.

I think that's more precise, David, than what you assumed. But, as I say, no harm no foul, just a moot clarification.

Ain't human behavior peee-cue-lyahr!

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Submit!!!!!


KOS, you steak brain, you wrote: "...question: does the three month period between that handwritten note and my receipt of the rejection slip mean that my story was getting a little more consideration than the usual..." Etc., etc., fuckin' ad nauseum etc.!

Geez, man, who CARES if you got close or not! The REAL question is whether you got off your skinny and immediately mailed out the story again, most especially to Ellery Queen's this time?! Stop screwing around asking pointless questions! SUBMIT!!!

And I hope you're working on more stories while you're at it! No sitting around waiting for replies! Honestly, boy, don't make me go down there and kick your ass again...

But in all seriousness, submit, baby, and keep up the good work!

David

R EPLY TO LORI KOONCE

Actchwally, that is recurringly (reeeleee) funny to me.

Not that long ago, but maybe five or six years or so ago, on the same day, into the house came two completely separate reviews of the same thing, it was probably whatever current book was at that instant published ...

And one review called me, several times passim the analysis:

"perennial enfant terrible"

and the other called me, several times passim the analysis:

"le lively but graying sacre monstre."

Same day. Two different perceivers. Both laudatory.

Man, I did lawf. Hence, your answer.

Yr. Pal, Dr. Harlan and Mr. Hyde

W.S. Merwin on BILL MOYERS' JOURNAL
What a lovely man. And Moyers was obviously enough of a fanboy that he was off his game -- kept asking the poet, "What did you mean by that line?" One could see that it was all Merwin could do to keep from patting Bill on the head and asking, "Well, what do *you* think it means, Bill?" (He did that a few times, but finally gave up.)

Still and all, one of the more pleasant hours I've spent with the tube.

#

For those of you suffering with parents in Alzheimer's crisis, again my sympathies. My father is on the same road and pretty far along it. I never had the warm relationship with him some of you seem to have enjoyed with your fathers, but once I had a chance to visit and see how he has dwindled, it was easy enough to let that old enmity go.

If justice can't always be served, sometimes mercy might step in ...

KOS, let me guess, the story was a about an Anarchist who finds a magic bean stalk and a goose that lays golden molotov cocktails?

We have faith in you.

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

Bill Maher said a dumb thing: He mentioned drugs, quoting Huxley, you know, "the doors of perception are open wide," that guff.

Yea, Bill, MJ no longer has perception, only one door, a fruit cellar padlocked, with a big red X on the door.

Harlan Ellison RE: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Mr. Ellison, I wonder if you have read Michael Chabon's novel? I find myself thinking of you as I read it, particularly the early description of Sammy: "Like all of his friends, he considered it a compliment when somebody called him a wiseass." I was fascinated by Joe's belief that his work as a comic book artist could somehow change the course of human events, and the suggestion that he may have succeeded. I had forgotten how influential comics were in the 30s & 40s, and how political (and politicized). I remind myself again that I have to read _The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America_ by David Hajdu, which has been sitting on my husband's bookshelf forever. Have you any views on the topic of comics as a tool and/or victim of politics you would be willing to share?

Lynn "I love The Goon" in South Dakota

Belated Birthday Greetings
Susan...here's wishing you a happy birthday with abject apologies for my tardiness. I send copious good thoughts your way.

Tony

delurking with the harrowing tale of The Time I Saw Harlan on CBN
So, way back in the early 80s, while slaving away for bookstore wages (quite happily so, as the experience encouraged much progress toward undoing a fundamentalist Christian upbringing), on occasional weekends I'd leave work at 6pm Friday and drive 500 miles (after first stopping by my garage apartment in order to deposit Rosie the sheepdog in the back seat of the mustard-hued '73 Chevy Impala affectionately christened The Yellow Peril (two friends drove cars of similar vintage, The Brown Lung and The White Tornado)) from Greenville, SC (home of Bob Jones Univ., which I'd previously attended for one semester), to spend a couple days with my parents in Paducah, KY.

Arriving in the middle of the night, too drive-wound to sleep immediately and seduced by cable's wiles, I'd quietly let us in, head for the basement, and watch pay-TV (which I couldn't afford myself; see wages mention above; and old English sheepdogs aren't cheap to feed) until drowsy enough for bed.

Channel-hopping on one such occasion, I happened across some oui-oui-hour, Christian Broadcasting Network timefill hosted by Tom Bosley. It was apparently a syndicated, business-related thing, as Tom prefaced the introduction of his guest by going on about the profitability of successful writers, the publishing of bestsellers, etc. But before I could get too bored even for an insomniac bookseller and try WTBS again, who should join him but a spry, then-much-less-avuncular Unkie Harlan. The full details of their conversation evade memory, but a hardback copy of "Strange Wine" was displayed and discussed, so the show must have been taped two or three years prior.

I used to wonder if anybody at CBN had bothered to preview the bit first -- which I do recall got fairly irreverent, if not outright Hemiptera-fornicating -- or if anybody in the control room or among their regular viewers saw it at all, and if so whether or not complaint ensued that cost someone his or her job.

Various
SHAGIN: Thank you. Things have been getting rougher, up there: more complications. He's back in ICU *again*. I am considering another trip up, only two weeks after the last one. I won't say that hope is fading, but it is getting a little battered.

*

CHUCK: *sigh* Yeah, your invocation of Inigo Montoya's great line, as imagined by William Goldman, is exactly, *exactly*, right. Dammit, this sucks.

*

KOS: Yes, when a magazine keeps your story for a long time after acknowledging its arrival, that very often does mean that it's on the "re-read and consider" pile (which is almost as good, in its way, as the "Holy Shit! Buy this RIGHT NOW!" pile, which I'm happy to say I've confirmed I've hit a number of times). A magazine that normally responds in a month that takes three months to respond to your latest may be evidence that you're getting close to the bullseye. With magazines and editors and trust, I have *often* known I had made the sale, simply by noting the passing of the calendar pages. (I knew, with something like moral certainty, that I had sold "Gunfight on Farside" last year, when Stan Schmidt at ANALOG took four months to respond: not like him at all.) But I must note that's not foolproof. Editors procrastinate and make piles of stuff to do and fall behind on their mail just as often as the rest as us, and the explanation could just as likely be, "Goddammit, Meldrake, when are you going to get AROUND TO SENDING BACK ALL THIS SHIT?"

*

KRISTIAN: Fer Chrissake, how lame was that. "Michael Jackson was twenty years ahead of Barack Obama, because he sang about change..." Puke, puke, puke. Like the word "Change," in a social context, hasn't existed for longer than any of us have been alive. Talk about vapid observations. Jesus. Vapid, vapid, vapid. Idiotic. Pfew. Pui.

Chuck & A-T C, you are both in my thoughts and prayers

Robert Ross, sorry to hear things have not been well for you lately, either. I will try to give you a call or email next week to see when we could take another trip over to Dreamhaven

All the best,

Mark

CHUCK - These words are pixilated bits of color on your screen, but the good thoughts behind them are real. My email address is on the post, and if you like I can give you my phone number. I'm not the only one who knows what you're going through, nor am I the only one who wishes I could help. Take care of yourself.

***

ATC - I could retype everything I said to Chuck, but I'd rather save my fingers and your patience. Here if you need me.

***

Warm fuzzies for free to good home.


Be safe all,
Sandra

Silvre lining?
Working fiction writers, a question:

I sent a story to Hitchcock's back in Feb. They claim to respond typically in two to three months, and as of today, it has been a buit over four months since I sent the story.

A form rejection slip for this story arrived today.

Along with it was the first page of my ms., with the neatly handwritten date at the top of "03/23/09". Since that was over a month after the datre I mailed the ms. in February, I am assuming that was a mark made by the editorial person that first opened the ms. envelope, and/or first read the story.

M question: does the three month period between that handwritten note and my receipt of the rejection slip mean that my story was getting a little more consideration than the usual slush pile ms.? Three months seems a long time to reject out of hand a story.

Yes, I am grasping at straws here. When a writer sends his work off, he is desperate for ANY feedback/hope/input to guide further writing.

I thought the story was one of my better efforts, even perhaps best. I have this fitful flame of hope that I might maybe possibly this time ohplease ohplease have come just-this-close.

Anyone? Castro? Ellison? Skillingstead?

Buehler?

Thanks...

KOS

Chuck,
I wish I lived closer. If I did I'd gather you up and haul you
off to some place like the Lariat -- an old biker bar in Glenwood
Springs. We'd play George Jones on the juke and we'd drink
pitchers of Lone Star. We'd talk and we'd cry and we'd lift a
glass to your old man-- who is the real deal. He must be awful
tough and strong-- he must have a heart the size of Texas.
Most of all he must be a wonderful father, because he has you
for a son. I'm so sorry Chuck-- that I live too far away to do
any good for you.

I cried when I read your post. God bless your heart, Chuck.
Love,
Cindy

W.S. Merwin on BILL MOYERS' JOURNAL
Mr. Ellison, an f.y.i. in the hopes of returning a favor, since you brought W.S. Merwin to my attention way back in your Comics Journal interview, Mr. Merwin is on PBS's BILL MOYER'S JOURNAL tonight (and repeated in the wee hours of Saturday).

Geer. Argh!
Hey all. I've been absent the past few days, so I apologize for any missed replies. We're dealing with a deadbeat dad who's trying to wriggle out of child support by saying he had no income, yet he's enrolled himself as a full-time student at the local university and is taking a vacation to Boulder, CO next month. Maybe he has a money tree...

Anyway, I don't know why I let things like Internet Waterheads bother me, but there's this guy who writes a wildly popular blog - and it's total crap. Seriously, he routinely gets his facts wrong (such as saying his grandmother was born in 1916 and lived through slavery) and the worst part about it no one seems to notice.

Oh, how I long for some modicum of accountability on the web that would demand even the simplest vetting of content. As it stands now, people just vomit forth whatever innaccurate verbal regurgitations they want, and people listen to them...and then go on to repeat the erroneous bibblebabble.

Wasn't the Internet supposed to make everyone smarter? All I see is an increased velocity for Stupidty to spread across the bits and bytes of the viral plague that is unaccountable journalism. (Ok, so calling blogs journalism is a huge stretch, but you get the idea.)

The absolute saddest part of the whole thing is this guy has oodles of sycophants admiring his great command of the written word. The armies of willful ignorance and abject stupidity are, I guess legion. The guy had his sites trained on a writing career, and I have few doubts he'll succeed in transfering his capacity to merely skim the surface of adequacy into simple, stupid reading palatable to the jellyheaded masses.

Ok, I'm done. Sorry about that, but I just have to vent sometimes, and it's nice to do it in sympathetic company.

Oh, the guys's site is here, if you feel like making yourself angry and depressed on purpose:

http://diamondkt.blogspot.com

:: END RANT ::

- Kristian

Memories
Met Mr. Ellison at scifi-con in Nashville in 70s. Just as feisty and crotchety then, but still my favorite author. I recently recommended him to someone home-schooling her kids, to interest them in reading. Then she saw a documentary on Mr. Ellison, called me all excited, and I smugly said I had told her so. Next time she'll trust my taste ... well, maybe not in all matters. She stated the obvious, that Mr. Ellison was a handful ... but as I said, that's what makes him so good, both as a writer and a person on this Earth. He does not go quietly into that good night ... thank heavens! And thanks for all the excellent works over the years, Mr. Ellison. As I said to him in Nashville about someone else, he's wonderful, he's marvelous, he's Gershwin! Long may he rant.

Identifying original art for an Ellison Playboy article
I am helping Ron villani a close friend and artist sell off some art one of which is a Dark Knight style piece of a superhero for supposedly a piece Harlan did for Playboy on new wave superhero comics- the article I have found listed is It Aint Toontown in December 1988 but I don't have a copy as that is not a Playboy I worked on- can send a scan if you have a copy to check. Got the piece sold if we can verify its publication and Ron who gets all proceeds could use the cash- my email is yellowkd@merr.com- I'd attach ascan but can't figure out how Thanks George

Hot and sweltry,just another bug-fuck Friday;or is it?

Trying to make my way from downtown Baseball City I made a quick stop at Haslam Books for a little brain food.I couldn't help but remember Bucky Fuller here 8 months before his passing;I still think about him. The selection goes from the bland to the rare and unusual. I keep seeing the Konstantin Raudive book BREAKTHROUGH:ELECTRONIC EXPERIMENTS IN COMMUNICATION WITH THE DEAD. It also has a LP of recorded results.Still a little nervous about opening the possible psyche drama I fear could follow.Again,I pass on it and come across a paperback way out of the section of Autobio's and almost hidden behind True Crime.
"The Americanization of Edward Bok".He being an Editor at the helm of Ladies'Home Journal.I've been carrying it around all day reading every chance I can;it's like one man's vacation capping off Literary Milestones of the 19th century.I'll share a couple paragraphs unrelated.

Mrs.Clemens asked the young salesman for a copy Taine's Ancient Regime."Beg pardon,"said the clerk,"what book did you say?"
Mrs.Clemens repeated the author and title of the book.Going to the rear of the store,the clerk soon returned,only to inquire:"May I ask you to repeat the name of the author?
"Taine,T-a-i-n-e,"replied Mrs.Clemens.Then did the youthfulness of the salesman itself.Assuming an air of superior knowledge,and looking at the customer with an air of sympathy he corrected Mrs.Clemens:"Pardon me,madam,but you have the name a trifle wrong,You mean Twain-not Taine."

If I may conclude:
At least,thought Bok,he had healed one man's soreness toward America.But the next day he encountered another.On his way to Paris,he stopped at Amiens to see Jules Verne.Here he found special difficulty in that the aged author could not speak English,and Bok knew only a few words of casual French.Finally a neighbor's servant who knew a handful of English words was commandeered,and a halting three-cornered conversation was begun.

Now,go back to what you were doing before I disturbed you.

If anyone
needs a reminder about what a THOUGHTFUL review of DREAMS might look and read like, go here:

http://tinyurl.com/r5wvcb

Certainly no whitewash, and there are things there that might make Our Gracious Host nuts, but on the whole, thoughtful, respectful, insightful.....3 qualities the review from Term Papers R' Us sorely lacked.

Objections to THAT review might be condensed to the basic "it reviewed the SUBJECT, not the film"......and even got the SUBJECT wrong.....but what do I know.....

One More
Prior note posted without reading Chuck's -- I since have, and, my friend, I am in the same goddamned place.

Chuck -- I'm so sorry. There's not much else to say. Life is terribly sad and frightening at times. Try to take it one day at a time... and sometimes, minute by minute.

For Chuck Messer
I realize that in no way this takes away the pain of what you're going through...I felt every word, believe me...but for what it's worth...

Consider yourself hugged.

Ummm
Before people get TOO much in Gary's face, I must point out that *I* have been known to link to negative comments about Harlan, here, identifying them as such (and sometimes counseling the man himself to spare himself the angina). Nobody here has ever shit on me for doing so. It's not just provocation. In the proper context, it can be simple acknowledgment of press, even negative or idiot press.

Wednesday June 24, 2009.

I visited Dad at the nursing home today. He’s been there for over a week, now. He can’t take care of himself anymore. He needs help just to get to the bathroom. Than means he can’t live at home now. I was there when he was brought to the Allison Care Center. I felt like I was having my dog put down. The staff there went out of their way to be nice, introducing themselves to me and Dad, making sure we knew he was in good hands. He was having one of his better days, so he was fairly lucid. Dad’s got a room mate, who seems like a decent guy. George.

I saw him on Father’s Day and Dad seemed all right. I gave him a card with Superman on the front, which said, “You’ve always been my hero…” and when you open it, the card says, “…but I never wanted to see you in tights.” The card played the John Williams theme for Superman. Dad remembered the day back in ’62 when he burned his hand on the stove and punched the wall, his fist going right through the drywall. I looked at him in awe and said, “Wow, Dad! You’re stronger than Superman!” That’s why I got the card. I was so glad he remembered.

I went back this afternoon. Dad was in the lobby. He was sitting there in his wheelchair, along with a few others, all parked here and there like stalled cars. His hands shook like aspen leaves, his mouth was open. He was fully dressed, his hair neatly combed and he’d had a shave. He looked better-kept than in the rehab place he’d stayed for a few weeks before. He looked up and I waved. He stared.

“Hi, Dad,” I said.

He mumbled something, cleared his throat. The receptionist said hello and asked if Dad was okay. “Okay so far,” I said.

What I wanted to say was, “No, he’s not okay. He’s got a degenerative illness that’s taking away the control of his body and eating away his mind in dribs and drabs.”

This was not one of his good days. He didn’t seem to speak in complete sentences, and he was nearly drowning in his own phlegm. The receptionist said, “Take my tissues. Take the whole box, I can always get more.”

I thanked her and helped Dad as he blew his nose and spat out goo into the tissues. I didn’t know what to say. I could barely hear anything he was whispering.

“It must be his allergies,” I said to the receptionist.

“Yeah,” she said, “It’s getting to everyone around here, really bad.”

We talked about the unusual amount of rain we’ve been having out here, and the present heat, which was the cause of all the allergens in the air. All the time I was helping Dad.
He finally said, “I need to use the water fountain.” Or something like that.

“You need water?”

“Yeah.”

So I wheeled him to his room and got him his ice water cup – you know, one of those pitcher-sized sippy cups they have in hospitals.

We talked for a while, Dad not making too much sense. He looked at me sideways and said, “I’m talking nonsense.” He decided he wanted to lay down, to nap. I pushed the buzzer and a fellow came in within five minutes. He introduced himself as Hassan. He got Dad into bed, and Dad complemented him on his ability to help him without wrenching his back. I was really fighting back the tears by this time.

I hugged him, wished him a good nap and walked out to my car. I was crying by now.

Oh, yeah, said a voice in my head. We got your uncle Larry. You knew someone was gonna die and Larry was It. Just like your cousin Greg and his suicide, just like your sister’s suicidal episodes, your family is gonna get it. Because you feel it every time, don’t you? Just like it was happening to you, you feel it. Who’s gonna be next, do you think?

And I wanted to take a knife, and quicker than lightning drive it in under the bastard’s rib cage, twisting up, puncturing the diaphragm. I’d look into his startled, dying eyes, my lips skinned back and I’d say, “I want my father back, you son of a bitch!”

But there’s no one to strike out at, no one to complain to. Ain’t gonna happen, because it’s all in my head. Dad probably won’t even remember my visit today. Maybe he’ll be better tomorrow.

Goddamnit. Goddamnit.

"So writing a negative review anywhere on the net of any work by or featuring Harlan Ellison now constitutes baiting?"

SHUMAN,

No. I can see how you might have gleaned that impression from recent posts if you have not followed the entire thread, but that's not what is being suggested here. The baiting being referred to is not the reviewer's blog post. The "baiting" comments are in reference to the post by "Gary," date-stamped Monday, June 22 2009 8:56:52, that kicked off this whole donnybrook, as was, one presumes, "Gary's" intention. I think most reasonable observers would concede that posting a link on Harlan's own blog to a negative review certainly does constitute baiting.

Steve J.

Response to Anonymous Comments

Nope, an honest review is fine. One that is an attack designed to provoke a response -- like the wag posting here sans the balls to identify him- (or, perhaps her-) self, why yes, that would be baiting.

Usually, it is wiser -- as Olivier was reputed to have said to Heston when Chuck allowed that one should ignore the bad critics -- to ignore them all. But now and then the urge to strike roils up. Fred Allen's line -- Where were you when the page was blank? kickes in. Better the world's worst artist than the world's best critic ...

My own experience is that critics, like trolls, thrive on attention, and the best way to get rid of them is to starve them. Alas, sometimes I give in to the urge to see if I can choke them. Hard to do, since they are almost all mouth ...

Maybe Chris Crocker could record a "leave Harlan alone" video.

So writing a negative review anywhere on the net of any work by or featuring Harlan Ellison now constitutes baiting? Did Harlan somehow end up with ownership of the Internet in his settlement with AOL? And if the subject gets paid to be in the documentary, is it a documentary or an advertisement?

Baiting

The problem with wearing one's heart on one's sleeve, metaphorically, of course, is that it is an easier target at which to swipe. If you are a die-hard Red Sox fan and somebody says to you, "Hey, how about them Yankees, are they great or what?" chances are a less-than-temperate response might be expected to escape your lips.

There are, alas, more than enough folks who are happy to poke a stick at the tiger in his cage, secure in the knowledge that the big cat can't get them. (Though I must say, those yahoos who ragged the tiger at the San Francisco zoo a couple years back must have been quite surprised when she leaped over the wall and had at them. Yeah, it was a tragedy -- but only because they had to put the tiger down. I am probably not alone in my feeling that the miscreants got what they fucking deserved. Stupid is as stupid does.

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago, Tarzan and Jane in a tree house with an grinning crocodile halfway up the trunk, and the ape-man saying, "They're not supposed to be able to do that ..."

Can the tiger get out, Sparky? Nah. Not unless it has a really good reason, like, you know, we fuck with it ...)

I digress, I digress, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers pressed ...

By taking well-known stances on assorted issues -- i.e. heart-on-the-sleeve-wearing-thereof, Harlan makes himself the big cat in the cage, and people without the sense God gave a turnip will resort to stickery-pokery. It's all they got.

The man can take of himself. And probably take care of most of us, too. He is not a saint, but in my brief dealings with him, he is mostly a reasonable fellow -- and that's a lot more than can said about a lot of folks. Or, in the immortal line from The Big Chill: "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke ..."

NEW DOCTOR WHO JUNE 27th
While Doctor Who has been premiering in the US on the Sci-Fi Channel and later being rerun on BBC America a few months later, Saturday June 27th features the premiere of an all new Doctor Who episode in the US on BBC America at 6 PM Pacific and 9 PM Eastern (with a second showing 3 hours later). In July BBCA will have the new 5 part Torchwood mini-series shown I guess the same way it is being shown in the UK, as a 5 nights in a row event.

Rachel Maddow

Ah, Rachel. My latest irrational, unrequited love.

I find her to be one of the sexiest women I have never met. Her deep intelligence and her quick wit endear her to me. And just this week, I saw another side of her that warms my heart. She blushes.

She couldn't read the emails that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford wrote to his mistress. She told her audience they would have to read them for themselves. Then she blushed, and admitted out loud that she was blushing just thinking about them. And they aren't even that racy, being akin to something from a Harlequin Romance novel.

I get such a warm, fuzzy feeling just watching her every evening at 9 on MSNBC.

oh, and one more thing, since I normally hold my peace here

I wrote all my own papers in college, typed every one myself on a manual or electric typewriter, and am happy to say that despite a reputation as a "brain" and good essayist, I was never asked by anyone to do their schoolwork for them.

I don't know which I would consider lower: the person who asks for such assistance, or the person who takes pay to perform it. It's the height (or depth) of two deadly modern vices: the unwillingness to take responsibility for oneself, and a lack of respect for honest ratiocination.

Mamatas's blog review

I read both the review of "Dreams with Sharp Teeth" and the commentary below it. What strikes one is the bile. It's angry and snarky for reasons unfathomable. The idea that the film was an attempt to capture a force of nature before that force is no more seems lost on the man. That we all have time enough for the postmortems and the critiques, but only a brief opportunity to capture Ellison the man and the artist in motion never crosses his mind.

If you read Ellison, if you have seen him or heard him talk, you can reach your own conclusions. "Dreams with Sharp Teeth" has a point of view, a perspective, that is not adoring, but open. The childish notion that we learn the "truth" by going to Dick Cheney and asking a question, then to some dim Democrat and asking him the same question, then typing it up and walking away in the name of "objectivity" is nonsense. A bevy of Ellison detractors would not have made this a better or more "true" flim. It's up to us to learn about Ellison, read his work, and come to our own conclusions.

My only critcism of the film is that when I heard Harlan read "Paladin of the Lost Hour" at ICON back in the 1990s, it was a better, greater, and more powerful reading of his work than anything in the film. In fact, it was unforgettable. "Dreams" never has a transcendant moment like that in it, in my opinion. And that is a shame.

gossip, s'all it is

If I may offer a few remarks about the perennial blatherfest concerning Mr. Ellison's "irritating personality."

If you removed all the complainers who have never actually MET the man in person, I suspect what would be left would be a pretty small group of people. It appears to me that most of the folks who complain about Mr. Ellison's "character" or "personality" are basing their judgments on second-hand reports -- whether print or hearsay. So their real complaint, I would contend, is with their own reading habits and an inability to separate hard fact from reportage.

Reportage CAN be based in fact, but it can also have a heavy foot in interpretation and outright embroidery. And anyone who cannot separate the artist from the work (and Ellison is no exception here; he has admitted to a distaste for Sinatra's music because of what he knows of the man -- but at least he can honestly say he has encountered the man in person) cannot claim to be a true appreciator of truth and beauty.

I would add, however, that there is a pertinent distinction between merely choosing to avoid the work based on one's own opinions about creator OR work, and actively peddling gossip -- on the Internet or anywhere else -- about the artist as a method of evaluating whether anyone should appreciate the work.

I'm especially aware of this because I've tracked bogus tales whose source can either never be pinned down or turns out to be manufactured from whole cloth -- from feminist tales of snuff films and statistics about violence against women when I was working on my own book, to the review I wrote the day before yesterday of a new book about the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, which retails a story about a mastermind criminal and his partner forger of paintings who probably never existed but are cited in a number of other published works and have their own Wikipedia entries.

Finally, I should say that while I have loved Ellison's work for more than 33 years, have written extensively about it, and have done some work for the man -- paid and gratis -- I have also been blasted by him here on Webderland and on the phone, so I know what he's capable of. Doesn't change my judgments about, or enjoyment of, his work one bit.

And my wife is bewildered by Ellison's "horrible" reputation because he's always been a perfect gentleman every time she answers the phone.

People need to find something better to do with their time than to bait an earnest, talented writer who has given all of them much pleasure and food for thought, and can also use some peace and quiet in his final years.

ADAM TROY CASTRO: Working in a college, I have started to believe that there are ten people who write all the papers for everyone else.

If all the tutoring centers that do more than tutor, or the instructors who conceive, execute and edit for their students, or the boyfriends who write for their girlfriends, or the girlfriends who write for their boyfriends, or the professional crooks who compose for money, or the Conrad-like "horror" of the "free term paper" websites, or just the garden variety plagiarizers who copy directly from books or websites are taken all at once, no one would be puzzled at why there is a paucity of imagination in the world today.

Steve Dooner

Aw, fuggit.

I wrote a very long, thoughtful piece in response to Tim Lieder's comments. Nothing derogatory, nothing assaultive, just some thoughts. Tim is entitled to an informed opinion, and it seems like he holds one. I, naturally, disagree with several of his points, but so be it.

There are some people in this world who are bigger than life. They exude an enthusiasm and energy which drives them, and attracts the rest of us. For whatever reason. (Michael Jackson was one; Rachel Maddow; Bono; Obama is yet another in that spectrum. Anyone who, when they start to talk, you stop and listen.)

These are the people who make life interesting, if you are paying attention. Good AND bad. Some who don't seem to know enough to get out of their own way, others who are screaming from the rooftops to people who have fingers in their ears.

If everyone was bland milquetoast, life would suck.

I will still make the one solitary point to Tim that the very people who spend an inordinate amount of time being "tired" of Harlan's tirades...are precisely the people who ought to be listening to them the most carefully.

My Own Ghosted Term Paper Story
When I was in high school, a blood relation of mine asked me to write her term paper for her.

I note "blood relation" only because the pronouns "she" and "her" will be prominent in this story and I want to assure the cynical that I was not motivated by any desire to get into her pants. That would have been skweevy. Sick. Also illegal.

And "Asked" is not the word. "Begged" is the word.

"Sobbed," "Implored," "Whined," "Kvetched Until the Tear Ducts Bled," "Implied by Melodramatic Emotional Blackmail That If I Demurred I Was a Horrible Person," would also be appropriate descriptions.

After all, I was a smart guy, academically shaky but deeply into reading and already showing some aptitude as a writer. Why WOULDN'T I drop everything else I was doing and write her term paper on a book she claimed not to be able to penetrate? Especially since -- the tears flowing freely -- if I didn't do this, she would get a F on the paper and fail the course and not get into college and end up a cleaning lady and DIE!?!?

I suggested Cliff's Notes. More tears. She claimed not to be able to understand the Cliff's Notes.

I pointed out that I wouldn't be around to help her throughout her college years and that if she couldn't even understand the fucking Cliff's Notes, then she'd just run into the same trouble with another book later on and get on an F on the paper and flunk the course and flunk out of college and end up a cleaning lady and DIE, only after her folks paid all that tuition.

But the tears flowed, the wailing continued, and I ultimately backed down, in the way we all do: not because we've seen the truth of an argument, but because we just cannot take the noise anymore.

Unfortunately, I already had some primitive authorial ethics, and I felt that ghosting term papers was wrong, to the point where I told her, well, I'll *help* you, if you want, but you are not going to run and spend time with your friends while I do the work; you are damnwell going to sit here and learn as much about the material as I do.

(Me as a teen. I was not liked, much.)

The book was THE ILIAD.

Which I had not read.

Yes. It was such a small thing she was asking me to do. Reading the entire fucking ILIAD for her, and then writing a term paper for her. And this was a Sunday, and the paper was due, guess when? Tomorrow.

I did not want to lose my day reading the ILIAD and then writing a term paper for her, even if that remained possible in the time allotted. Hell, I didn't even want to read the goddamned Cliff's Notes. It was my Sunday too. So, yes, to get out of the situation I had to descend deeper into the realm of outrageous cheating. I, who had already been accused by at least one teacher of plagiarizing my work, because it read too much like an encyclopaedia entry, and who told the stupid woman, "Fine; just identify the encyclopaedia, if that's what you think." *I* had to fake a term paper on a book I had not read. It felt dirty. Disgusting. But also expedient. Sunday. I'm sorry. I was seventeen. Sunday. Seventeen. Stay with me here.

This was the Dawn of Time. No internet. Thus, no google-search. No wikipedia. Not enough time or inclination to go to the library and search for some summary of the ILIAD. Seventeen. Willing to Commit an Academic Sin. Sunday. Forgive me. I know I was wrong. Sunday. The ILIAD, dammit.

So I picked a book off my own shelf. One of Isaac Asimov's TALES OF THE BLACK WIDOWERS collections. Because I had remembered the subplot, running through several those stories, that had mystery writer Manny Rubin try to translate the ILIAD into limericks, one verse per chapter.

In those stories, Rubin always read the limerick to an unwilling audience that then kvetched at length about the details he had left out. He only got about seven or eight chapters into the ILIAD before Asimov dropped the thread, but hey, maybe that would be enough to feed a line of bullshit.

The Doctor would not have approved, but that's what I did. Read the limericks aloud to her, read the ensuing kvetches by the Black Widowers, gave my Homerically-challenged relative something to write that filled a couple of sentences on the page. We were done in less than an hour and she was able to run and leave me alone.

Wouldja believe she got an A+? Best grade in her class.

Goddammit.

Without having read Mamatas: Tim is quite right that Harlan gets too angry for comfort sometimes, which Harlan knows only too well (even says so in the movie). To varying degrees we all get angry sometimes, unless we don't give a damn. But one should distinguish between the anger and petulance of a 15-year-old and what Harlan has been writing and talking about in his long career. Harlan's anger seems to have a solid grounding in experience and thought. Some observers may think he has a random temper tantrum when, in fact, he's been thinking and writing about that particular problem for decades.
And when he's wrong he have the right to disagree.
A general dismissal of Harlan as a petulant teenager serves no one, especially not before it is properly understood what Mamatas said that may indeed be objectionable.

Having said all that - more generally speaking, I don't think artists should be judged by how they react to negative reviews.

Michael Rapoport
Thunderous Applause!

Mmmmm...
I've been in a downward slump lately, so whatever's been going on for the past few pages... um, mark me down as a "yes," "no," "sorry to hear it," "awesome," "cheer up" and so on.

On the term paper thing: I have never written them for someone but I have helped edit term papers, and have also supplied links/leads to various forms of material for them to look up. Mercifully, the people that I did these things for already had half-a-brain to work with and just needed guidance; once I corrected a handful of their own writing mistakes, they took the ball from there and reworked their projects with favorable results and a minimum of guidance.

Unfortunately, my biggest burden in editing others' work is that I literally had the passive voice ripped out of me during college. Unless I'm doing casual writing like this or writing dialogue, I CANNOT use a sentence like, "He was standing on the corner waiting for the bus" (I gotta go, "He stood on the corner and waited for the bus"). It makes my hairs stand on end to do it any other way, it really does.

USA
I just received my copy of the "Dreams With Sharp Teeth" DVD and am as happy as can be. I zoomed over to Webderland to see if anything is new and discover it is Susan's birthday? (This is the second time I have written this, so birthday greetings are most likely to be belated a bit). Happy Birthday dear Susan!

Harlan, as someone who has read a ton of imaginative literature, tried my hand at writing short stories, and having attended many conventions, I feel I must relate to you a sentiment I have invariably run into like some strangely repeating scene in a movie involving broken robots. I know it is nothing new, but it must be said. I have many "writer" friends who all tell me the same thing when I try to discuss your work: "Harlan Ellison? He's a jerk." Stranger still, none of them can seem to tell me anything about you or your stories. These folk, who's main creative impulse is playing Dungeons & Dragons, seem to have it on good authority that your confrontational brashness, righteous anger, and wicked repartee somehow invalidates you as a good writer. When asked where their multiple Hugos and other awards are (which I am sure has caused isostatic sink in your part of California) they mumble something about drycleaning their kilts and slink out of the room.

Why is it so difficult to understand that the mass stupidity that exists at the executive level is there because when you spend all your time trying to MAKE money and nothing else, you have no time to learn to appreciate the ART you are trying to commission? This is the divide between studio execs and artists - an unholy alliance. Why is it so difficult to understand that when wrong things happen in the world - IT MAKES US ANGRY! Oh no - we must criticize with moderation and timidity because THAT is always a good catalyst for change. (Here's hoping the oozing black sarcasm from the last sentence drips onto their shoes.) Great ideas do not remain in public usage undefended, and this is why - as Michael Crichton asserts you are doing in his forward to "Approaching Oblivion" - great ideas must BE defended. Why is standing up for ideas difficult to understand?

The reason I write this, is because of the complete shambles I thought the new Star Trek movie was. Bad science and gaping plotholes so large that a highschool freshman (at least one in my time 20 years ago) could point them out. I didn't blame the writers though, I blamed the thousands of "Felicity" fans who made this schlock the most popular movie of the year thus far and best (read: taken in most cash) Star Trek film of them all. So I got on public social networking and blasted the fans with all the vehemence that had risen inside of me like a sea of black bile. I was accused of "trying to have a monopoly on aesthetics", "being a jerk", and "being an arrogant asshole". When I remarked to them that I now understood how Harlan Ellison feels, one kilted joker responded with "Oh, I've met Harlan Ellison and I wasn't impressed."

Me, arrogant?

So, I may not write at your level of competency, or have any awards to speak of. But I do feel that I relate to you a little better. Out of a sense of personal satisfaction, and out of respect for a guy who with his stories has taught me so much about storywriting, and been able to make me laugh, cry, confront strange emotions, and force me to think, I can have only one message for my "writer friends".

Go screw yourselves.

Respectfully yours Harlan,

-Kris Nelson

A Response to Tim Lieder
I haven't seen anyone else respond to the substance of your comments about Harlan (as opposed to term paper writing, or Nick Mamatas, of whom I had never heard before this tempest began), so I figured I'd give it a whack. Not that Harlan Ellison needs defending, from me or anyone else here.

You have a problem with Harlan because of his "personality." He gets too angry to suit you; he "reminds us all too much of our angry 15 year old selves." And that, I take it, has soured you on him, at least to a degree.

I don't think there's any question Harlan gets angry a lot. And I would agree that sometimes the intensity of his anger is out of proportion to the provocation. (Insert elephant gun/flea metaphor here.)

But who or what prompts Harlan's anger? Here's a partial list: people who mess with or appropriate his work; declining standards in our culture and our polity; ad hominem criticisms of himself, his work or his friends; sheer, willful ignorance.

Are these not things any reasonable, intelligent person would get angry about when they're encountered? Shouldn't MORE of us get as angry as Harlan does about them, and about the state the world is in, and about the ignorance and bad behavior of a lot of people in it? As the saying goes: "If you're not angry, you're not paying attention."

I think a big part of the reason a lot of people admire and respect Harlan Ellison, and a big part of the reason that others are particularly venomous about him, is precisely because he gives voice to that anger, in his work and in his life, in a way that a lot of us don't feel free to do. He refuses to compromise on the things he holds dear - notably the integrity and value of his work and the standards by which other people treat him and those he loves - even when it would be much easier for him to do so.

So much of our society is premised on the idea that certain things just aren't feasible, that some unpleasantnesses have to be tolerated, that compromise is inevitable in all things. Most of us accept that; even if we're idealists when we're young, we have the go-along-to-get-along philosophy drilled into us by the time we're adults. And even if it isn't, circumstances - job, family, mortgage, etc. - make it difficult for us to behave and act as we would prefer to do if those circumstances did not exist.

But Harlan has never gone along with go-along-to-get-along. That attracts a lot of people ("gee, he's saying the things I wish I could say") and infuriates others ("who the hell is HE to think he can upset the applecart?").

If you don't like that about him - well, sorry. And I think it diminishes your claim to like and admire Harlan's work. While I agree it is possible in principle to like the art and dislike the artist, in the end you have to come back to the fact that it is THIS particular person, with all his quirks and frailties, who created THAT art that you profess to admire. If Harlan were a different sort of person, less given to anger or eccentricity, we likely would not have had stories like "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman" or "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" or "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" or "The Deathbird" or any of dozens of others that came out of his own particular predilections and obsessions. More than possibly, his life would have taken a different route altogether, and we wouldn't have any Ellison stories, period. If you like and respect those stories, you have to come to grips with the fact that it was this man whose personality you find "wearisome" who made them possible.

And now that I've been presumptuous enough to psychoanalyze a man I know almost exclusively through his work and his comments here, I'll shut up.

miskatonic you
ROBERT ROSS-that was an off-kilter, fall down laughing, weird-assed post-and I thank you for it.

KOS--"Ghosting term papers is on an ethical level with selling a blind man a rats(sic) asshole for a wedding ring."
Maybe the second funniest thing I've read. Ever. And buy yourself an apostrophe, btw.

Anyone Else--If you're not accustomed by now to people visiting the Pavilion and setting themselves up as experts by posting a resume from Hell, and others who direct you to the latest bag of anti-Harlan dogshit by telling you NOT to Go LOOK-RIGHT NOW!, you may indeed be the Chicago Eighth.

Somewhere Michael and Farrah are convincing some poor Tom Sawyer that this fence painting bullshit is a load of fun, REALLY!

Peace,
Rick

P.S. But seriously, Ross, shoot me an email. That goes for you too GOLDBERG.

Basic Scrivener Training
Term paper ghost writing:

Fifteen years ago I was asked by a co-worker and good friend to write a paper for her. She was finishing her BA, was working a lot yadda yadda yadda and I needed the fifty bucks she offered. Back then a Grant would buy a month's groceries for a bachelor who could stomach pot pies. "Just once" I told myself.

Then my friend ssked if I would do the same "favor" for her sister. Twice more, but "That's it!" I succored my bruised standards with.

Then the sister asked if I would "help out" her boyfriend. Once again into the breach, but "No more!" I firmly promised myself in the deep and dark place such as where we often squirrel away our ethics when it is convenient to once again ponder them after having so effectively hidden them away.

Came a very young, very well built young woman who wanted a paper for her "Film As Literature" class,on the matter of -wait for it...

"Showgirls"

And I wrote it.

I knew then I was a whore.

And I stopped whoring.

That's all it is, and the companies that hire writers manque (for that is what I was) are as pimps to the whores the "writers" they hire are.

Actually, it's worse than whoring, which is honest work.

Ghosting term papers is on an ethical level with selling a blind man a rats asshole for a wedding ring.

As for Mamatas and his mouthpiece: If you don't like the way a movie is made, and think you know how to make a better one, then do it. Quit with telling the film maker what he ought have done. You're not qualified, not by any of the details of your lives which we are privy to.

Nick Mamatas may be a fine writer, and a fine editor. I've never read a word from his bile soaked pen other than his rather tepid blog postings, the "review" that was the start of this "thing" and an essay on his time as a term paper hack,

Enough that I have zero interest in further delving into that midden, no matter what rumored Rheingold others aver is hidden within.

Within a month people will be claiming to have spotted Michael Jackson, pumpng gas in Barstow, or flying a cropduster in Boise. This IS an alternate universe.

KOS

Susan, happy birthday. Yeah, it's a day late, but unfortunately my brother insisted on having his special day at the same time!

For Gary

In the spirit of goodwill to all on Susan's B-Day I extend apologies for my abrupt condemnations and rudeness.

Given the loony seven days or so we've just seen with the passing of David Carradine (whose pathetically fatal experiment on himself was released through Russian tabloid long before it reached here), Farrah Fawcett, and NOW Michael Jackson...

I'm thankful we've a pleasant lady like Susan Ellison to whom we can extend the happiest of birthdays, the best of health, and continuance of a great life!

(Sorry about the bizarre juxtaposition)

Happy Birthday, Susan...
This message is a bit late but still heartfelt. Thanks for all you do for Harlan and for us. Best wishes for a very happy birthday.
Laurie

Siano Made Me Do It
Yo, Brian!

"HAMPSTER ENVY: "

You want accuracy from FOX? C'mon...

Did I miss something here?
Can someone explain to me how having someone else write your term paper is *NOT* cheating? Or how writing the term paper for the student *ISN'T* helping them to cheat and therefore violating the educational institution's rules? (Yes, I realize the person writing the paper isn't subject to those rules per se.)

I'm wondering if there's some part of this process that isn't obvious, like it's a typing service and not ghost writing. Typing would be acceptable.

Buehler? Anyone?

"...most of my money comes from writing term papers."

Such an honorable profession.

A Reality Check
Before I defend Nick Mamatas (a man who can defend himself without any assistance) I must first disclose certain facts.

1. I liked Dreams with Sharp Teeth
2. I have liked and admired Harlan Ellison's fiction since high school.
3. I have liked and admired Harlan Ellison as a person in high school (more on that later)
4. Even though I agreed with some aspects of Nick's movie review (like it was made weaker by the fact that it wasn't a documentary so much as a fanboy love letter) I disagreed with most of it.
5. I am unashamed to say that I'm a bottom feeding writer who sells a short story maybe every 3 months and most of my money comes from writing term papers. I also have a publishing company where I have to resort to titling my books Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre and God Laughs When You Die in order to get people to read them. Hell, I couldn't even get a killer teddy bear story for Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre. I had one but I couldn't agree with the writer.
6. I agree that Gary (whoever that is) shouldn't have posted the link to the movie review only because it's like posting a link to a Noam Chomsky fan site on the JDL chatroom.

That said - dismissing Nick Mamatas as a jealousy insecure little jerkwad is both ignorant and self-defeating. Hell, Mamatas shares a lot of personality aspects with Ellison including a nose for bullshit, a distaste for free markets, a love of literature that leads him to promote writers both contemporary (like the excellent Catherynne Valente who is finally getting noticed by the big publishers) and obscure and out-of-print (his championing of John Frante and Breece D'J Pancake have enriched my library) and an endless source of amusing and intelligent commentary about modern fiction and the publishing world.

When he was editing for Clarkesworld, I would always say that I was more eager to get a rejection letter from CW than an acceptance from any other market because his criticism of the rejected story was always infinitely more useful than any Creative Writing class.

Harlan getting all huffy and sniffy because of a MILDLY critical review is heartbreaking. As much as I know enough to separate the artist from the art and that it's possible to like one and hate the other (Cat Stevens and Orson Scott Card come to mind) I WANT to like Harlan. Because I really liked Harlan Ellison, the man, in high school. But this temper tantrum is just too petulant for comfort.

And for the record, most of the criticism directed at Harlan isn't because of jealousy or insecurity. Most of Harlan Ellison's contemporary critics LIKE his fiction. Hell, we grew up on it. It's just that the personality gets wearisome. For the same reason that The Catcher in the Rye is as exciting as learning how to jerk off when you are 17 and kind of dull when you are 27, Harlan Ellison provides us with an ambivalence. He reminds us all too much of our angry 15 year old selves and who wants to deal with their angry inner teenager?

For the same reason, it's a good thing that there's no time travel since there'd be a rash of attacks upon teenagers by people who resemble older, fatter, balder versions of them.

The Cold Truth
With all due respect to the great man himself, the lingering use of the phrase "enfante terrible" to describe Harlan Ellison now has less to do with our host's once-persistent aura of undiluted youth (somewhat diluted now), than with the still-persistent laziness of a lot of the people coming up with things to say about him. It's the equivalent of the occasional critic you can still catch criticizing Meryl Streep for using "too many accents," a comment that was current and appropriate a couple of decades ago when she gave several accented performances in a row, less so now that she hasn't used an exotic accent in a while; or saying, gee, she's now proven that she can sing -- something she did as far back as SILKWOOD; or acting all surprised at the revelation that David Cronenberg can work in modes other than gross-out horror. Say something enough -- and these things were said quite a bit when the observations were new -- and you will still find them being said after they've grown mold. (And the majority of folks won't even notice their hackneyed nature; witness my Mom, who told me upon my recent visit that she thought Jackie Mason was being terribly, terribly, terribly incisive when he pointed out that, duh, Starbucks is Expensive.) Platitudes are platitudes for a reason. They wear grooves.

Hey Unca Harlan
I came across the following quote yesterday. From the Onion's Av Club:

"It's a mark of Harlan Ellison's personality that even at age 74, he still gets referred to as an enfant terrible..."


If you don't mind my asking; why do you think that is? And, do you feel strongly about it?

Thank you

Lori

Siano Sed: "Matters of Rodents and Pedantry
It's spelled _hamster_.

No "p." "

Obviously, you've never held a hamster.

Matters of Rodents and Pedantry
It's spelled _hamster_.

No "p."

Looks like our politicos here in Ohio changed their minds about cutting library funds, or so they say.

This is activism at work, people.

Coming this fall on FOX, the sordid truth about the toll the Internet takes on American marriage:

"HAMPSTER ENVY: Keeping Up With The Ellisons"

I appreciate the many, many birthday wishes. It made the day wonderful. I now even have better hamsters than Harlan. Thanks Rick. Again, your wishes made the day.

With all kindness--Sue

It's only when you meet Susan Ellison that you fully glean how good Harlan has it.

That is all.

Happy Birthday and upcoming Eddie
Dear Susan,

Sorry if I'm late in wishing you a happy birthday--my dad just went through a quadruple bypass and we're all still a bit freaked out. I'm still "home" in NJ. You've got the best husband (for you, of course) and I''m sure you had a wonderful day.

Also wanted to let you know Eddie is coming back to the states to do a very short tour which will include L.A.--not expecting him until the end of the year, but I will keep you posted. He's only doing about five cities. Turns out I didn't have to go to London after all to see him again, but I adore the city, so no whining here.

Love to you and Harlan and you'll hear from us soon,

Amy (and Ben)

Happy Birthday Susan
Hi Susan,

A happy birthday to you from Bulgaria.

All the best.

FAQ

Belated Good Thoughts ...

To Adam-Troy Castro.

To Susan, for a happy birthday.

Things haven't been going my way for a while, but, yadda, yadda, yadda, I'm still here, et cetera.

THE SEVEN WHO FLED was mentioned here again recently. That reminded me ... when I was kid, I first heard of a group of people referred to as "The Chicago Seven." For years, every now and then, I would read or hear something about The Chicago Seven. And then, suddenly, they became The Chicago Eight. Most everything I've read or heard since then about that group of people has referred to "The Chicago Eight."

So, I wonder ... will THE SEVEN WHO FLED someday, somehow, transmogrify into THE EIGHT WHO FLED? Will The Seven Deadly Sins become The Eight Deadly Sins? Will 8, rather than 7, become the number of most significance on craps tables all over the world?

That's the way my mind works.

Or doesn't.

The...um, dog ate my internet at a friend's house...
...after Elvis saved me from the sewer alligators.

Anyone?

Hmm?

Good, they all bought it.

Did I just write that or did I only think it?

DON'T read the fourth line! Now, no one knows that I just regained residential internet access.

Happy Belated Birthday, Susan Ellison!

Happy belated, Susan. I hope you had a wonderful day leading into a beautiful summer.

D.

REPLY TO GARY

You have only my word on this, but when I tell you that in no way or suggestion or maneuver did I "send my"" friend and Webmaster "after you." Nor anyone else. You may believe that or not, as you wish; but I am not given to lying to those who come here.

An effort was made to establish WHO you were, as we have had our share of false identities, trolls, agents provocateur, and just general all-around putzes who don't like me for whatever their neurotic impetus may be. I've asked Webderlanders, if they come across such twaddle as the Mamatas insult Mardi Gras, simply not to come into MY PERSONAL AERIE, and gig me with an awareness of something that'll only make me feel bad.

At one point, one of the number here thought your URL and "iconoclast-kid"s were the same. So you came up on the radar. I asked a couple of people to do for me what I cannot do: check out who's who and what's what. I sic'd no one on you.

In truth, there was nothing to be done about this Mamatas fellow. He has every right to say anything about the film that he is so moved to say. The piece is clearly not a "review" at all, but a vessel for him to express his jealousy and self-loathing. Were I entombed in his pseudo-intellectual graveyard of an existence, I would resent me or any other Icarus who could actually soar. Turns out, he is a manque, a poetaster, a no-price for whom the internet is a last chance slave market where, for free, he can bleat to his shrunken little heart's delight.

You say you are not Nick Mamatas, well, okay. I'll take that on faith. But a first name, no location, and an act most often performed by a Fifth Columnist here to annoy me and my friends...well...

If you have been mistakenly accused, a genuine apology. If you're playing me...big fucking deal. I'll survive.

If you care to clarify any part of the foregoing you think I've cobbled up inaccurately...we're adults here. Get it on, and say it out loud. But know this: unequivocally, no weaseling, no lie: I did not "send my webmaster after you."

Respectfully, Harlan Ellison

Happy happy, joy joy
Before the day is ended...

Happy Birthday, Susan!

A

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUSAN!!!!
You'll have to pretend I'm singing...... with a spicy Jazz Swing.
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Susan
Happy Birthday to you!

You look beautiful. Hope you had a very happy day.
Big Hug,

Cris

Happy
Birthday, Susan!

Glad to hear it, Finder Doug...SO glad to hear it.
:)
Your friend for always,
Cindy

Happy Birthday, Susan
Hope it ain't too late.

Happy Birthday, Susan!
Was the term "his better half" ever more appropriate?

HARLAN and SUSAN RUNNING BAREFOOT THROUGH THE POPPIE FIELDS

Frank you had me dreamin' summer lovin'.24 years and going strong.I am bestowed with hope once again that there is a beautiful counter-part for me as lovely as Susan.Your a lucky man Harlan.Happy B-Day Susan.
"YOURS TRULY,
alan THE RIPPER"

Reply to KOS
KOS -

Thanks for the "friendly heads-up."

Mea culpa,
Le Van Ly

=================================================================


On Wednesday, June 24 2009 17:21:26, KOS wrote the following:

Le, you're apparently newish here, so you likely don't know this.

Harlan is a fairly well known public "person", but has a decided taste for privacy, the little that is left to the real person who is not the public "Harlan". He's written here, once or twice that I have seen, that he asks kindly that people not post links to:

Photos
Maps
Blueprints
Floorplans

As well as detailed descriptions of:

His home, the immediate surrounding neighborhood.

This ain't the Ica Capades
Le, you're apparently newish here, so you likely don't know this.

Harlan is a fairly well known public "person", but has a decided taste for privacy, the little that is left to the real person who is not the public "Harlan". He's written here, once or twice that I have seen, that he asks kindly that people not post links to:

Photos
Maps
Blueprints
Floorplans

As well as detailed descriptions of:

His home, the immediate surrounding neighborhood.

As well as:

Minefields
Machinegun emplacements
Chevaux de frise
Fougasses

And, most especially, the Tiger Pits, with actual honest-to-goodness-Frank-Buck white Siberians on loan from the former Siegfried and Roy show, kept at the very edge of hunger by a team of crack felid nutritionists who regularly and with scientifically minimalist rigour feed said kitties servings of Just Enough raw monkey flesh, wrapped with loving care in actual fanboy sweat stained Star Trek tee shirts for all the better to "Skiinnerize" the big cats behavior to their intended prey, as well as keeping them at the sharp and tender edge of a hunger that is sufficient that, should any importunate as well as unfortunate stalker fall into their claws (daily dutifully sharpened by handpicked Vietnamese manicurists equipped with power belt sanders), then apres their gory tiffin, there will be no evidence left, save a rather infelicitous whiff of enteric vapor debouched from the tigers ass some hours later, which will pass on the wind that blows on the edge of the world where, as we all well know, such daemons and Pookah spirits as Harlan Ellison reside.

All of which is to say, as one with the mapmakers of olde: "Here there be Tigers!" Step carefully.

Just a friendly heads up.

You mean to say there is a BOOK about seven interesting people fleeing a Chinese warlord across the Gobi Desert, and I have neverbeen told about it! Someone's gonna pay!

Where do I get it?

Happy birthday Susan Ellison. Since I am marrying, later this year, my own Susan, I have a soft spot for the Susan's of the world. It's right at the top of my head. Wanna touch it?

KOS

Mrs. Ellison!
Hopes for you to have the best day and night yet...HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUSAN.

Richard Halasz

Happy Birthday, Susan. I didn't know it was today, but a little hamster told me.

Steve Hatton was a little timid in posting your birth date, but I am not timid. It was 24th June 1970.

Upon this occasion...
...a very happy birthday to you, Susan.
Richard

Susan Ellison / Ellison clips / Shot of house
The first time I saw Susan Ellison was back in 1985 at a Halloween party held at an sf bookstore on Ventura Blvd. She and Mr. Ellison pulled up in front of the store. When Mr. Ellison got out and saw the life-sized "Harlan" mannequin displayed as a gag in front of the store, he yelled out, "S***!" As first impressions go, what struck me most about her was her mellifluous voice and lovely accent. (Okay, I also thought she was a bit of a "hottie.")

I heard her once on the Hour 25 radio show with Mr. Ellison. She expressed some reservations (and so did Mr. Ellison) with THE DARK KNIGHT comics, which had just come out. On another occasion on the radio show, she was not there, but Mr. Ellison mentioned in passing on the air how sorry he was about upsetting her earlier in the day. He had been in a bad mood and said or did something she didn't like. He said she responded to his behavior by exclaiming, "You've been bad all day!" then stormed out of the room.

A few years later, I saw her in person again in San Francisco. Both ANGRY CANDY and HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING had just come out, and Mr. Ellison gave a talk/reading ("Prince Myshkin, and Hold the Relish")at the Herbst Theater as part of City Arts and Lectures to herald the arrival of those books. After the event, the hordes gathered around the table from where Mrs. Ellison was selling her husband's books. One person asked her to recommend a collection for him to buy. Without hesitation, she held up a hardcover copy of SHATTERDAY.

Mrs. Ellison - we never met, but please let me wish you a Happy Birthday!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Wow, I found some amusing Harlan Ellison clips at the link below. There are four brief video clips on various topics. I like the one how Mr. Ellison quipped how one writer writes so badly that it makes the back of his teeth itch!

In addition to the four video clips, there are three audio clips. For whatever reason, in terms of timbre of voice, it sounds nothing like Harlan Ellison, but it is definitely him!

Here is the link:
http://www.darkcarnival.com/DCOLarchive/hellis.html

Oh, Dark Carnival in Berkeley has some signed Ellison books!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Throwin confetti on Susan! Run barefoot through the grass. Run rainbows through the calliope--may the music shake the panes. Sweet music for a great lady.

See, Scotland does export finery.

Happy Happy
Susan:
Add my felicitations -- and I'm sure hubby is taking you somewhere FABULOUS (you are, aren't you?)

Sorry to be late to the game but it's been a day of doctors (nothing serious, but just checking, checking, checking.. as our illustrious host knows... it's important)

Susan: Put my name at the bottom of the long list of well wishers!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SUSAN ELLISON!!!!!!!
Dozens and dozens more to come, no doubt!

For the record, I'm not Nick Mamatas. And I don't appreciate your telling the webmaster to come after me, Harlan Ellison. All I did was post a link to a review I thought would prompt some discussion. I didn't say I agreed with it or that it was good or bad or anything. You guys post links to reviews all the time here.

Dear Susan,


A very HAPPY BIRTHDAY (with extra cake!!) from Jim, Cindy & Evangelia

Susan
sincere birthday greetings, from me and mine

only good things,
Rick

Happy Birthday
Wishing Mrs Ellison a very happy birthday!

Not that its terribly important but it was my birthday on the 23rd of June. So I was 39 yesterday. Oh happy days. Sadly I was too young to be at the Albacon where you met each other (or so Cuddles keeps telling me, I think cos she knows I am a fan). But I grew up in Glasgow, and worked for 13 years in Central Station of that city. Its a lovely building, and one I have a lot of affection for.

Anyway enough of that particular tangent.... Happy Birthday yet again. And many happy returns. ;)

Iain

Happy Birthday to Susan!

Steve J.

AND FOR THE RECORD:

I am not one whit, one scintilla, one jot or tittle less besotted with this child than when I met her twenty-four years ago in Glasgow.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. E.

Yr. adoring husband.

Happy Birthday Susan!

Many Happy Returns, or as Owl writes,
"HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY!"

Thank you for your tireless work providing us with a glimpse down the Rabbit Hole and for all you do. May your day be beautiful and bountiful.

MARK GOLDBERG:


As Freud said about overthinking things, or crediting them with sub-values/explanations: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Here is what THE SEVEN WHO FLED is "about":

It is about seven interesting people fleeing a Chinese warlord across the Gobi Desert. Period.

Always glad to bring my lantern of clarity to the needy.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ALAN IN LARGO:

Gawd, memory is weird and chancey. I do not remember our bumping into each other, but I DO remember--not the "dangerous" question about TLDV, but--my reply:

ALAN: What about LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS, when will we see it? (an approximation, but close, very close.)
HARLAN: It's not "Last Dangerous Visions," it's THE Last Dangerous Visions. Four words, not three. But thank you for asking."

And if I recall--geezus, memory is snarky--I turned instantly back to the, as you spiffily put it, "twenty chicks vying" for my attention.

GeeWhiz, Alan, what a slut I used to be!

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Vox Clamatis, but not In Diserto


Susan,

Let me be not the first, nor the last, but the most-recent person to post here and wish you the happiest of birthdays today.

Bob Ingersoll

Happy birthday, Susan!

Happy Birthday!
Delurking to add my good wishes for Susan Ellison on the occasion of her birthday.

To Harlan's bride friends send acclaim,
Admitting none as her superior:
Beauty within, beauty without,
Beauty, as well, posterior.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Ellison,

Richard (just a stranger, but I'm paying attention)

Susan Secret Password Praised Bottom Ellison

Herzlichen Gluckwunchen Zum Geburtstag!

(and MAhnee Mooooorrrrreeee!!!!)

MM

Birthday wish
Happiest of birthdays, Mrs. E. And many happy returns.

Jan S.

HAMPSTER HAMPDAY SUSAN

Happy Birthday SUSAN!

Happy Birthday, Susan!!

Just adding another "Happy Birthday" to the list, all the best to you and the Man.

Gary

Happy Birthday Susan!!!

Cindy darlin' - Finder Doug is alive and well; I was safely tucked away in Northern VA, miles from the horrific wreck on the Red Line when it happened.

Happy Birthday Susan!! May you have many more!!

From the hot, humid, mosquito ridden island of Puerto Rico, we send you greetings in this your birthday, oh mighty Susan. May you enjoy many more in the company of Unca Harlan.

From the hot, humid, mosq

Susan & Harlan
Susan, Hope you have loads of fun on your birthday!

Harlan, FYI, in case you missed it, E1 Entertainment U.S. has re-released (June 2) season one of The Hunger (Showtime) with your two episodes.

Happy Birthday, Susan! You are the ginchiest!

Various
And Happy Birthday to the possessor of the much-discussed ass!

*

Too long to share here, as I do with many of my rants: the reason I have decided that I have finally had enough of a guy who wrote more than forty novels I have read with deep enjoyment.

http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=read&group=sff.people.adam-troy-castro&artnum=30978

Birthday
Hi all


Sorry I may have caused the confusion over Sue’s birthday by posting my message yesterday but it was today here in the UK.

So for the record Susan Ellison born 24th June 19**.

That’s Midsummers day which explains Sue being ‘Faerie’ probably a direct descendent of Robin Goodfellow.

Steve

Happy birthday Susan! Although it's a Wednedsay we hope the outside world doesn't intrude too much.

Le, on Harlan's suggestion, I have read The Seven Who Fled. You can either contact me at the email address above, or we could start a thread on it over in the Forums. An absolutely lyrical work but I am still trying to figure out what the book is about

Susan, a belated happy birthday to someone who is as beautiful on the outside as she is on the inside

All the best,

Mark

BELATED???
Hey - what's all this mullarkey about 'belated birthdays'? It's TODAY, it's TODAY - O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRITBABE!

From your eternal Britslaves,
Rob and Paul
xx

Susan:
Happy belated birthday, to the only one of us on this planet brave enough, strong enough and wise enough to actually live under the same roof as our esteemed host. Susan, you are the 8th Natural Wonder of the Modern World. Happy birthday!

James and Jodie

Birthday
Sorry, I had to sit out a day to make up for a double-post, so belated birthday greetings to Susan. We met once, briefly, but if I say how many years ago it was, we'll both seem older than we could possibly be ...

gainful employment - phooey
Leave off this joint for a few days and miss another birthday of The Electric Baby? *sigh* Happy belateds kiddo. I do hope it was not "that" Birthday, but in any case, all the bestests as always.

Hugs - B

Sorry I'm late to the party, but I'm out of town and just logged on.

Happy birthday, Susan!


Sandra

A very Happy Birthday wish for Susan.

Amazing. 25, and a backside to die for...

Nabokov
Mmm... The Police (the rock band) mispronounced "Nabokov" in the song "Don't Stand So Close to Me." Maybe they did that just to make it scan, but weren't they British? You can't blame it all on Americ'ns then.

Kristin

Happy Birthday to Susan. May you always have that lovely, happy, beautiful smile.
:)
Cindy

Finder Doug!
Shout out-- let us know you're okay. That train wreck concerns me.

Yer pal-- the overprotective mom.
Cindy


Dorman and Chuck,
You two made my day on Sunday.
:)

Frankie,
;)
Back rub.

Happy Birthday, Susan Ellison!

ATC,

Glad to see your dad still has his sense of humor. I hope that's a good sign.

Chuck

"GOOD SOULS" make for bad company.

Thank you Harlan for the kind words.I'm getting so pissed off more and more with the Internet bullshit and mistaken truths aimed at the simple and pinheaded amongst us.Yes,I've heard stories of people claiming you exploded at them years past at Conventions and Book Signings.I'm sure you've long forgot my coming around a corner at Tampa College's FORUM FOR THE FUTURE and knocking you and your briefcase to the ground.Even with the Story you were going to read that afternoon blowing away in the muddy grass our first response to each other was "sorry".No hesitation sizing each other up,just a hand shake and a wild collective sprint against the wind.My visit here has not been without trepidation.I've applied for DTRH some years past,but moved alot,so I figured my fault not receiving it.And I've kinda been testing the water a little to see if kindness is shared with all or if some click of financial gain is the only reason kindness will be displayed to all who enter.What I've found is a group of individuals brought together from all corners of the Globe reaching out to each other saying "Were here to enjoy the life we've experienced of Harlan Ellison".My trepidation's been if I piss off the collective would you take DTRH away as a strong arm form of punishment,and I've tested it and have come to the conclusion you have a interesting collective and I have been honored to have spent time with you.As a sideline,in Tampa you had twenty chicks vying for your attention when I asked a kinda risky question;"When are we going to get LAST DANGEROUS VISIONS?"

Happy Birtday, Mrs Ellison. Hope it was joyous. Glad your dad sound like he is hanging in there ATC. Didn't scroll through all the posts, as I'm rushing hither and thither in a hot Chicago day. Hope you are all well. Talk to all soon.
Diane

Birthday
Susan

So another year flies by.

Having just watched ‘Dreams With Sharp Teeth’ the picture in the attic seems to be working well.

So all love and best wishes on your birthday, I will write soon, I promise.

Good to hear from Jim also. Have you forgive him yet for the ‘lost wallet’?

Again all best wishes.

Steve

Luke Jackson --

The newest post is at the top of the page. That's how it has always been. Many other places do it that way, too. Otherwise, you'd have to jump from page to page trying to find the most recent page. If you hang around long enough to listen, you'll see that you will get used to it rather quickly.

If you'd like to, jump over to the forums, and you'll see that the pages are numbered. But the forums are not the main site, which is this Dining Pavilion.

Worst. Interface. Ever.
Why do the posts go backwards chronologically?

Harlan Ellison's
Near the end of Harlan Ellison's lengthy and utterly engrossing 2-part interview (it seemed to go on forever, yet I didn't want it to end) with The A.V. Club(http://www.avclub.com/articles/harlan-ellison-part-one,14252/), which I recently re-read, he mentions THE SEVEN WHO FLED by Frederic Prokosch. In the interview, Ellison points to one descriptive passage as "the most mesmerizing writing" he has ever read. To his workshop participants he would say, "When you can write like that, then I will bow down and I will kiss the hem of your garment."

Naturally, I was really curious, so I placed a copy on reserve from the library.

Has anyone read this novel? If so, what did you think of the writing?

It got me thinking to what has Ellison written that I would consider "mesmerizing" (and which has that "cadence" mentioned in the interview). The first example that instantly came to mind is from "Paladin of the Lost Hour." It's the part where Gaspar passes on his lifetime of memories with Minna to Billy, so that she would continue to be remembered after Gaspar dies. It's the section that starts with "Memories in no particular order."

I still remember when I read this story for the first time in its original form in The Twilight Zone Magazine back in 80s (and believe me, the highest compliment I can pay to Ellison is that his writings helped me get through that miserable decade -- the first story I ever read of his: "Jeffty is Five"). I was absolutely bowled over it , and I can't tell you how many times I have returned to that story over the years, just to read that very moving and poetic passage....

Anyway, another book I look forward to reading is the recently published L. Baum biography by Evan I. Schwartz entitled, FINDING OZ: HOW L. BAUM DISCOVERED THE GREAT AMERICAN STORY. It is not yet available from my library, so I ordered it online.

There could be a general strike in Iran, a general strike! What heros these people are. One young lady even took off her head covering and flashed her arms. Allah cannot hold the knife to their throats. Change is ahead.

Islamic people aren't all crazy. I have been telling you mooks this for years.

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

Harlan, you're a good friend.

Mamatas is a slobbering punk.

Kudos to Unca Harlan
I'm heartened to learn that you were able to give Mr. Leiber a much-needed assist. I knew that his situation had improved in the years prior to his death, but I knew nothing of the details.

TO DENNIS C, WHO ASKED, "I'd heard a few years back of a possible FAFHRD AND GRAY MOUSER movie -- anyone know the status of that project?"

I haven't heard a whisper since the original announcement. I had read that the SOLOMON KANE movie has opened overseas. I definitely still want to see it, but I don't think it was at all necessary to give Kane a convoluted backstory (which I will make no more detailed reference to, knowing how our host feels about spoilers).

-
The dangers of skimming; I missed your Asimov ref.

Harlan, I echo the thought that it's okay, so many years after the fact, to reveal what you did for Fritz Leiber. Bless you for your kindness.

And there is NEVER the need to apologize for getting "too emotional" over something or someone you care about deeply. Would that more people had a fraction of your passion, energy and desire to help another human being.

Regarding getting kids to read: In addition to the ideas already floated here (have books around, let 'em see you reading) and the other ideas that should be obvious (read to 'em aloud, all the time, when they're little), I would suggest that it's important to cater to their interests. My 9-year-old son is mad for Star Wars and Legos - so, as far as I'm concerned, he can have all the Star Wars and Lego-related books he wants, as long as he's reading. Literary taste and sophistication will come in time; the important thing is to get and keep the kids reading, to have them see it as a normal, pleasurable part of life.

My parents did much the same thing when I was a lad. I loved baseball, so they steered me to books about Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax and my beloved Mets. Sneaky, they were. (My parents, I mean, not Willie, Sandy and the Amazin's.)

Finally, before the discussion of the Walkers Builder's Breakfast crisps recedes too far into the past, I just have to note one of the other crisp-flavors that was competing with Builder's Breakfast in that new-flavor contest Harlan mentioned:

"Cajun Squirrel."

I don't even want to know.

Well it's not that Nabokov's name get mispronounced by Americans. It's just that we tend to pronounce it in the English manner rather than the Russian manner because we speak English rather than Russian.

Doing both I can slip you a few style points for Vla-DEE-meer rather than VLA-duh-mir but really who gives a shit?

Mentioning Nabokov in the same sentence as Ayn Rand was pretty funny though.

Addendum
Michael S: not to mention another russian-citizen by birth who became an American citizen and later a well-known, AMERICAN writer, who has already seen his own stamp. Isaac Asimov.

Leiber
Bless you, Harlan, for helping out Fritz Leiber! I'm sure he wouldn't mind everyone knowing about it now.

Anyone who hasn't read him is in for a great deal of pleasure.

I'd heard a few years back of a possible FAFHRD AND GRAY MOUSER movie -- anyone know the status of that project?

Oh, Harlan.

Perhaps the wiser course would be to take your advice from 19:47:27 yesterday and simply ignore you, for the reasons given, but since fools rush in where more subdued Nabokovians evidently fear to tread, I must respond to your response to my Vladimir Nabokov proposal -- for the sake of truth, justice, and the American Way.

The parameters in question ("which I wish to kryste already you'd fucking LOOK UP") state (http://www.usps.com/communications/organization/csac.htm):
"1. It is a general policy that U.S. postage stamps and stationery primarily will feature American or American-related subjects."
Although not germane to the point I'll be making momentarily, it's interesting to note here the qualifiers "general" and "primarily", suggesting that exceptions to the rule of American or American-related subjects may be possible. (Note for further use.) And although not privy to secret internal USPS memoranda on the subject, I will step out on a limb here and posit that at an American citizen would be considered "American".

Yes, Nabokov WAS Russian. But then he came to this country and -- unlike Huxley, unlike Hesse, unlike Weil, and unlike Coward -- became an American CITIZEN. ("The new blurb {for the autobiography} seems very satisfactory. I only think that the fact that I am an American citizen and an American writer should have been stressed." -- VN to Harper & Row, 1950, as quoted in "Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years" by Brian Boyd, p. 3; "An American writer means, in the present case, a writer who has been an American citizen for a quarter of a century. It means, moreover, that all my works first appear in America. It also means that America is the only country where I feel mentally and emotionally at home." -- VN, quoted in his obit, NY Times, July 5, 1977; "In 1940 Nabokov moved to the United States and five years later became an American citizen." -- http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/n/vladimir-nabokov/; "I am as American as April in Arizona." -- VN to Herbert Gold, "Paris Review" interview, 1967.)

And what of the fact that he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, in 1961 and lived there the rest of his life? Still a U.S. citizen. "'I pay U.S. income taxes on every cent I earn at home and abroad,' he says with patriotic ardor, admitting that at times the tax bill is 'so high as to obscure the view from my easy chair.'" ("Vladimir Nabokov: He's a Kept Man" by Hugh A. Mulligan, "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette", 1977-02-12.)

Is it that fact that Nabokov was a NATURALIZED U.S. citizen that you consider outside the "anywhichway under normal non-extraordinary pushing-the-envelope tautologically rational circumstances" for postage-stamp commemoration? If so, two words: Ruben Salazar ("2008 American Journalist Stamp Series").

Is it the idea that Nabokov's essential, intrinsic, ineffable RUSSIANNESS somehow precludes his candidacy? Two more words: Ayn Rand ("Literary Arts" series, 1999).

And speaking of Ms. Rosenbaum, the notion of a VN stamp didn't seem so far-fetched a few years ago, though events conspired against it: "Adrian Lyne's re-make of Lolita starring Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith created a furor, in part because of newly heightened public sensibility to child abuse. ... A vain attempt by the International Vladimir Nabokov Society to have a U.S. postage stamp honoring Nabokov's 1999 centenary apparently fell victim to the frenzy." (From "Strange Bedfellows: Ayn Rand and Vladimir Nabokov" by D. Barton Johnson; http://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0602&L=nabokv-l&T=0&P=4465#_edn1).

Oh, and I presume the same argument would rule out any possibility of an Isaac Asimov stamp. Quick, someone notify Gordon Van Gelder!

So, in closing, I maintain that Nabokov CAN and SHOULD get his own commemorative U.S. postage stamp, whether as part of the proposed "Great American Fantasists" series or otherwise -- because because because because BECAUSE ... because of the wonderful things he does, whenever we open one of his books and allow the Enchanter to work his magic.

Luzhin rests.

But all is forgiven regarding that missing "n"-as-in-Nabokov in "Mannahatta"; I used to do that myself every so often, until I learned better.

-----

Brian Siano:
"Oh, and for everyone's benefit: it is pronounced nah-BOW-kov, not NAHH-baahh-kov." Pretty much (how about "kof" for "kov"?), though that leaves the issue of his first name, also commonly mispronounced in Amurrrika. Here's a useful reference: http://inogolo.com/pronunciation/d453/Vladimir_Nabokov .

Walk in beauty,
Michael

Our Lady Of Darkness
Here's information that speaks for itself. All this talk of Fritz made me pick out my copy of LADY. It was one of those 0.01 hardcover copies from Amazon. An old library copy that still had the stamps from borrowing on a sheet on the back. Reader, there were a LOT of stamps.... Susan, you're welcome, hope yours and Harlan's brought a smile. And now,let's talk about MY ass...John.

Dear One and All: Thank you very, very much for the kind ass mentions. Much appreciated. Jim--good to hear from you. And, thank you John Z. for the wonderful birthday wishes.

All best--Sue

As is often the case, the wise words of Adam-Troy should be heeded. Attempting to argue that Lieber is "better" than Harlan (what ever that means)is a fool's game. You are two of the most influential writers of the latter half of the 20th century and more than that needs not be said.

A-T C, I would categorize a sense of humor as an excellent sign for your father's continued progress. I hope it continues to improve.

Ezra, to revisit your post from yesterday, I would humbly disagree about the younger generation not being into books. As you imply, I do believe reading comes down to behaviors one learns from your parents. There are books, graphic novels, comics or magazines in pretty much every room in my apartment. My kids see me read and it is passed down to them. I watch my girlfriend's oldest child, who is 15, and she and her friends love the Twilight series, so I have suggested other vampire related stories to her. My oldest has already read the first three Harry Potter books, has started the Hobbit, and is a few chapters into Alice in Wonderland. Lest you think that this behavior is atypical, when my kids have friends over they will usually spend some time reading comics or books together. I am well aware of falling literacy rates and the mind numbing effects of watching too much TV but it ain't as bad as you think because there is a sizable percentage of the younger generation that thinks reading is cool.

Harlan, there's no need to feel bad about revealing an act of friendship from long ago. Leiber didn't mind people knowing that he went through hard times in the 1970s, and he acknowledged that you helped him with your words to make a new start. I don't think he would have minded that eventually people would know that you helped him with deeds as well.

Hey, Richard Cohen, great minds think alike:

"The fantasies of Harlan Ellison are a glorious combination of James Joyce and James Cagney." - ALAIN RESNAIS

Gentle Snap
Harlan, I also recall your past mentions of Fritz Leiber's living arrangements, from the essays where they appeared; and no, I recall reports that his situation improved with the help of friends, but I never knew that you were among those who took action. Bless you for that.

One thing. Another reference from the past day or so.

"On the best day of my life I never have, and probably never will, write better than Fritz Leiber did, on the worst day of his."

Bowing to no one in my recognition of Leiber's accomplishments, I avow a gentle, "Bullshit."

You wanna say that Leiber was a better storyteller, or that he reached lyrical heights you could not, that's within the realm of value judgment. Argument is useless, especially since it puts you in the position of (unwittingly) trolling for compliments. I just wince, and thus rebel, at the extravagance of this particular hyperbole. The gap, if it existed, was not an oceanic gulf -- certainly not between your "best" day and his "worst."

*

On my Dad, I may be repeating myself, but I report that I took great comfort in an incident during my visit when my Dad was lying in bed, having been less than fully coherent all day, and his Doctor discussed his condition in our presence. "Well," the Doctor said, "right now, let's keep in mind that this is a fellow with pre-existing nerve damage in his arms, who has high blood pressure, anemia, broken ribs, a broken collarbone, blood clots, encephalopathy..."

From the bed, sleepily: "Aside from that, I'm fine."

Re: nihlistic kid's "review" (which it was not -- reviews are a valuable cultural and literary tool when done right, this one ain't even close.)

My favorite part was the guy's rolleyes-hohum-boredsigh summation of the film, or rather of Ellison's career. Even with the loaded potshots ("His Star Trek script is rewritten by yobs who know nothing about Star Trek...I think one of them was named Gene Roddenberry") and deliberately ommitted accomplishments, it still reads like a pretty damn impressive C.V., not to mention a life well lived.

Personally, if a movie left me THAT bored and unimpressed I would not have wasted the valuable minutes it would take to say so, which puts me ahead of this guy as far as a day's accomplishments are concerned.

Mentally Casting Harlan
----- I watched the movie "One Two Three," trying to think of HE's reading/performance of his "Prince Mishkin and Hold the Relish"
and to imagine Harlan in place of Cagney (try it yourself, would it kill you?) -- particularly in the scenes where the Coke exec
is dispensing rapid-fire orders.

Actually, in the Molnar one-act that provided the skeleton for Diamond & Wilder there was much more of that stuff, pages and pages,
all intended to be delivered at lightning speed. Don't know whether anyone has staged the english version since 1930 (when it didn't really go over)
but conceivably the right performer could yet make it a pretty spectacular elocutionary occasion. (Internet shows pictures of
Hungarian actors still performing the play).

Max Pallenberg, for whom the speed-demon part was written, died in 1934
-- in *June* --
Dammit!
Just missed making a case for a reincarnation in Cleveland.

----- Thank you, Earl Wells, for pointing up the specific Leiber refs. It was bugging me.
Thanks, HE, for doing what you did for the old master.


Richard

KOS, thanks for sharing your memories about Leiber. It's also good to know he found such a great friend in Harlan. By the way, he should have had more money since his books did well all over Europe too, in a solid, long-term kind of fashion (the Swords books in particular).

Mamatas is a good writer, though Harlan was there decades ago and will more likely endure.

Thanks KOS and Robert!

I shall seek these books you recommend.

MM

RE: Dave's post from Monday, June 22 2009 19:50:28
Just a minor point...you wrote that Mamatas had deleted your comment. Well, either he put it back up, or he didn't actually delete it, because it's still there. With a reply.

http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1329121.html

So, yeah. If you touched a nerve, it was a dead one.

I am a rule breaker.
I will serve a term in the Har;an Ellison's Georgia Chain Gang Synchronized Rock Band, but first I must to make a second/third post, and ask:

"Who is Nick Mamatas, and why are "we" mad at him?"

I cannot find anything about Mamatas on the web except that he's a former professinal writer of term papers for others, and ponce ublished a science fiction satire.

Mamatas?

Is it contagious?

I'll be good now.

KOS

Obvious correction
It should have been "endears him," not himself. Unless one is Irish, I suppose.

Harlan's post to the anonymous Gary
My visit to this site was richly rewarded once again, as Mr. E delivered the kind of full-throated roar which endears himself to all of us.

My web-surfing hour has been richly rewarded.

KOS's post
KOS: Since the title involves water, runniest will be permitted in your description this time...but when the double-jeopardy/lightning round starts, get your letters straight.

Cheers,
DTS

Post deleted by Nick Namatas:

"By the time he was your age, Nick, Harlan Ellison had written "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman...I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream...the screenplay for The Outer Limits which was the basis for The Terminator...and brought out Dangerous Visions.

"Just sayin'."

Guess I hit a nerve.

EARL WELLS

Oh shit, Earl! Apart from--yes, m'man, you are correct, I was misremembering wrong--it being Putnam and not Tor--for which I stand up and apologize yet ONCE MORE--I'd forgotten that I never before this mentioned my part in Fritz's move from that teeny Geary apartment. As you all have noted, Fritz was the very icon of gentility, and it would have embarrassed him for anyone to know he was in such dire straits. He never asked me to keep it sub rosa but...as you say, it was in the air.

I should not have said it now.

This is definitely a "down cycle" day for me; I'm being too emotional, too easily piqued, too self-serving...on sum, just an ass twit jerk of the first water. Please ignore me.

Harlan

To paraphrase one of the great sages of Our Time, Judge Judy:

"On the best day of my life I never have, and probably never will, write better than Fritz Leiber did, on the worst day of his."
----------------------------------------------------------------
STEVE BARBER: thank you for the much-needed words anent "reviews." Though this Mamatas screed could not possibly be extolled by such an otherwise Noble Word, when done by those sans spite, sans jealousy, sans meanspiritedness...sans all, as Omar said.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ALAN IN LARGO:

Thank you.

I've spoken to Our Beloved Webmaster. He is seeing to Mr. Mamatas. Fret not, you're a Good Soul.

Harlan

Runniest?!
Well, funniest,

"Nabokov is a passion of mine."

Good enough reason for me to jump back into his books. A few years back, I read _Lolita_, _Pnin_ and _Pale Fire_ in quick succession-- the last because it's a favorite of Faisal Qureshi's too. I'm sure I fell in love. (With Naboov's writing, that is, not Faisal.) And there was one passage late in _Pnin_ that gave me one of the most overhwleming emotional experiences I've ever had as a reader. In one carefully timed, precisely balanced sentence, Nabokov turned the world around. I was walking when I read it, and had to stop and sit because I was almost overcome with sobbing.

I put aside Nabokov to catch up on some other, more recent things. Ahead of me are _Speak, Memory_, _Ada_, _Bend Sinister_, Laughter in the Dark_....

Oh, and for everyone's benefit: it is pronounced nah-BOW-kov, not NAHH-baahh-kov.

A little This-UH, A Little That-UH
Michael Mayhew: Anubis Gates is Tim Powers most widely read book, the one that twenty five years after initial publication he says is still most likely to hear from fans about. It's as good as any to start your Powers trip with, but because of its (well deserved!) popularity I like to pass over it with this sort of mention (and it is a GREAT BOOK, don't take me ill on that!) and instead mention some other favorites from the Powers oeuvre.

His two World Fantasy Award winners for Best Novel of the year, "Last Call" and "Declare" are such works of sheer inventiveness and wonder that I dare to say are each unique. He created in each a New Type of fantasy. How many writers ever do that once?

Starting with either would be great.

"On Stranger Tides" is perhaps his runniest as well as most adventurous tale. Hard to say, as his humor pops up in all his books and they are ALL rousing adventures as well as everything else they are. If you have a soft spot in your literary affections for pirates, zombies of the West Indian variety and voodoo, go for this one.

Powers and that movie franchise: Without telling tales out of school, I will just say that Powers is well aware of the striking resemblance between a novel of his and the franchise. Again, without telling what I cannot, I will say that he has been in contact with certain people connected with the film franchise, matters have developed not unpromisingly, but "Further Deponent..."

My visit with Fritz: It was in September of 1979. I was with my friend, the SF writer R. P. Bird (he's published exactly two stories, though he's written scads more than that, and mostly never submitted it for personal reasons. His first story, :The Soft Heart of the Electron" (Aboriginal Magazine gave it the cover!) actually got an Honorable Mention in the Gardner Dozois "Best of the Year" anthology some twenty years back, so he's not without talent, understating the case massively).

We were paupers. College students who drove north from LA with eighty bucks in a Toyota. We stayed in a fleabag hotel not far from Leibers' digs, and spent an afternoon visiting with him there. We took a late lunch at a deli sort of place across the street and down a block perhaps from Leiber;s building. I seem to recall Leiber saying something about Hamlet, and suspect it was John's Grill. I seem to recall, with great chagrin, that Leiber insisted on buying us lunch, feeling somewhat guilty as well as somewhat relieved as we were both pretty broke ourselves. There was also a sense of Leiber wanting to maintain a certain sense of (I don't know how to put this) "gentility" (?), decorum, self-respect by acting as host and picking up the tab. He was courtly. No other word for it.

Leiber was dignified, his spare, tiny room was clean, orderly, piled with books and awards on every shelf, and reeked of a certain and well earned senses of self. You knew you were in the presence of someone who mattered. He never had to say it, even hint at it. It was self evident. "Ecce homo!", to steal from the Bible.

The best evidence for Harlan's right to toot his horn NOW is that for thirty years I did not know that Leiber got out of that little place on Geary St. with Harlan's help. I knew that Harlan was aware at that time, or shortly thereafter, of Leibers situation,. and had made note of it loudly and publicly at the time as something over which ought the SF world feel shame. I always SUSPECTED Harlan put his money where his mouth was , but I never KNEW (until now) that he HAD done so, and Do You Really Think I Was Gonna Go And Ask Him About It? T’weren’t none o’ my business.

I am glad to know the story now. Toot that horn, Harlan.

Anyone who has not. Read “Midnight by the Morphy Watch” for a taste of Leiber the chess Grand Master. Then read "Catch That Zeppelin" for Leiber the historian and master of human affairs. Finish with “Coming Attrraction" for some of Leiber the Science Fiction genius, and then ask yourself how in the hell one man could write at that level in such wildly different directions? For over fifty years?

Oh, and he could act. Won an SF convention masquerade once with a turned up collar, half a dozen or so bits of cardboard, some eyebrow pencil and his formidable thespian skills. He appeared in the 1940 "Hunchback of Notre Dame" in a walk on, with his father as a bit player in the same film. Not to mention both appeared with Garbo in “Camille”.

His father was a bona fide Silent Movie Star, as well as Shakespearean Super Star on the stage, with his own touring company in which Fritz Junior appeared.

If there is an aristocracy of talent, the Leibers are there.

What a family.

What a man.

KOS

ER...harumph...

Michael. That should've been Mannahatta with 2 nuhz. Sorry, kid.

Imperfect Ellison, as ain't we all.

MICHAEL IN MANAHATTA:

Uh...

No knives. Nabokov is a passion of mine.

Nonetheless, he CANNOT be on a US stamp, not anywhichway under normal non-extraordinary pushing-the-envelope tautologically rational circumstances, WITHIN the parameters (which I wish to kryste already you'd fucking LOOK UP, unless the USPS decides to do a series of Greatest Writers Ever Who Came to LIVE in America, such as Huxley, Hesse, Weil, Coward, and on and on and on by the hundreds, Michael sweetie buhbie darlin'

BECAUSE
BECAUSE
BECAUSE

Vladimir Nabokov

was

RRRRRUSSSSSSSSIANNNNNNN!

You twit.

Palishly frosted, Yrs., Harlan

FRITZ LEIBER
I well remember reading about Harlan INSPIRING Fritz Leiber to move to better living quarters in San Francisco, but I never knew that Harlan SUBSIDIZED the move. The move I remember reading about took place in 1977. If that's the one Harlan is referring to, I don't think he's ever disclosed that he paid for it.

What I remember started in the special Harlan Ellison issue of F&SF (July 1977). In Harlan's essay "You Don't Know Me, I Don't Know You" he excoriated Putnam's for the pitiful promotion they gave to Leiber's novel OUR LADY OF DARKNESS in an issue of Publishers Weekly. In the same essay he angrily noted that while mediocre books made the bestseller lists, an unnamed major sf writer "lives in a one-room apartment in the slum section of a major American city, sitting on the edge of his bed with his typewriter on a kitchen chair, his Hugos shoved away on a high shelf because he hasn't room for them in that cramped space where he exists in poverty." When I read the essay back then I wasn't sharp enough to guess that the unnamed writer was Leiber, but others were, and they got in touch with Leiber. (For those interested, Harlan's essay can also be found in his book Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed.)

Leiber wrote about this in Richard E. Geis' fanzine Science Fiction Review (no. 24, Feb. 1978). In a letter dated September 16, 1977 (two days after his move), he wrote about the circumstances that kept him too long in his run-down room, such as: a few years of drinking (he doesn't say so, but this happened after the death of his wife, Jonquil); a struggle to get back on the wagon; a period of concentrated writing and a subsequent period when he just "lazed along". When Harlan's essay was published and Leiber heard from friends and fans who made the connection between Putnam's failure to promote a new Leiber novel and a major sf writer living in poverty, the concern "warmed my heart forever."

"That did it," Leiber wrote. "I knew that, while not exactly affluent, I was certainly well able to afford better and more spacious quarters and had only been delaying out of indolence, an unwillingness to make any sort of a physical change, and a somewhat perverse delight in the seedy side of life. So I stirred myself and after a bit things opened up and I found the task of finding a new dwelling not nearly as formidable as it had seemed in anticipation."

So that's all I know about the move. And unless Harlan or Leiber disclosed Harlan's role in some other public venue, that's all anyone on the outside knows. So, Harlan, you shouldn't be rueful that no one remembers your generosity. This may be the first time you've mentioned it in public!

Our Lady of Darkness
Harlan,

A minor correction. The first edition of "Our Lady of Darkness" was published by Berkley/Putnam, not Tor. Of course you're quite right that it wasn't given the publicity it deserved, and for many years was among Leiber's least known works, even though it won the World Fantasy Award. But (grrrrr!) it got around well enough to be strip-mined for a plot gimmack in the film "Ghostbusters."

Almost as annoying: when Orb republished the book, in an omnibus volume called "Dark Ladies" and including "Conjure Wife," they quoted you on the cover---but apparently didn't bother to SEND you a copy. Thus, when you promoted the book in your listing of great fantasy novels for THE WEEK, you said it was out of print.

But it wasn't. It was on the shelves with this on the cover:

"For anyone who loves great literature, Fritz Leiber walked on water." -- Harlan Ellison

Well, they at least understood the value of associating your name with it, right?

--Alex

Back from a business trip, had time to read.
I browsed through "Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce" by Albert Goldman (from the journalism of Lawrence Schiller). It makes for interesting reading, even though it suffers from a similar syndrome that a biography I read about Ernie Kovacs did; it seems to try to be as hip or funny as it's subject matter.

In any case, it has some nice firsthand accounts of seeing Bruce and puts certain routines into context (i.e., he enjoyed performing, "Comic at the Palladium", but stopped doing it after a while).

What struck me about Bruce is that in his use of language and the subjects he addressed, one could make a case for excess and obscentiy, although there are some that felt he was censored, tortured, etc. over his irreverent views of religion. Given his trailblazing approach, which combined "blue" language, which was not uncommon in those days (B.S. Pully or Redd Foxx both had their moments) and intellect, one could view some of what has come afterward with disdain. Someone mentioned one of Martin Lawrence's routine which has some EXTREMELY foul-for-foul's sake content.

On a slightly related subject, Ezra also mentioned the dearth of good popular music. I dislike such sweeping analogies, although Ezra may certainly have the credentials to make such assumptions. I think back to what Steve Race said, "When you turn 35, something terrible happens to music." I believe that when many of us age, this is true, not because of an invisible squaresville IV, but because as some of us get older, we look less ardently for what we consider to be "good stuff", or to put it another way, we become less willing to kiss as many frogs to find Prince (sorry, that one was too easy).

I think that the advantage of a time like this is that there are many more ways to find a lot of music or read something good that just didn't get the press. The downside is that the loons and the charlatans walk in with the geniuses and sometimes, squeeze out the brilliant ones out of sheer number.

All that to say this: the ride of freedom is a great one, but it needs a height requirement. Not everyone measures up.

Brian Phillips

Fritz Leiber Jr.
He, quite simply, must be read. He can chill you every time you look at a chimney or make you think that a magical marketplace is only a 5 minute walk from your house. A Zelazny, fine as he was, may have been more showy but you were aware you were being dazzled as it was happening. With Fritz you were treated to it subtly and quietly and it was only when you reached the end of a page that you realized that you were in the center of a sun.It's only the almost willful ignorance of the academy (that huzzahs over Roth's PLOT as if it had never been done before ) that keeps Fritz out of the canon. Where is his Library Of America volume ? If the Modern Library can put out TOPPER (and ironically Thorne Smith is unjustly ignored ) why can't it put out THE BIG TIME ? Or CONJURE WIFE?

FOR NICK MAMATAS-YOU FUCKING BOTTOM FEEDING FUCK FACE

Or excuse me "GARY",you erstwhile learned prick!.You cowardly erudite swine! Am I to swoon to your astute observations?You low gutter back stabbing FUCK! I would have left comments on YOUR blog but the site is equally mind fucking and uninteresting.Do something positive with your time you pimple-faced fuck.

Niceties and Not-so's

We spent the weekend in full filmwatching mode.

Went to see UP. Probably Pixar's most contemplative and intelligent film to date -- and that's saying a lot. Very poignant.

At home, watched CHANGELING. Also worthy of a look-see. Not for the faint of heart, this deals with humanity at our worst. And our best. If you liked films like CHINATOWN, please see this. Harlan's friend Joe wrote a phenomenal script that pulls no punches.
________________________________________________

On reviews.

"He who listens intently to the judgements of fools, aspires to be little more than king of the fools."

There will always be naysayers. Always. If our egos may be pierced by their solitary arrows, no single artist would produce more than a single piece of art.

My two pesos.

Of course people don't read, ya eggheads, schools teach just enough so that they can produce easily controllable little robots who will be able to count the change when they take your order at Mickey D's.

They cut out art and culture from school funding. They teach kids to read, but that's only so that they can see which brand of product to pick off the shelf at Sam's Club.

If you read you think, if you think you become independent, if you become independent you become dangerous...

This be why books aint shit to da masses. Readin aint be fundamental, but picking your nose is.

"genius writing isn't very visually interesting"

Yeah, I like that. That's good. Sort of has the essence of a gaseous embolism from Duyea's last round of brain surgery.

From the Vault of Ages...
"There are really only two kinds of people in the world. One kind are the Mugs. The opposite of the Mugs are the Spivs -- also called wide boys, smart guys, hooligans, louts or racketeers. The Mugs are the people who are some use in the world: the people who do something worthwhile for others instead of just grabbing for themselves all the time. Of course the Spivs snigger at that. They use the word Mug as an insult. 'Aren't they mugs?' they say about people who believe in living for something bigger than themselves." -- Marcus Morris, "Eagle" No. 1, 1950

It came to mind, for some reason.

----- Philatelic Matters -----
Consider:
* Long-dead (1977)
* American ("...as April in Arizona")
* Indeed, the greatest American writer of the 20th century -- arguably (and I can already hear the knives being sharpened...)
* Author of "Ada", "The Waltz Invention", "Lance", "Bend Sinister", "Invitation to a Beheading", and "The Vane Sisters", to pick only the low-hanging fantastica -- and shouldn't that be enough for one mortal?
So ... why NOT Nabokov? Because he'd likely throw an OED at anyone venturing to pin a "genre" label on him? ("There is only one school: that of talent.") Well, that might be a compelling reason; but what OTHER than that? Should his qualifying works represent a greater percentage of his oeuvre? What percentage? Anyhow, just thought it was an issue worth hashing out. (Oh, and might it also be helpful to agree on how strictly the term "fantasist" should be applied, as distinct both from "mainstream writer" and from "science-fiction writer" or "speculative-fiction writer"? Fair question, I think, since for example Edmond Hamilton, one of the original nominees, though he wrote a substantial amount of fantasy, especially early in his career, is no doubt far more widely identified as an "s-f writer".) (And Harlan, believe me, I well recall your opinions on genre pigeonholing, but I frankly don't see how such matters can be wholly avoided in a quest for "Great American Fantasists"!)

Thou Art Gawd,
Michael

P.S.: Why Sturgeon MUST, somehow, someday, be on a stamp: "It Was Nothing -- Really!" Perforation is its own reward. Q.E.D.

The Pirates of Dark Water, Solomon Kane film, etc.
Harlan - I've always considered The Pirates of Dark Water one of the finer Saturday morning cartoons in the history of that medium. I had no idea you contributed voice acting to the show before studying your IMDb page last week. I'm having a great time watching those episodes again with the interest of finding your work in them.

This is also a good time to thank you for the Dreams With Sharp Teeth screening at the Writer's Guild Theater. And for signing my copy of Spider Kiss. Thanks.

Dennis C. from Glendale - I managed to catch an advance screening of the Solomon Kane flick. James Purefoy was a worthy leading man, and there were some distinctly Howardian moments (including a church basement full of ghouls fed lovingly by Mackenzie Crook's demented Father Michael). I had a good time, but they failed to introduce the villain proper until the film's climax. I'll site Conan the Barbarian by Milius and Co. as a better, more magical movie that will still be worth watching long after the oceans drink Atlantis, er- Los Angeles.

Re: where Leiber lived
For the Leiber fans:

I remember when I lived in San Francisco, I went one time on the 4-hour Dashiell Hammett Tour(http://www.donherron.com/tour.html).
We visited many places in those four hours, and the tour ended with me and a couple of people dining at the historic John's Grill (great lamb chops!), where they had a copy of the Maltese falcon before it was stolen a couple of years back. Anyway, even though the tour was devoted to Dashiell Hammett-related sites, I thought it was very poignant when our tour guide stopped at 811 Geary St. and mentioned that there was where Fritz Leiber lived at one time. You can see the picture of his building at the link below:
http://www.mistersf.com/literary/index.html?litleiber.htm

Literature
A second post, but it's quiet, and I'll take tomorrow off to make amends if needs be, but two things I feel I should attend:

First, as Harlan once pointed out, most of us who toil in the word mines were not fit to carry Fritz's pencil box when he was with us, and that he was served so poorly by the reading public, as were Ted Sturgeon and Bob Sheckley and a host of others is a sad commentary on life in the genre ghetto -- abetted mind you, by the literary elite who thinks all that *all* speculative fiction, unless it was by Vonnegut or Lessing, is pot-boiling crap.

For stepping up in this charity alone, Harlan ought to earn whatever stars might be given out in whatever literary heaven there might be.

And in that vein -- given our Leibers and Sturgeons and Sheckleys, et all -- who gets to decide what is literature and what is a mere pot-boiler ought to be up for review. A lot of what the locals thought was populist tripe grew up to be Shakespeare or Dickens or Moby Fucking Dick. Probably better not to go down that road, hey? Time it gets all sorted all, we'll all be long dead.

My opinion and a dime will you get ten pennies -- if somebody wants to bother making change. That saw cuts other ways. Those folks who claim that a) nobody reads any more, that b) no good books are being written any more, that c) movies, TV, comics, computers, or Twitter have killed literature simply aren't paying attention.

a) They do, b) there are, and c) they haven't. Sturgeon's Law still applies, thank you kindly.

ARGHH!!
...that would be my DVD Verdict **review** (smacks self in head with Birmingham yellow pages).

Harlan/Susan
I dropped copies of my DVD Verdict in the mail today; sorry it took so long, but my youngest was in the hospital for a week w/ a staph infection, and it took a while to dig out at work.

There's also a check for HERC membership and an order for "Paladin of the Lost Hour"--When you spoke in Birmingham in '86, you read that story, so the CD will be like recapturing the past.

TO THE ANONYMOUS "GARY"

...who posted the unremittingly negative review of DREAMS from some equally anonymous doryphore, in hopes it would demoralize or pink me.

As I've said many times before, quoting (it was either John Simon or Gore Vidal, both acquaintances of mine, Ellison added, strictly to make the blogger "cringe" anew), "Well, if one seeks the approbation of monkeys..."

Or (Ellison added redux, just to sink the barb deeper) to quote William Blake from PROVERBS OF HELL, "Listen to the fool's reproach! it is a kingly title!"

If I had a dime for every spewing mudmouth who, at far less age than mine, and who has accomplished less in all those years despite his/her sophomoric arrogance than I have, in any given year beyond age nineteen (when I sold my first story), I would have WELL OVER $300,000. Apparently no matter how much good work you do, no matter how many Good Works you perform, no matter how large an impact you may have had on your times, because they are cranky nasty child-products of a shabby and narrow pop culture rife with the stench of me me me gimme gimme gimme...a venue that stinks of cultural amnesia salt&peppered with selfishness&rudeness...with the plopping into their ichor-dripping claws some electronic blabbering device, everything goes away. Or never existed. Or has grown too old and out-of-touch with THEIR grand fevers(notably heavymetal, Sanjaya, Micahel Bay Transformer FX, the scent of Paris Hilton's thong, MEtubeYOUtubeIpodWiisqueal) And all that counts to them, all of which they're even cognizant, is what happened to THEM...today.

Goodbye Bradbury. Goodbye Lieber. Goodbye Aeschylus. Goodbye Pliny the Elder. Goodbye Donald Westlake. Goodbye Faulkner and Harvey Swados and William March and Leigh Brackett. Goodbye Owen Wister. Goodbye Shirley Jackson. Goodbye all and every...for the sin of not being recognized by a jealous semiliterate jackalpak of craven wannabes do-nothings and toadstool-licking fanboys who have pudding for memory, dust for generosity, rust for respect. They who post as you would have me cry over, Gary; those who, fear the day their mommies and daddies pitch them out into the krewl krewl world wherein they must perform and not just snipe. A krewl krewl world in which your pissing and sniping at those who DO, those who HAVE DONE and WILL DO, is intolerable to true strugglers against the ignorance of your shallow observations. A krewl krewl world wherein I have made my mark, for good or ill; and yet...I'll be waiting for them, kris in hand.

The score, Gary, is ME: everything; YOU: no name at all.

Harlan Ellison

KOS .... ANDREW LAUBACHER ... et al
RE: Fritz Leiber living in seedy suroundings.

As often, and as often UNWARRANTEDLY, as I toot my own horn, I herewith puff up as greatly as the biggest self-serving ass in the universe (Limbaugh large) to advise you--and anyone else--that I am amazed, saddened, furiously angry and rueful that none of you heft a memory short/long enough to know that it was no less than I

that would be ME

I, me, Harlan

whose frenzy of heartbreaking sorrow at how my beloved friend Fritz had been treated by Fame and Fortune, sitting on the side of his bed in that squirrel-hole, typing out OUR LADY OF DARKNESS with typewriter on a wooden chair...only to have that GREAT novel listed in the Tor preview catalogue, on a miserable half-page, AFTER the cookbooks and New Age prophecy shit, as good as dismissed...

It was

I / me / Harlan

who bought and paid for his move from there to a small, but nice, very decent, enclave in San Francisco, some time before he died and could appreciate it. There is a photo here in Ellison Wonderland of dear Fritz and me, sitting and holding hands across a dinner table, each of us holding an award. I believe it was Fritz's Grand Master, and one of my Nebulas.

We are smiling at each other.

I loved him beyond measure; and thus, I do not give a damn who makes note of my self-serving hot air endeavor. For Fritz, I would accept with glory any and every bit of opprobrium my venal
full-time-employed-detractors would unload on me.

He was magnificent.

And if this stamp thing goes anywhere, I promise you I will kill entire populations that might stand in the way of Fritz being in that first postal pantheon.

He was magnificent.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Robert E. Howard
Did anybody know there was a movie made from Howard's SOLOMON KANE character? (Looks like a foreign production that may never open here in the U.S.) And that Peter Berg is prepping a BRAN MAK MORN project? Geez, suddenly he's hot stuff.
I actually preferred Solomon Kane and Bran Mak Morn to the Conan stories, but maybe that's because I'm an iconoclast or something...
But I'm certain such projects will bring more readers to Howard's stories.

Steve, while I do agree...
... on several things you've posted, including that reading has long been something of an elitist activity, and I disagree with some posters here that words on a screen are worthless, let's not get carried away here.

While there may be more being published today than yesterday and so forth, it still means nothing if most of it is more pot boiled crap.

Post Literate?

Ezra --

Reports on the death of publishing and dwindling numbers of readers are perhaps not as cut and dried as you would have it.

To wit: More than four hundred thousand books were published and distributed in this country in 2007. That's up a hundred thousand over 2006. (Fun number of the day: If you started reading a book a day, every day, from now until the day you die, and you live to be, oh, say, a hundred and twenty years old, you wouldn't be able to read all the books published *last year alone,* much less make a dent in the vast extent of the human library.)

That doesn't count the self-published stuff, nor the eighty-six million blogs, nor your Aunt Sally's diary.

Somebody is reading these -- else they wouldn't be harvesting all those trees and electrons in order to offer them for sale.

Percentage-wise, reading has always been an elite sport -- only a relatively small number of people in any era have read for pleasure, and the last research I saw on that -- forgive me if I can't lay hands on it for the nonce -- indicates that that percentage has always been in the single-digits.

I have several grandsons, all of whom over the age of three might as well have a computer screen grafted to their foreheads. But all of them are readers -- the oldest boy got an iPhone for his birthday and was ecstatic over it. He also got a pile of books -- they are all readers online and off.

If two million people buy your next novel, your editor and publisher will turn handsprings of joy -- unless you are King, Auel, Clancy, Grisham, or maybe Nora Roberts -- then they will smile politely and go about their business. Ho, hum.

Go back thirty years and find a list of bestsellers who sold as many books with any kind of consistency. (The number one selling book last year -- not Harry Potter -- is the same one that has been the number one selling book for the past fifty years. Do I need to say what it is?)

Unless you are one of those folks who sneer at pop fiction as completely non-literate, the publishing industry hasn't had the stake driven through its heart just yet ...

An *interesting* review of Dreams With Sharp Teeth: http://nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com/1329121.html

Books-to-Film
KOS wrote: "I visited Fritz Leiber when he lived in a rooftop apartment (no, not a penthouse!) in a not very good section of San Francisco (not the worst, but trust me, it was not Nob Hill!), His living space was about rhe size of a large closet. He would have LOVED to have some schlockmeister make a film of ANY of his classic books and stories. The money would have gotten him into someplace where he could have written in a different room than he slept and ate."

I know that Leiber's CONJURE WIFE has been adapted into film at least three times. I suppose that in that earlier era he wasn't paid nearly as much as he would have been today for the screen rights.

I tend to agree with Adam-Troy Castro's comments below. I doubt that I would have ever read THE THREE MUSKETEERS in fourth grade if I hadn't been aware of various adaptations of the novel in film, television and cartoons. Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY led me to Arthur C. Clarke at the tender age of ten--which, in turn, led me to Heinlein, Asimov, Bradbury, etc. I still speculate on which current filmmaker would be able to bring Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser to dark, sardonic life on the silver screen (or in a TV or direct-to-video miniseries).

Re: Tim Powers
Hey, Michael Mayhew:

Start with his historical fantasy adventure, THE ANUBIS GATES, and LAST CALL, an occult thriller about Las Vegas. Powers is always a terrific read.

You folks are posting about a war that was lost long ago. The first generation that grew up with TV killed literate culture. That doesn't mean nobody reads of course. My mother read to me when I was young and I now probably do three or four books a week. I figure most of you are like me otherwise you wouldn't be posting here.

But even in this forum look how much more the conversation revolves around movies and TV rather than it does about literature and books! And this in a forum dedicated to a master short story writer and essayist.

Folks we're DINOSAURS.

We had a good run but the future belongs to the rodents scuttling around in the roots of trees furtively pawing their Ipods.

Iain - speaking strictly as a former kid: While it's good to have books around the house, I don't think kids that age will read what their parents like or own. It's better to steer them towards libraries and especially bookstores and to try to get them books for birthdays and Christmas that they might enjoy, and book coupons. It's also good to have magazines - any writing of interest that is not on a screen.
--
Current subject in the Annex: parents and grandparents in wars.

Reading
I always appreciated how my mother 'brainwashed' me into becoming a reader. Any time she had the chance she'd always mention that our family members were all great readers. I distinctly remember being about seven years old and thinking, "Okay, if we're all such great readers, maybe I should see what it's all about." By the second book, something clicked in my head and I could see the events of the story in my head as I read the words. The rest, as they say, is history.

For what it's worth, though, there are still readers out there. I recently got a Kindle e-reader as a gift and when I'm reading out in public I always draw a crowd of people curious about it and they pretty much always tell me how much they love to read. I think the readers are still among us, they're just getting drowned out by the gamers/viewers.

Jan S.

Movies From Books
Kristian:

I bow to no one else in the horror I feel in encounters with a younger generation that simply never learned to pick up books as an entertainment choice; I grew up with the usual number of anti-literate wahoos, but I remember kids who lugged Salinger and Orwell and Asimov and Ellison through school between classes, not because those books were assigned, but because they wanted to, and I bemoan their replacement with a generation that must always have something electronic in its hands, instead.

However, your horror at worthwhile novels being made into movies is simply misplaced. That is not a factor in illiteracy, not at all.

Oh, sure, you have some kids so bereft at the prospect of reading EAST OF EDEN (for instance; though few teachers would dare to assign such a long book, today) that if they discover the existence of the James Dean movie they'll rent it and watch, telling themselves that it's a substitute even though it only adapts two chapters in the middle; but the fact is that this is a highly isolated phenomenon, connected only to assigned reading in schools. (And the lesser phenomenon of social book clubs, where you will always have a few people there for the coffee and cake who moan about the books being too haaaaaarrrrd and who give up after one or two chapters; we have a couple of attendees, at one I run (that our host addressed by phone) who don't even respect the pretense enough to buy the damn books, but who "enjoy hearing about them," and again, what are you gonna do?)

But that's not why your fear is misguided.

In truth, even in those cases where exposure to the movie discourages a potential reader from reading a specific novel, an actual, potential reader -- somebody who reads by inclination rather than assignment -- will simply go on to a **different** novel. (That is, except for those frequent cases where the reader decides to check out the book anyway: for instance, the young me and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST.) It is inconceivable for someone who habitually eschews reading as a pastime to somehow wander into a bookstore, see DROOD by Dan Simmons, and say, "Gee, I'm interested in that story, but since there's no movie, I now have no alternative other than reading it." That guy will not enter the bookstore except to have coffee at the cafe, if that. He will not look at the books except as the objects he must navigate beyond, if that. He will not be interested enough to read the blurbs on the flap and he will not be intrigued by the premise. DROOD does not enter his universe at all and will only enter his universe if and when a film is made -- and even then only if it's a big-budget, well-advertised blockbuster, as opposed to some smaller production championed by critics that motivated film fans seek out in smaller venues. A guy who doesn't read only wants the obvious stuff, the stuff handed to him, and will not even place himself in the position of making the decision.

On the other hand? That guy? If he happens across a paperback movie edition copy of REVOLUTIONARY ROAD by Richard Yates and sees Kate and Leo on the cover? If he is the type of guy who attempts a novel once a year, he might recall seeing the movie and kinda liking it, or at least seeing the comic attraction, and the chances of him reading the book, or at least buying it, are, fractionally, increased. Fractionally. More so if the novel is the source of an action blockbuster, or the latest crusade by Oprah.

At which point we talk about whether movie adaptations damage individual novels in some way. Two possibilities here: the movie sucks. Fine. People will forget it, and if the novel stays in print, it's on its own merits. Or the movie is tremendously good and the book has a good shot of remaining in in print, a perennial, for as long as the movie remains in the national consciousness. Do you believe that Mario Puzo's novel THE GODFATHER, as fun a potboiler as it was, would have been still in print thirty years after its original publication, now going on forty, if not for Marlon Brando giving people an offer they couldn't refuse? Do the many adaptations of THE THREE MUSKETEERS -- from the sublime Richard Lester version to to the gamey Disney one -- aid or hurt its name recognition among new readers looking for something they might like, and who will now be slightly more inclined to check out something so fat, foreign, and old?

Seriously, Kristian: if Robert Downey Jr. as SHERLOCK HOLMES is half the movie I suspect it may be, there will be **more** sales of THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES by Conan Doyle, not less. Many more. It might make a brief appearance on the NY TIMES bestseller lists.

So to summarize: readers are not put off reading novels by the existence of movies based on them; the worst they do is move on to different novels. Sometimes they read the novels anyway. Non-readers? Were never among the audience for those novels, but might be slightly more moved to attempt them, if they now have movie-level recognition. Movie adaptations? May be good, may be bad, but if good (or at least popular) impact to the book's benefit, not otherwise.

Movies are, seriously, not the problem.

functional Illiteracy
I found Kristian's comments very interesting.

For mself, I have always been big reader. I loved and still do love nothing more than reading a good story. My personal taste is for science fiction, fantasy and horror. Though I will read non fiction too on occassion. I am also a collector of books and I try to find first editions where possible and older editions generally where its not.

The thing that appauls me though is my step son. He is about 13 years old and simply will not read a book. He would rather sit in front of a TV screen and watch a movie on dvd or play an XBox 360 game than read. Frankly that just boils my pish (as we say in Dumfries) and I dont know what to do about it. I have a pretty extensive collection of books, many that are approriate for someone his age, and he will simply walk past them and not even give them a second glance. I have tried suggesting books I think he'd enjoy and he is just not interested so long as he can get his fix of games.

I dont know if this is a generation thing or not. I myself play games and I love good films but I also go out of my way to read as well. Maybe I come from a generation that doesnt like being sppon fed answers and prefer to make up our own minds, though I doubt that very much having seen some of the morons of my age going about. Maybe us readers are a dying breed and the world of Fahrenheit 451 is closer than we think or fear it could be.

The biggest question though is this. How do we inspire the young to read when they get instant gratification from games, TV and the internet? How do we get them not only to ask questions but to make up their own opinions, ideas and not accept the dumbed down answers that TV forces down their throats. Are we losing another generation of kids who will go through life unable or unwilling to read?

I ask this mostly because I see how bad my niece is. 18 years old and read and writes at the level of an 8 year old. She claims to be dyslexic which is bullshit. I know people who are dyslexic and she is not one of them. She is sloppy, lazy and useless through her own choice and lack of motivation. Frankly I am terrified my step son will end up the same way. I got a good education, went to college, but still ended up as a train driver (well paid job but not a good one). What hope for the my kids if they dont work at reading?

Iain

Crisps! Crisps! Crisps!

Harlan,

as your officially sanctioned purveyor of Builder's Breakfast Crisps, I write to inform you that a quantity of said snacks are now in the postal system en route to HERC HQ.

I hope you're not already sick of these moreish treats. (You soon will be!)

- Phil

Tim Powers

KOS and Kristian (or anybody else) - I am utterly ignorant of the works of Tim Powers. I have heard his name before but that's about it. I seek enlightenment and recommendations. Which of his books would you say are either the must-reads or the ones to begin with?

From what you say I think I would like the guy. I promise to buy new copies at full price. Please advise.

Best,

MM

Mrs Ellison's ass
Just finished watching the marvellous 'Dreams With Sharp Teeth'.

As an old friend of Sue's from England who hasn't seen her since Ellison stole her from us, I can state hand-on-heart, that it was a truly surreal experience to hear an actual real-life, genuine, bona-fide movie star, Robin Williams, waxing poetic about her ass.

However, I fear for the aesthetically pleasing proportions of her much admired derrière in light of the imminent arrival of a case of Walkers' Builder's Breakfast potato crisps.

On the subject of which, let's all thank whatever runs the universe that the Chilli 'n' Chocolate flavour (I kid you not) didn't win the aforementioned 'Do Us a Flavour' contest. These tasted like something that might have been ejected from a Sumerian plague demon's hind quarters. One bite and I almost chucked my cookies!

Builder's Breakfast was the very worthy winner and does indeed achieve the Wonkaesque miracle that Harlan describes.

Movies, Money, and Mooks
First off, I apologize for the second post. Mea culpas all around, and I promise to pay penance to eldritch gods of the Internet as soon as I can get around to it. Rick, don't beat me. I'd wait until tomorrow, but it's going to be a busy day and I don't want to get my response to KOS lost in the sea of comments between now and then.

That said...

KOS,

I agree with everything you said, except where I don't. I think you're spot on with your entire argument, and it explains the primary reason why I DO go see any movie or buy any game or comic or what-have-you that ties back to a writer who's work I admire. (If you could see me, I'm pointing over my shoulder to the I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream computer game on the shelf behind me.)

You're also absolutely, positively, 100% correct about the travesty and shame the world should feel regarding Tim Powers. By way of example of just how wrong it is that he hasn't seen the proverbial ship come in yet, I submit the injustice of On Stranger Tides. That book inspired a well-known and influential computer game series that then went on to more directly inspire (ie, was almost completely cribbed by) one of the most successful Hollywood movie franchises of recent memory. And, while one of the richest and most powerful corporations in the world reaps the financial rewards, Tim stays in the classroom because he needs the paycheck.

However, I still remain committed to the idea that movies from books are a Bad Idea. Why? Because the practice keeps people from reading. When all the best books will be made into movies, where is the incentive for the increasing population of waterheads to buy a book? Just wait a little while and it'll be a movie that you can go sit down and passively watch, rather than having to think and imagine all on your own.

As you say, "eyes on the prize" - in the short term, movies from books help the writers who are fortunate enough to have their work optioned, no question. However, in the long term, everybody loses because fewer and fewer people are reading, which means less people are buying fewer books with every passing year, which hurts the rest of the 99% of writers who don't see their work bought by a studio, and perpetuates the cycle of Screwing The Writer.

It's not that I think all movies will destroy the source material, even though they often do. Watchmen was a superior adaptation of the graphic novel, and I enjoyed it. I love to go and watch a film adaptation of a favorite book, because I enjoyed the source material and enjoy seeing it acted out in front of me. However, I'm (like most everyone else here, I imagine) one of those people who reads first and watches second. The population and at large, however...well, they watch first and last, and that's it.

Anyway, that's my stance on it. I firmly support every writer I admire in every way I can, and will always continue to do so. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need movies to bolster the coffers of our literary greats - but it's not a perfect world, and if we're going to fight the good fight and get more actual books purchased off of store shelves - and more writers paid a decent, livable income from those sales - then we need to get more people reading. Not watching.

We're fighting a war against the vast and overwhelming armies of the functionality illiterate, and we're losing. We'll probably always be losing, but as long as we keep fighting, there's hope. Stop, and we might as well pack it up and join their mouth-breathing, jellyheaded ranks. Turn our brains to goo with movies and TV, and it'll be easier for the corporations to scoop them out and replace them with explosions, giant robots, and T&A. The future is CGI, silicon, and latex visions of endless sequels and revisions of Nothing, and I for one don't want to live there.

My two pennies,
Kristian

So I bought a burka...and it hasn't shown up yet...
You see, I just wanted to walk the streets of San Francisco in anonymity, but the Postal Service (bwahahaha) thwarted my plans. Here is the response I received from the company selling the aforementioned cloak. I'm afraid that even magical stamps can't help me now.

"wa Alaykum AsSalaamu wa Rahmatullahi ya ukhtee fid deenillahi,

Inshaa Allah we hope that this email finds you and your family in the best of eman and good health. Inshaa Allah we will try to
ease your mind as all things are in the hands of Allah Azza wa Jal, however, we do understand your position barakallahu feeki.

Tayyib, first and foremost please don't be overly concern bi'itinillah. All of our packages are 100% insured (not by us but
automatically by the local postal authorities). This means that the items that were shipped out are completed insured and will
be replaced at our expense if necessary. We will look into your last shipment and obtain the status of it and then if necessary
send you a replace out with 1-2 days bi'itinillah.

Your order was shipped out by Egyptian Post Office on registered number RS000828636EG to be delivered.

Again I am so sorry and ask that you please forgive us. Some things are out of our control as these package change
many hands. We try our best to fulfill our responsibilities to the best of our ability and we sometime are blamed for delays in
the delivery of the packages when the post offices make errors or mistakes. Please forgive us.

Inshaa Allah if you have any additional question please feel free to contact us and we hope that your mind is at ease for now.
Barakallahu feekum
Your sister in deen
name deleted"

Lori-- you especially should get a kick out of this! :) If the darn thing arrives maybe I should wear it to the next party we go to? ;)

Dennis Thompson -- are you saying Susan is married to an incredible ass?

Dreams With Sharp Teeth
Finally got to watch it after an annoyingly long wait.
I'm a huge fan of documentaries, and HE, so it's a no brainer that I loved DWST.
I was enthralled, saddened, enlightened, and howled with laughter.
I got reacquainted with old friends, and made some new ones.
And most importantly heard the angelic voice of Susan for the first time. ( And truly, she does have an incredible ass! )
I must get the DVD to enjoy this incredible documentary again, and for the extra features. I even took our humble narrator, and host's advice, and turned of the TV, and opened a tome of long forgotten lore, and read.

Thanks to all involved in this fine production.

Gary - The Rod Serling Memorial Foundation pushed for 20 years to get Serling on his own commemorative stamp, without success.

He IS coming to a USPS location near you on August 11, but as part of an Early TV Memories stamp sheet. I suspect this will be Serling's only shot for some time to come.

Which is a shame, because the USPS gave Nixon such a nice portrait on his...

Writers - book - movie: The Way It Is
Look, folks, the ONE thing that turning a living writers book into a movie ensures (and yes, this would leave out At The Mountains Of Madness, since old EchPeeEl shuffled of this Mortal Coil some three-quarters of a century back) is that it nearly always puts a truckload of geld in the bank account of that writer.

If you like a living writers work, then you ought be ec-fucking-static that anything she's written is made into an authorized film/TV/radio drama/video game/kabuki play/Broadway musical./Punch and Judy Show or Peking Opera. The piles and piles of simoleons such an adaptation will shovel into the deserving pockets of said writer will enable him to quit the day job (and believe me, they almost ALL have day jobs that rob us BLIND of the work they are MEANT to be doing if the world were set to rights) and then they might WRITE more stories that will be there for you and posterity.

What would you give for one more story by, oh, Lovecraft, or Heinlein, or Cordwainer Smith? In Heinlein's case, the bucks from Destination Moon, Tom Corbett and Project Moonbase let him worry a little less about money while he wrote all those great juveniles in the fifties. Heinlein ran scared financially all his writing life, viewing his trade as akin to that of a professional gambler. ANY paycheck is incredibly valuable to writers who can NEVER count on anything coming in from their writing until it is In The Bank.

Want an example? Tim Powers, perhaps the finest American Fantasist to come along in the last thirty years, at least as good as ANY other out there in that period, able to hold his own with any heavyweight of the past, works as an English teacher at a high school. Now it's a High School for the Arts, and the kids are very special, and he loves teaching, and he is very very good at it, but but BUT: if any of several possible movie deals being bruited about (and some are very real possibilities and involve very Big Players indeed) were to come to fruition for Tim Powers, Tim could, if he wanted to, write full time, and in that case we might get more than one novel every three years from this prodigious and prodigal talent.

That's why I go see EVERY film based on a living writers novel., short story, laundry list and/or doodles, notes and idle thoughts not to mention epic poems and To Do lists.


It's that important.

Forget the Hollywood glamour train, but if you possibly can, see the movies, support them, help the writers take as much of that money as they can possibly get, for it can change the world for a working writer.

Most of the movies will be crap. 90 per cent of everything et-fucking-cetera. Some will be good. Some will bear no resemblance to the original. Deal with it. Eyes on the prize.

If it hurts your literary sensibilities to see a movie made from your favorite story, then stay home. After all, it hasn’t harmed the original. It's still there on the shelf: Go, read, enjoy. Write a fan letter to the writer if you can, and enclose a five dollar bill. Tell him that's how much you love his work.

I visited Fritz Leiber when he lived in a rooftop apartment (no, not a penthouse!) in a not very good section of San Francisco (not the worst, but trust me, it was not Nob Hill!), His living space was about rhe size of a large closet. He would have LOVED to have some schlockmeister make a film of ANY of his classic books and stories. The money would have gotten him into someplace where he could have written in a different room than he slept and ate.

He described the apartment pretty accurately in "Our Lady Of Darkness", as it was the setting for that novel, written there.

Why do people treat the writings of their faves as Holy Scripture, genuflect daily at the altar of literature, and then sneer at any that dare to send piles and piless of money in the direction of their "heroes", feearing the laying of a Hairy Hollywood Paw on their treasured literary icons? For the writer it is a classic "Oh, please don't throw me in that old Briar Patch, PUH-leeze!" situation.

Get Over It.

Ask Harlan, if you don't believe me. He's written much the same, to my best recollection, more than once,

KOS

Just a couple controversies
DTS (et al.):
Regarding high-fructose corn syrup: it would be a short list or even a null set in my case, since I always try to avoid the stuff. (All my sodas -- too many, I confess -- are Boylan brand.) Say, have we all heard about the issue of mercury contamination in HFCS? Quite possibly not, since the mainstream media have been largely silent about it; indeed, the Gray Lady's most extensive coverage of this topic remains the comment I myself posted on one of the paper's blogs back in March (http://tinyurl.com/ndtfjn). I encourage everyone who wishes to avoid ingesting substantial amounts of mercury (= everyone, yes??) to visit that link and check out the cited reports.

FRANK:
Speaking of the killing of libraries ... here's another story that slipped under the mainstream's radar, one that also involves toxic contaminants and even includes a Bradbury connection of sorts. Every hear of the CPSIA? Rather than offer any links on this (and I have an e-warehouse's worth), I'll simply urge you to poke around on the Web and see what you come up with. Helpful additional search terms include "books" and "1985". To call the CPSIA controversial is to understate matters severely. Oh, and I should mention that although it has thus far failed to permeate the American collective {un}consciousness, what attention it has received has been, for whatever reasons, mostly from the Reich Wing -- stopped clocks and all that, presumably.

"Maher tried to defend {Megan} McCain--his new softening, I guess," you write. Or his new hardening....

Lovecraft
Dennis,

At The Mountains of Madness is in what I guess you'd call pre-pre-production. Part of the deal Del Toro made with Universal was that they would finance R&D for the movie, and that's coming along. He's also done location scouting for it, so he'll likely pull it off at some point after The Hobbit.

I'm thrilled that one of the few people in Hollywood who might have half a chance of filming a Lovecraft story is actually working on one, but I still think his work is mostly unfilmable. While Guillermo will do a great job on staying loyal to the book and bring some amazing visuals, the meat of any Lovecraft story takes place inside the characters' (slowly-degenerating) minds. How that can be put on film remains a mystery.

Also, I'm a bit of a snob and I'm tired of books being turned into movies. I'm much more agreeable to books being turned into television series, because then enough time can be spent presenting the story. (Dexter, True Blood, etc...) Whether you like these series or not is irrelevant. I'm just pointing out that a season of television works much more like a novel, whereas a feature film works more as a short story. When either medium's strengths and weaknesses are observed, movie or TV magic can happen. Most of the time, however, it falls flat and dies there, flapping around on the red carpet.

I'm also against the whole, "It'll expose more people to Writer X's work!" argument. To that, I point out that it usually doesn't. It leads to more people *claiming* they're familiar with the work, and it might drive the sales of a few more books, but that's about it. No, in today's world, all it does is expose people to an inferior version of something that already exists.

Hell, take The Watchman movie as an example. In the past, people started making comics versions of books to get them interested in the original novel. Then, it was movies. Now, we need movies of comic books to get people interested in sequential art. What's next? Pride and Prejudice: the movie version of the comic version of the novel? (Oh wait, that's already happening....)

*sigh*

Kristian

In the war of the sexes the best one can hope for is ...
A negotiated cease fire.

http://www.snotr.com/video/2734

This was a must be shared and enjoyed short film.

Doug

I am in the midst of reacquainting myself with MEDEA: HARLAN'S WORLD courtesy a generous gift from my friend Mark Goldberg (of Minneapolis, don'tcha know).

I don't know how many of you are familiar with a program run periodically on The Discovery Channel entitled ALIEN PLANET, but it occurs to me that the show owes more than a passing nod of thanks for both concept and execution to Harlan's little band of pioneers.
_________________________________

For all you Daddies out there, hope you have a great day.

Lovecraft
Today's L.A. Times Calendar section lists up-and-comers that the editors think will be hot soon.
One of those is H.P. Lovecraft.
Because Universal and Imagine are making the graphic novel 'THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF H.P. LOVECRAFT' into a film.
And because Guillermo Del Toro wants to make an epic version of 'AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS'. It's not in the planning stages, it's just the project he'd love to make
Now THAT I'd like to see...

Forgive my grammar, I was overcome by Satan.

Hey Democrats, enough of the bullshit about deficits. Deficit spending is an essential part of how Capitalism works. Keynes didn't attain his legend by being a bango player hick. I disagre with capitalism, but I do know that state intervention is the only way it works. The free market is not free. You have to spend to get results, as long as spending is on the right things. Nixon even knew this. His growth rate was six percent, because of deficit spending. When the economy grows deficits naturally decline. This is basic economics. The democrats have to either school the uninformed America mook about this or move out of our way.

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

Happy Father's Day, you lovely men.

Cindy, give your old man a back rub.

Waves and kisses. Love this place.

RECOVERING FROM MIND NUMBING SNL VIEWING ATTEMPT
I had this on back order for about 6 months and flopped it in last night.If you haven't seen the dvd HECKLER yet put it on your must see.Sitting on my "to be watched" table for weeks I had no idea Stand Up gigs have become a potential blood sport.I saw Sam Kinison before he had long hair at a small place in Redondo Beach when living in Torrance,and the few Blacks in the audience went fucking crazed when he did a joke about Ethiopians complaining about starvation and He said what do they expect their in the fucking desert.I'm not sure what He said after that but it involved saying "NIGGER" and the Blacks rushed the stage threatening to drag him outside.
After watching it I'm a little more nervous about my ARTS criticism,but watching Jaime Kennedy doing Stand Up is still as mind numbing as trying to get through the first 10 minutes of 'HOWIEDOIT".

Yet Another Drop in the Bucket List
Rod Serling fans may be much more interested.


I agree with most everyone here but the name to get the ball rolling may be a certain L. Ron Hubbard. The sales to Moonies, errr... Scientologists alone would be enough to float that little boat.

American Fantasist Stamps

I would love to see a stamp with Lovecraft or Howard or many of the other great fantasy writers but then I remember that they want a person picture on their stamps so they can SELL them. And lets face it not many will recognize those writers when they see them so I think they will go with a face that most people will know.

Rod Sirling.

The twilight Zone is still being show on TV and although there are better writers I think they will go with the “cash” value rather then any literary skills, I could be wrong but let wait and see.

Gary

Eddie Ifft
Just thought it'd be interesting to bring up Eddie Ifft for a sec. According to his latest Facebook entry, he's at the Cape Town International Comedy Festival and SHARK DIVING: http://tinyurl.com/nyu83p

Braver than I am, Gunga Din.

Hi, Cindiana Jones, you sweet thang.

Thanks for your kindness the past few weeks.

Thanks to all you out there for your kindness.

I LOVE this place!

Chuck

One Tough Cookie
CINDY: I keep telling people that I get to know that I'm not as quiet (a VERY obvious flaw, especially if you're like Jill, who walks her dogs with me and sees what the constant flow of adrenaline does to my energy levels -- and motormouth), and that I'm not as much of a pushover when it comes to women (I used to forgive women for _every_thing). Then I run into femmes like yourself. Weird thing is, we haven't even met face-to-face. And all you have to do is "say" something like you did below and I'm ready to convert to Christianity, take "Dubya" out for a beer and tell him he's not such a bad guy, stump for the Republican party next election cycle, mow your lawn, round up your horses, cook up a nice, tender steak for your next dinner, massage your feet, draw your bath....

...and that's just cause you called me sweetie (you can imagine what sort of puppydog energy gets unleashed after a good kiss or, um, you know). :)

I'm one tough cookie, I am.

Love ya, Cindy (let me know when the wash needs to be brought in).
-DTS

Hi sweetie Dorman.
:)

Our governer, a DEMOCRAT, is proposing a fifty percent cut in state library funding, FIFTY PERCENT! Libraries here are already being cut to the bone and this funding cut will kill our library system--actually one of the best in the country, or was.

We live in a sad world where Democrats forget why they are democrats.

Why not raise corporate taxes! Fucker.

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

On Maher last night, this was one great moment: Paul Begala had mentioned that Reagan had savaged Jimmy Carter constantly while he was in office. Megan McCain, our new brain drain, blond cupcake, said, "I don't know, that was before I was born." Begala shoots back: "I wasn't born during the French Revolution but I know about it." The audience howled. Maher tried to defend McCain--his new softening, I guess. I mention this because this is something Harlan would say. Obviously with more venom. Not a big fan of Begala, but he is in my good box today.

Megan Dear, read a fucking book--put down the Elmo coloring book.

Ray Bradbury
There's a good article about Bradbury's efforts to save local library in yesterday's NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/us/20ventura.html?_r=3&scp=2&sq=ray%20bradbury&st=cse

American Fantasist Stamps
I'm sure that H. P. Lovecraft has been mentioned already. I would like to see Fritz Leiber, Lovecraft Circle member and creator of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, represented. Also, Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long and Roger Zelazny.

To Harlan first; and then various
Harlan, that's great news about the stamps. Looking forward to further updates.

I know this isn't a vote, but if we're talking about an initial set of six stamps, in my humble opinion they should be: Baum, Lovecraft, Burroughs, Bierce, Robert E. Howard and Shirley Jackson.

On another note, a book suggestion for you. I seem to remember that you're a fan of the great Satchel Paige. (If I'm misrecollecting, forgive me, and disregard what follows.) I'm in the midst of reading an excellenbt, just-published biography of the man, "Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend" by Larry Tye. You might want to check it out.

Page-one story in today's New York Times about Ray Bradbury and his fight to help a Ventura County library:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/us/20ventura.html?_r=1&hpw

Regarding DTS's question on high fructose corn syrup: What Jan said. It's in everything. Just about any processed "sweet" food - kids' cereals, sodas, drink mixes - will have it. In fact, DTS, here in the States suspicion of it has grown so sharp that the Corn Refiners Association has started an ad and PR campaign to insist that it's just swell:
http://www.sweetsurprise.com

To James P. Levy: Glenn Greenwald isn't the only one outraged about the Washington Post's firing of Dan Froomkin. Here's a roundup of some of the reaction:
http://www.cjr.org/the_kicker/froomkin_terribly_disappointed.php?page=all

Finally: Best wishes and sympathies, always, to Adam-Troy, Alex and all others suffering because of the suffering of their loved ones. It's a small thing for me or anyone else here in the Pavilion to say we care and we're thinking of you, but we do and we are.

ALAN COIL: Once the major newspapers and magazines fold and the book stores all become corporate, what will it matter if we can read or not? There will be nothing left to read.

We will be awash in vanity blogs, websites and 24-hour running chirons.

The most perceptive reader here will only have Murdoch-style copy to peruse.

Help.

Reply to DTS
Regarding high fructose corn syrup: I think the list would be far shorter if you asked people to post when they found a food or drink that *doesn't* contain corn syrup, plain or high fructose. My ex had a sensitivity to corn in all forms so we got into the habit of looking for that one. It's incredibly pervasive.

If you don't mind my asking, why do you ask?

Jan

yes, and yes
I second Richard Cohen's recommendation. Thorne Smith is my kind of fantasist.

only good things,
Rick

My vacation winds to a close tomorrow with a flight back to DC from Portland (whilst my darling goes back to Tejas... le sigh) and a trip chock full of fabulous food, wonderful Webderfolk and High Art. But before I go, one little signpost on the highway of the writing life for Adam-Troy Castro:

Witnessed at Powell's City of Books during a foray and frenzy of book-binging was a staff recommendation affixed to the shelf below their stash of tomes by William Gibson:

"If you like William Gibson then try Adam-Troy Castro"

with a designator pointing the way to their stash of your work.

Nothing that will save the world, but pretty nifty nonetheless (digital photo of said recommendation available upon request).

Iran

I have no real hope or belief in prayer or "thinking good thoughts." but given my strong feeling that Iran is about to have it's very own Tiananmen Square tomorrow or soon after, and my own powerlessness to do anything about it, I'm doing my good-thought-thinking best.

Apologies for the 2nd post. I see the bravery of those people and it breaks my heart.

MM

My Father
...on the third day, when I asked him again if he knew who I am, said, "Bill Johnson." We all looked at each other until he looked at me pityingly and said, "Don't you think I know who you are?"

So that's good. My Dad always did like to mess with my head.

On the negative side: he still doesn't seem to understand how badly he's hurt, and asked us piteously, every few minutes, for his shoes so he can walk out. And though he's shown the ability to joke, the ability to flirt with the nurses, the ability to scold one visitor for picking her ear...and the ability to mess with me...he's still not all there, three weeks in.

Stamps across the pond
The Royal Mail in the UK has released a new series of mythic creatures stamps with artwork by Dave McKean, and small stories by Neil Gaiman. Very nice. http://www.royalmail.com/creatures

Stamps...and...ingredients
HARLAN: Excellent news! And my Barthelme suggestion was roundfiled after you pointed out (in an earlier posting) that there are rules and guidelines to picking names for commemorative stamps (being only a part-time, obsessive complusive collector/hoarder kinda guy, I never really got into stamps...or glasses...or minature soldiers...or.... But I _do_ have a nice set of vintage grudges). I'm glad you picked up on the James Branch Cabell suggestion, though. The more I read by (and about) him, the more deserving he seems. Also glad someone else in the forum reminded you (and the rest of us) to include Herr Lieber -- a _very_ deserving writer. Ditto for Washington Irving (got the majority of his stuff in my pared-down library) and Robert E. Howard.

TO ALL U.S. peeps (including Harlan & Susan): Next time any of you guys sit down for a drink or a bite to eat, if you can remember (and have the time) to check out the ingredients label on ANY food (or drink) item you are holding, would you mind taking a look to see if "high fructose corn syrup" is on the list? And, if it is -- and if time permits and it doesn't take too much effort -- let me know what food or drink item you saw it on (one post from anyone who cares to check will be great -- don't want to clutter this place up too much).

Here's to HARLAN'S CRUSADE! May the American Fantasist commemorative stamp line be approved posthaste.
Cheers,
DTS
(Who spent the morning walking through a local dell with my buddy, Irving, and then flirting with a beautiful young checkout girl who reminded me of Brittany Murphy had she been born with black hair and olive skin. Afterwhich, said girl looked at my license, saw the birthdate, and said, "You look younger...on the license.")
Hi, Frank (And Hi Cindy...and Hi Steve...and...Hi Barney...and goodnight, moon) (No more caffeine for me when I've already had a good night's rest!)

The death of our society is being caused by the inability of many to read--and comprehend--what has been written.
.
.
.
.
And, yes, I, too, have been guilty of misunderstanding what I have read.

I thought I'd pop back into the Land of Miracles and thank you all. When I posted the other day, I had been on line (dial-up) and my sister called me on my cell. I was shook. It's nice to have found this place with all these cool people. A real on-line community, this one.

On another subject, my DVD of Dreams with Sharp Teeth arrived today. As I watched it the first time, I remember thinking, back when I was but a callow youth, "Who is this Harlan Ellison guy anyway? Talented as hell, but where does he get off with this attitude? Who does he think he is?"

Well, over the years, through his stories, introductions and essays he told me exactly who he thinks he is, at one point in time or another. I learned not only where he got off (sometimes in the back of a Camaro), but why. And as I learned more about this Ellison guy, I learned more about myself. It wasn't attitude. It was guts. It was a guy standing up for himself and for others. That's what I needed to do, for myself and for those around me.

At least that's what my neighbor's dog tells me.

Love your house, Harlan. You can keep San Simeon, I'll take the Lost Inca Temple of Mars.

And by the way, Neil Gaiman does a spot-on Harlan Ellison impression.

Chuck

Comment on the Selection process at USPS

Man,there are some really cool cats here.From the listings of proposals some of you must have some really outrageous and mindfully delicious collections.I salute you.
I remember an attempt from Medical workers and Teachers to be placed on Stamps some years past,they were told they had a chance but in the end Post Master General overruled the positive awarding with His own recommendations.It's truly a wonderful idea and to ask for a selective genre of writing as an American culture offering has merits but it also is up against sometimes thousands of other proposals for consideration.In the end the best shot may be to have a petition drive from many areas,and many age groups showing the diverse subject interest.Sometimes it takes many Decades to be reconsidered.Good luck Harlan;I can cover Tampa Bay area if the need arises.

HimmelHerrGottSeiDank, God damn!
HARLAN:
Lord Dunsany, M.P. Shiel, Arthur Machen -- yep, got me there, not an American among them. (And thanks for not even mentioning William Hope Hodgson!) Their greatness blinded me to their nationality, I suppose. Sorry. (What couldn't be seen in my list, of course, were all the UK fantasists who occurred to me and were promptly rejected, or the Americans I excluded whose deaths were too recent to qualify -- though evidence of the latter consideration survives in my parenthetical remark after Jack Williamson.) But again, my apologies.

John Collier -- odd, I've always regarded him as American. In fact, a little quick homework reveals that he moved to Hollywood in 1935, married an American, and died in LA in 1980. What, he was never naturalized? I couldn't find anything definitive one way or another, but if you say so, Harlan. That'd be a pity, though, since Collier is certainly a writer fully deserving of commemoration.

Davidson, Lafferty -- perhaps I should have separated my 2nd-tier candidates (such as these two), but I thought it best just to get all the names out in the open at this early phase so that their relative positions in the Celestial Hierarchy can be haggled over.

Pangborn -- I very reluctantly agree with you on his stature vis-a-vis Davidson and Lafferty ... but golly, wouldn't it be terrific to see him on a stamp? Or to see his works back in print? Sigh.

And now to the (main) raison d'etre for my post heading. As if including Dunsany, Shiel, and Machen (and Hodgson, geez!) weren't lapse enough for one night, how could I possibly, possibly have EXcluded sainted ALFIE BESTER?!? Indeed, how could any of us? Okay, not the most prolific writer, but even so. Yes? No? Every 2nd Tuesday?

So tell me, Harlan, did that number for Jean Firstenberg do the trick, or did she just decide to phone you out of the blue, or was it the fabled Third Scenario?


PHIL NICHOLS:
Regarding "traditional" Walkers Crisps flavours -- it might interest you to learn that the shoppekeeper at one of the two shoppes I visited even spoke with a decidedly British accent in so describing a selection that included Monster Munch. I didn't press the point.


KOS:
I believe you'll find that Bill Patterson has much to say on the Cabell-Heinlein connection in his massive, forthcoming (Spring 2010, TOR) RAH biography, as well as in what he's written already in the Heinlein Journal (http://www.heinleinjournal.com/) and elsewhere.

Cabell
James Branch Cabell is represented on Project Gutenberg by a Bakers Dozen titles:

http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/c

I've started reading "Jurgen", which is a hoot. You can find it here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/8771

You can read it online, or download a free copy. Like all Project Gutenberg texts, it is in the Public Domain.

I've long known of the Heinlein connection with Cabell, which was made much of, IIRC, by Alexei Panshin in two or three of his books. Panshin is a bit of a wanker, especially on Heinlein, but has his moments. I've been meaning for years to get around to Cabell, so this seemed like a good time.

I can already see, in "Jurgen" some of what Heinlein seems to have picked up from him. There's also something of Twain in Cabell. Interesting, interesting.

I think in "Stranger In A Strange Land" Heinlein was trying to do his own "Jurgen", for what it's worth.

As far as stamps, Lovecraft and Howard. I think Lovecraft has the best chance. He's classic, for all his faults. Dead seventy-three years and all of his works in print. Volumes of his letters published, scholarly works up the wazoo, and compared all the time (favorably and not so favorably) to Poe.

Plus, what a face! Honestly, it belongs on a stamp.

KOS

PS

Frank, you cannot just go and use my tongue like that.

Unless you ask real nice.

I feel...

Dirty?

A GOOD SLAP UPSIDE YER HEADS

to MICHAEL S. / DORMAN / ANDREW F.

You mean well, but clearly you don't do even the most basic homework, nor--apparently--do some of you not read what went-before.

Yes, Lord Dunsany, John Collier, M.P. Shiel and Arthur Machen (among too many others suggested, though not remotely well-considered) are Great Fantasists. The only problem is they weren't AMERICAN! They were Brits.

And suggesting my dear friend, the woman I "discovered," Octavia Estelle Butler, is also feckless. She hasn't been dead that long, that she fits the parameters, and the body of her work, grand and notable as it is, remains to be seen through the eye of Posterity. (But maybe...who knows...)

Youse guys are just willy-nillying, and not considering the RULES for getting put on a stamp.

Several of your suggestions are terrific, and I overlooked a couple, put a couple aside for a second set, discounted more than a few--such as Edgar Pangborn--because his stature is not as great as, say, Avram Davidson or R.A. Lafferty, neither of whom would be "right" for early issue. But...Robert E. Howard fits, so does Fritz Leiber, so does Jame Branch Cabell.

Anywhichway, here is the enormously good news:

Jean Firstenberg just called me.

I spoke to her office yesterday, they told her today, and she called me back...we had a great chat, she sounded this side of Very Interested and, my small dream coming toward realization, she has asked me to put together a preliminary proposal and list.

I am doing it. And I will keep you informed.

You see, gang, you CAN make a difference, whether there's a Gawd or not, because when you do something Noble, YOU are Gawd.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

CHUCK MESSER:

You'll notice, Chuck, that we regularly perform genuine miracles here.

At 17:38:24 yesterday, you asked us to, "Make it stop. Please, make it stop."

And at 18:50:44, per your request, and because we love you and yer mom, we did, indeed, make it stop.

Yr. Pal, on behalf of all of us, bests to you and your mother.
If there are any other small tasks you need tended to, simply ask: part the waters, feed the loaves to the fishes, end poverty and sew up Rush Limbaugh's gob...just ask, and ye shall receive.

Harlan

An important intrusion

To all at the Art deco Dining Pavillion,

The best damn reporter on the Washington Post was fired yesterday. He has done impressive work getting to the bottom of sordid goings promulgated by our government. The following quote is from Glenn Greenwald's column at Salon.com:

Why was Froomkin deemed "liberal," inappropriate and biased? Because he pointed out that the Bush administration's claims were false and their policies radical -- i.e., he wrote what was factually true. But that -- writing what is factually true and pointing out false statements from those in political power -- is the number one sin in establishment journalism. As David Gregory said, that's not their role. In the Bush era, pointing out the lies of Bush officials was all that was necessary to be deemed a leftist. Stephen Colbert explained why: "reality has a well-known liberal bias."

Telling truth to power used to make you enemies; today, it gets you fired. Harlan, take good care of yourself, for men like you are in too short a supply for us to lose any.

Not a damn thing about who I want on a stamp.
But, if you're into a vision of Heaven and Hell, I recommend a look at:
http://motionographer.com/theater/marco-brambilla-civilization/
(Faisal Qureshi pointed this to me.)

And if you want to read some compelling ideas on values and work, check out _Shop Class as Soulcraft_ by Matthew Crawford. (Crawford echoes a lot of things I've been thinking about lately. I'll probably write something longer on my blog.)

Phil Nichols - Walker Crisps

Phil - yikes, no!

My Walker Crisps post was just a bit of probably-not-as-funny-as-I-thought smart-assery, in response to HE's post that he already had enough help on the crisps situation.

(and also the E Allan Poe thread and HE's use of the wondrous word "paradiddles.")

There, isn't it even more funny now that I've explained it...?

No?

Ah, well. Back to the salt mines.

MM

American Fantasists stamps
Feel like a Derm Fool for not thinking of
STURGEON
And Sturgeon must be included in such a group.
You couldn't leave him out any more than you could HPL.

As for older guys --
WASHINGTON IRVING, perhaps?
Stamp-i-fied in 1940, but unless there was another between '59 and now,
he'd be eligible again, and his fantasist credentials are
by George (the Third, at first, but later Washington) in order.

Not quite so old: THORNE SMITH
I only ever read "Night Life of the Gods" but I liked it well;
plus there are the Thorne-Smith-ish stories Kuttner devised,
so that's "literary influence," No? -- an arguing point.
And in his day Thorne S. was popular.
Back when I haunted thrift stores, seems like I was always tripping over
"Stray Lamb"s, "Turnabout"s, and "Bishops Jaegers"es,
or omnibus volumes including them -- never in the numbers of those
champions of ubiquity "The Egg and I" and "The Hucksters," but plenty.
(One more useless note: Jean Shepherd once spent part of an evening's show
enthusing over the filmed "Night Life..." -- then a 'lost film' ;
resurrected since, I think)

Another whilom popular, mainstream-y fantasist: ROBERT NATHAN

Others have mentioned
Paul (Cordwainer Smith) LINEBARGER, Robert E. HOWARD, R.A. LAFFERTY --
nice suggestions.

I never read JAMES B. CABELL (not even "Jurgen") but his rep was high -- maybe he belongs.

Richard

Remakes
Yes, forgot about THE BRIDE because it's just not memorable in any way.

I don't mind some remake ideas -- they're re-doing CONAN and I wasn't thrilled with the Schwarzenegger one, so go right ahead. Mr. Robert E. Howard deserves as much as he can get on the big screen. (OK, some of my friends loooved the CONAN film but I found it rather one-dimensional.)

But today they announced a remake of MEATBALLS.
And also in the works: a remake of RED DAWN...

WTF?

Oh my God no, yes, yess, what a dunderhead--Sahl, Mort Sahl.

MORRRRTTTT SAAAAAHHHHHLLLLL

Twenty million lashes with KOS's tongue.

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

KOS, you're the main Mugg.

By the way, my quotes are better.

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

Hi Dorman.

commemorative stamps
Just earlier this year, I had several "commemorative" stamps made for me based the Dillon's HE covers. "No Windows, No Doors," "I Have No Mouth...," "Repent, Harlequin," among others made for an excellent stamp series. I've even had other collectors offering to purchase them, but as Daffy would say, "Mine! Mine! ALL mine!!"

I had considered having the man himself adorn the stamp, but it just seemed to creepy.

As Semi-Writer stated earlier, there are a number of places on the web that offer the service of converting photos, illustrations, etc. into stamps.

Mayhew! And: Michael S!

Michael Mayhew: did you REALLY ship some Walker's crisps to the Ellisons? If so, I will bow out of the see-who-can-ship-crisps-fastest contest.

Michael S: Monster Munch are TRADITIONAL? Ye gods! I know Americans think anything British is quaint, especially if it's half-timbered or has castellations, but Monster Munch?!

- Phil

AT-C: "I love you," counts for so much - I'd take that one.

Chuck: Glad to know your mom is in, if not good shape, then better shape than she could have been. I have been in that elevator, too, though my "Make it stop," was apparently ignored.

The Bride of Frankenstein remake: What the hell? Why is this necessary or even of interest? Still, we might be surprised. As for Else Lanchester, I never thought of her as bug-eyed. Her eyes were prominent, yes, but I thought them expressive and sensual. She's quite fetching as Mary Shelley, at the beginning; as the Monster's Mate, the Nefertiti hair-do and stitches notwithstanding, I thought her quite striking.

The Poe Affair: I think a lot of bother could be put aside if we all identified Mr Poe as his preferred signature, Edgar A. Poe. He had numerous issues with his uncle, John Allan, and so reduced the "Allan" to a mere initial, eschewing it entirely, whenever possible in his daily affairs. This would also prevent any confusion of the author with the well-known Gothic interior decorator, Ethan Allen Poe...

Harlan: Are we good? Not just after that hideous "Ethan Allen Poe" debacle, but in general?

Smooches, All,
Doc

Chuck!
That is wonderful news. I am happy for you, my friend.
Yer pal,
Cindy


Mark and Adam Troy
It is hard to imagine what y'all are going through right now.
Just remember you have peeps here who care deeply. You are both remembered every day.

Cindy

Cabell
I know enough about Cabell to have him on my "to be read" list. Not there yet, but everyone I know who has read him(and some who have whom I know not), deem/s JBC "important." Mencken, Sinclair Lewis, Neil Gaiman, my friend Vince; they all agree.

I know there is a library named for him at