Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Discussion of the man and his work.

You say I acted atrociously. Yes. I did. I do it for a living.
I saw David Mamet's new film REDBELT over the weekend. It stars Chiwetel Ejiofor (no I don't know how to pronounce it either) as a man who loses everything except the most important thing in the world. Wonderful actor.

Tim Allen has a nice supporting role as a man who has everything except the most important thing in the world.

Mamet can conjure up a whole world with just a glimpse, just a glance or a grimace. The summer movies will be full of heroes who wade through their adventures without a scratch.

This movie is about a hero who pays the piper.

HERC Question
A friend of mine has turned me onto Harlan's work and I was interested in ordering some books from HERC (my friend's a HERC member) but wondered if the order page on this site is accurate with quantities that you still have.

Thank you for the info.

Round up the Usual Suspects...
JAN – I am SHOCKED, SHOCKED to find out there is cussin’ and general irreverence and tomfoolery happening on this website. It must be my evil twin. You know, the one who dances topless at boring parties. ;-) I’ll have to speak sternly to the wench. I may even have to be STRICT with her. (raises eyebrow) What do you suggest—a weekend spend listening to Plastic Bertrand while hula hooping? Let me know what a suitable punishment would be.

UNCA’ HARLAN, BRIAN, CHRIS, and DTS --- THANK YOU!!! ☺ for your suggestions. I’m working on finding the sides you recommended and have managed to pick up some Odetta, Big Mama Thornton, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Most of what I could find was more R&B and folk rather than Gospel, but that’s great stuff too! Many thanks for steering me in the right direction. I now have my music research project for the summer settled. It’s so wonderful to be part of such an erudite group of people with such wide-ranging tastes.
Probably the only thing we (as a group) don’t listen to is country & western?

SUSAN: You are an ABSOLUTELY lovely person, and thank you very much re: Dorothy Donegan’s Boogie Woogie Piano. ☺ Please do let me know what I may do for you by way of recompense.

STEVE & CRIS --- your favorite YTG loves you too and your music should go on forever!

ANDREW – Congratulations on your sale!! That’s terrific! Come join us on the “Shadows Of Eternity” thread and you can make up for my (ahem) abysmal writing skills.

SANDRA --- Keep hanging in there. If there is anything I could do to help, please e-mail me. I’m just sorry I don’t have more to offer. Your writing is so witty and evocative, it’s no wonder that you’re getting interest from publishers.

And with that, the little YTG was rolled away from Webderland in her teapot…mumbling as she bounced along…

Love, Peace & those little tea sandwiches with butter and cucumber and cream cheese…
Gwyneth – “the fair”

Gospel
For those who wish to seek out "Big Mama" Thornton's gospel sides, there is an album called "Saved", which is out of print; I don't know of any other Gospel sides by Thornton.

As far the other artists, no argument, but I would see Ellison's list and add James Cleveland and the Angelic Choir ("Peace Be Still) or almost any other Cleveland. As Mr. Ellison knows, but some do not, the early Savoy material features a very young Billy Preston on organ.

Brian "a distant relation to Myrna Summers" Phillips

Gwyn is my favourite as well, or rather, she would be, if she weren’t such an appallingly bad writer. Witness our ongoing attempt to write a novel with everybody contributing four words at a time. I have capitalized Gwyn’s most recent “contributions”:

“FUCK ME BABY!”, HE growled to himself. "I'm fucking tin pan alley with a hat on!" "BOOP-BOOP-A-DOOP," Ima sneered, rolling her feminine, dead eyes. "My mother would be proud, she left this void of a world long before I became the depraved slut that I am." Ima smiled distantly, fondling her labial bling, and looking around to find some sort of pen. The better to write her sordid grocery list of tomatoes, beets, cream, and some beets. Ima decided to try her luck at the A&P. When that failed SHE THREW HER PUSSY-CAT in the general direction OF MR. HARLAN ELLISON’S strangest fan, the impenetrable, though still completely soft, gentleman she had encounterd in the former Satrapy of what is now Southeast THE ISLETS OF LANGERHANS. "No, that's not where IMA PUT HER TAMPONS!"


(A moment of stunned silence on Webderland...)

I rest my case.

The eaglet has landed
Susan,

Arrived in fine order. I'll try to contain myself. :-P Actually, I think it's destined for a Scottish colleague in Egypt who I recently introduced to the board here.

Peg
(whose first name means Pearl, and whose middle name means Grace and Favor. I can live with that!)

ANDREW - Congratulations sir! May the subsequent 1800 come to you quickly and fullfillingly!
___________________________________

GWYNETH - Thank you for your comments below regarding the CD. I've passed them along to a very humble Cris. You'll always be my favorite YTG!

MARK, DOUG, ROGER - Your comments over on Forums (and email) have also been very happily noted and appreciated. Again, thank you. (And we're extremely glad that the Goldberg children are displaying both talent and taste in their musical selection!!!)
___________________________________

STEVEN = 'CROWN'

Ooh. I LIKE this game.

ANDREW F. -- Congrats, sir! A first step is better than no step at all. Glad to hear it!

S.

*** Steve *** There is a thread on religion in the back room. I'll post my response(s) over there - or, you have my e-mail address (as always) on the top of this post.

- Barney

Barney,

The one precept that you like is the one I find grotesque. I can't help thinking of Hamlet: "Use every man after his desert and who should scape whipping." I'm not into the whole "retributiuon" thing.

I chose Maimonides, not just for the corny alliteration, but because he is the polar opposite of Meister Eckhart and because I wanted to include non-Christian theologians in my remarks as similarly worthy of insight. My own view is as anti-Aristotelian, as yours is, when it comes to the dislike of poetry and non-pragmatic art. Howver, I generally dissent form the fear of poets that one can find in Plato, Aristotle, and the Koranic Theologians. Interesting, Plato is among my favorite philosophers, despite my penchant for Existentialism and Nietzsche, and of the Andalusian philophers, I suppose I prefer Avicenna.

Anyway, your post is most insightful, and I will now repair to my study to see if I can indeed learn anything from Maimonides after all.

Steve Dooner

tcm
On June 16, on TCM, guest programmer Bill Maher picks as one of his films, his " guilty pleasure", THE OSCAR.

Andrew Fuller: *patter of light applause*

Names: Harlan and I had a name discussion once at ICON. He carried my tripod so I could drink my coffee. This was very sporting of him, seeing as I'd held up progress to the green room to score my fix, and he had to call after me, my java, and my donut like a mother duck about to take bill to a stray chick. "Come on, DOUG. Let's go, DOUG. Do you know how bad that thing is for you, DOUG?" From the hallway, into the student market, each vocal beat of my name a little louder.

You think a turbocharger lights a fire under your ass?

This led to a brief discussion of names, and I took occasion to deride the plainness of my moniker. After we spoke briefly of the evil that children do in using a name as a cudgel, Harlan extolled the virtues of my given/surname one-two punch. "You have a great name. Doug Lane. That's a writer's name, a film maker's name. You have a GREAT NAME!" Then we invaded the green room, where Barney introduced me to Hal Clement (whose name - pen OR birth - was still infinitely cooler than mine, in my opinion.)

Douglas, by the by, is Gaelic, and approximates to "From the black lake." Perhaps Harlan was more correct than he realized.

That's right - I'm the Gill Man, baby.

Doug
lagooning, va

Magazines
Hi Susan,

Re UK magazines - it's just occurred to me: would you actually like the whole magazine as before, or just the relevant pages?

PLMK.

Rob E.
x

Sorry. Not the alliterative "ending." Just the Master/Maimonides closer. I missed the Darwin paragraph somehow. That's a different primordial pond of metaphors entirely.

- B

No, thank you.
*** Steve Dooner *** Nice post. I disagree with almost every single word of it but it's very well written. In particular I had to smile and wince at the ending which was somewhat poetic or, at least alliterative. He would have despised that.

Maimonides? Really? Atheists could learn something from Maimonides? In the words of Tyler Durden, "I don't think so."

In reviewing his 13 Principles of Faith, speaking as an atheist I find I can only get behind #11 - Reward of good and retribution of evil. But I've had no problem with that notion both as a giver and receiver since I could think for myself. God, faith and religion need not enter into those concepts. The rest of those principles you may keep.

As for his feelings about fiction in general and poetry in specific - just another book burner with no imagination. There is NO ROOM in that world for Borges or Ellison or Dr. Suess or even the crap sentiments of a Hallmark card. Pass. No thank you.

*IF* he is considered a cornerstone of Western thought - because of his sometimes defense of an Aristotelean world view then he is a problematic thinker at best. I see in his work the beginnings of a formalization of the notions that have lead to a certain cultural mistrust of all fiction as being "untrue" and therefore without worth or merit.

I'm glad he's gone to his maker. I'm going back to work.

- Barney Dannelke

Something to share
More often than not I'm a back-of-the-class observer in this pavilion of exchanges, nodding and shaking my head, smiling and guffawing. Today I squeak in to share that a story of mine has just been published in Abyss & Apex magazine #26. This might qualify as my first professional sale, for which I share some personal glee.

http://abyssandapex.com/200804-wicker.html

With this, I'm fast closing on Harlan's ouevre. Only about 1,800 more publications to go.

Home from an 18 hour day commuting to, lounging about, and commuting from, the University of Washington Medical Center. The surgeon could not complete the procedure; my mother's long capacity and blood oxygen levels dropped "dangerously low" (when said enough times, by a man who frowns at the mention because he is not certain why, "dangerously low" takes on a whole new meaning). Since they were already in, they took a biopsy; we should have the results back in a week. We're back in a holding pattern.

I only managed 2 hours sleep last night. I deluded myself with thoughts of writing while in the waiting room. I was lucky I remembered which little clicky thingy I needed to use the other clicky thingies. Managed 15 sentences. My 16 year old niece wrote 20 pages.

I'll slap her when I wake up.

Night All,
Sandra

LAURIE: I don't mind.

DORMAN: I knew that. Why do you think the HERC newsletter is called "Rabbit Hole" and features, every issue, Tenniel's White Rabbit with a caricature of my face on him? Name also means "to the high ground."

GWYNETH: You want authentic, palpitating Gospel? The Staple Singers. The Swan Silvertones. Myrna Summers & The Interdenominational Youth Choir of Washington D.C. & Maryland. St. Mark's Gospel Ensemble. Odetta ("Christmas Spirituals" and "My Eyes Have Seen"). Marion Williams ("The New Message"). Any Josh White album, magnificent folk, blues, spirituals. Any album by the unequaled Clara Ward, either alone or with the Clara Ward Singers. Big Mama Thornton. And, finally (out of my repository of memory), one of the greatest of them all, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. That ought to hold you for the nonce.

Did I ever mention I was a big Gospel Music fan? Hmmm. Maybe not.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

The Failure of Contemporary Atheism

I am an atheist, but I lament the current crop of atheist literature by Dennett, Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris. It grieves me that they can only make sweeping criticisms of religious thinking, while they do nothing to point questioning young people to the infinitude of the cosmos, the glory of a nebula, the cathedral of the human cell, or the symphonic genius of DNA.

As Gore Vidal used to say, I am an atheist with a pastoral instinct. I always want to bring others to the fold.

These New Atheists do impress with their wit, but they offer little sustenance for those hungry for something vast and awe-inspiring. I think we need a second wave of atheists who are also visionaries, ala our esteemed host.

Dawkins and Dennett, of course, have written other books to fill the curiosity gap, but their condecension to religious thinkers is at times dismaying. They don't seem eager to do anything but preach to the choir. Hey, if Einstein can be interested in Heraclitus and Spinoza, then we too can learn something from Maimonides and Meister Eckhart.

And has anyone seen Michael Shermer's book that attempts to match Adam Smith to Darwin? He points out how Darwin read Smith intensively and how bottom up evolutionary design recalls the "invisble hand" of Smith's economic theory. Shermer also offers compelling examples from contemporary "evolutionary psychology," arguing that our inherited psychology works well with a free market, yet, I suspect that a good socialist philosopher could show how Marxist theory is founded on evolutionary psychology just as well.

Steve Dooner

PS. I love your point, Laurie. We always have to ask why we are delivering up our grief to others. Is it for their benefit or ours? And thanks for the positve regard, Rob. I appreciate it very much.

FUN WITH NAMES
HARLAN & CO: While searching for names (we writer types do that sometimes) my daughter came across this interesting site that gives you the origins and meaning (and a bit more info, depending on what they can dig up) to your first name. Even guy like me and Harlan can find their first names listed:

http://www.babynamesworld.com/

What's that? You were wondering what Harlan's name means?
Um...Land with hares.

(Mine's much cooler, Harlan).
Let the searching begin!
-DTS (who wont post again for two days, promise).

...I MEAN:

"...one I vividly remember booting his daughter in the ass".

Thank you for listening.

Diane,

You reminded me of two things I ALMOST forgot:

One, before I was eight, my mother constantly left me off with babysitters. Many of those were families. And many among THOSE had really irascible, bad-tempered dads who'd come home madder than yer legless Ethiopian watchin' a doughnut roll down a hill!

These guys would let the days frustrations out on their families, and I witnessed them beat their kids. One I remember vividly booting his daughter in the ass; she flew up 3 or 4 flights of stairs. Another I recall was a cop. When HE came home EVERYONE was afraid to speak. The whooooooolllle house was quieter than a cryogenics chamber.

So, since I never had a father, I had a fearful stereotype notion about what dads were like typically. I was literally AFRAID of "dads" for a long time. I obviously would learn in time that not EVERY father was like that; but it was witnessing these episodes that, in part, stoked my contempt for and wariness of human nature.

The other item that resurfaced for me, my recent realization that people with backgrounds like yours and mine commonly swing from one extreme to the other in their self-esteem, is essential to the delicate balance between humility and self-love. Put simply, we are either the best there IS, staunch figures against whom ALL challengers must fall, OR we are we are the lowest form of life that could have only been born in a landfill.

I came to understand this just over the last 2 years. Coping with a conflicted ego as such is vital if we are to do more than merely survive in a difficult world.

At one point, I began attending AA's Children of Alcoholics. The problem - for MYSELF, anyway - is that the program is firmly rooted in prayer and finding God. It holds to the premise that only thru a connection with a higher power can we find these balances. Regrettably, they define "a higher power" as God; some being I don't believe exists. I prefer the search inward; I think power lies within all of us to be better than we are. I believe there are philosophical disciplines like Tao that can supplement the tools. All of nature consists of checks and balances. Our emotional and intellectual development are no different.

I'm finding my way.

I DO like Steve Dooner's point about striving for excellence. It keeps you focused. It gives a goal in life, which, in turn, compels you to find the coping tools you need. In such a path, by trial-and-error, you DO find the humility because it's what allows you to learn. Both arrogance and self-loathing create massive barriers; humility carves a path to clear thinking.

Visualize your objective and you'll find the process needed to achieve it.

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

.....Oh, and Harlan....um................................................................................................
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.........................................................sorry about the coma.............................................................................................
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Steve Dooner, Harlan...
Although I agree with you, Steve Dooner, about too much promiscuous "sharing" of our personal stuff, there are times when sharing pain can let others know they are not alone with theirs. I think that is one of the things I have greatly admired in Harlan's work. None of it is "encounter group" breast beating or cheap sentiment, just the plain truth that needs to be told. I guess we all have to decide when something does need to be told or whether we are just caving in to showing off our inner stuff for mere superficial attention. I think that, deep down, we all know where we are coming from when we open up about our pain, just as you apparently did when reading over something you'd written.

I, too, have written things about my personal life that I have come to realize are dishonest and/or exploitive. I just deleted one of them from my computer a few days ago.

For a great poem about this subject, I highly recommend one of my favorite poets, Stanley Kunitz. The poem is "River Road," and the subject is what we can create out of our personal pain. Since Pres. Bill Clinton appointed him Poet Laureate, Kunitz's books are easier to find and available in many book stores and, I'm pretty sure, the public library.

Harlan: I just finished writing a short book for college students. It's called College Crazy and deals with problems students have in college. My tentative plan is to try and self-publish it and sell it on college campuses. I mentioned you on a list of about a dozen famous college drop-outs which included Patrick Henry, Einstein, Bill Gates and many other well known high achievers. In the chapter I made a brief comment about people who are so brilliant that they are basically autodidacts. Would you rather not be included on this list?

The book takes an irreverent tone toward college as an institution though it is respectful of education itself. It includes such chapters as, "How to Dump a Roommate in Four Easy Steps." The chapter in which you're mentioned is called: "I'm Outta Here!" It delineates how to decide whether or not to remain in college and how to drop out if you decide to depart.

Let me know if you have any objections to being mentioned (or if you want to read the part where you are mentioned). I am not in any big hurry about publishing it since I have no funds to do so at this time.

Gospel Meets Jazz
If you like the soaring uplift of gospel music with a touch of jazz/blues to ground you, try out Mary Lou Williams' "Black Christ of the Andes".
It's got great ivory tickling with vocal arrangements somewhat reminiscent of Disney's Alice in Wonderland.
It will trigger all those tingly bits inside you that scream "Believe!" even though you know you know better.

DTS said it best...and recently:
"With all of those bouncy rhythms and high notes, it's not a wonder that so many Baptists mistake musical ecstasy for religious awakening."

That sums it up nicely.

Everybody, clap your hands!

No Need to Gulp over The King
GYWNETH: NO need to gulp (uncomfortably, I assume) over listening to Elvis when desiring good gospel music. He's in the top ten -- black or white -- singers when it comes to singing and arranging great gospel music (he even won his only two Grammys for such). If you ever desire to read about him, check out Peter Guralnick's two-part biography on Elvis. One of the best -- if not _the_ best -- biographies of a musician (delving deep into his musical talent, not his personal eccentricities) ever to be published.

As for gospel music, I always tell my daughter that organized religions did two worthwhile things: the construction of breathtaking cathedrals in Europe, and the creation of gospel music (in America, I presume -- but it could've started elsewhere). I ocassionally _love_ to put some gospel music on the CD player -- especially the upbeat tunes -- and sing like a man converted. With all of those bouncy rhtyhms and high notes, it's not a wonder that so many baptists mistake musical ecstasy for religious awakening. And few singers can awaken musical ecastasy like Elvis when he is in full gospel mode.

Cheers,
DTS

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