Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Archive - 12/18/2007 to 02/19/2008

Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Ellison & Pinkwater

Harlan: As always you leave me wondering if you are a genius or a complete nut, I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between.

Here's a link for us more lazy webderlanders to keep up with our host latest high jinks

http://www.pinkwater.com/pzone/forum/index.php

Best to All
Jarod Hitchcock

For those four of you who seemingly cannot sink far enough into depravity that you are incapable of turning away even summat the most minuscule opportunity to catch one of my rare and clangorous ectoplasmic p.a.s elsewhere...

Go over to Daniel Pinkwater.com and hie thyself into the forum called, I believe, The P-Zone. Dropped by for spot of tomfoolery the other day. Pinkwater has responded, in kind.

He is a major nifty guy, humorist, NPR columnist, novelist, and all-around charming witty dude. Like.

Yr. *al, Harlan

***John Z.***

Check your AOL email account. I re-sent you all the information you need and a counter proposal. My e-mail will be in there, but it's also to be found at the top of every one my posts to the Pavilion since its inception.

Also, as one or two of you merry pranksters already know, I am in the book. And since there are exactly four people named Dannelke in the United States and they all live under my roof, well, jackpot to you intrepid callers.

- Barney Dannelke

barney dannelke
Mr D. re: the Locuses ? Locii? oh hell, the magazines... in the midst of 3 writing projects I've misplaced your e-mail and the list of what you needed. Are you going into Philly anytime soon and can either meet in town or stop in Conshohocken, home once upon a time of Maria Bello, and pick up the whole batch (and the Warren Spirits). I'd hate to just toss them. If you feel a need for recompense I state right here I defer to your judgement. No rush on any of this. As always we at the Mercury Theatre remain obediently yours.

Hate, not have technology. ick.

Ok, let's get this straight one more time, a Luddite does not have technology, they only hate what technology can do to mankind, making people into machines. That was the usual concern. They were good peoples, amen.

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

KOS, good to see you being a good boy.

I will refrain from painting that target on your back.

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

To hell with Vampira, someone mentioned Helen Hunt. Damn is that woman sexy. That's my type, yummers.

She has that girlish charm.

Boner time. Sexist? nah.

JOSH and Batman
Hey JOSH: Being almost as much of a Luddite Harlan is (never got my Guild card) and perhaps because I'm slightly dyslexic and very ADHD, I seemed to have missed the release date for "GOTHAM KNIGHTS" on that Youtube advertisement-type thingee. Do you know if a date has been set? (Looking forward to checking it out, and seeing one of your latest scripts played out on the screen).

Cheers,
DTS

Re: The lack of a Con statement in the WGA materials - the truth of the matters seems to be this: There wasn't time. Guild rules demand that any statements that go out with voting materials be endorsed by at least ten signatures. There WAS an attempt to gather Con statements, but by the time they started arriving, there wasn't time to gather signatures.

Patrick Meighan, who wrote the official one on the WGA site, has made it VERY clear that the fault in getting his statement into the Guild on time lays entirely at his feet. In that all this was put together VERY last minute, it makes sense.

the ire spreads
Unca Harlan-
United Hollywood and the Past Deadline sites seem to have you back on the Con statement. As a fellow writer, not worthy to carry your pencil shavings, I agree with you and revel in your gift of self-expression. Keep the faith, baby.

Wobblies forever....One Big Union. IWW member X352343.

HERC MEMBER CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Hi Susan,

Can you please update my address for future mailings of The Rabbit Hole?
Member #928
New address: 94 North Franklin St.
Apt. #5
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18701
Thank you!

The Lemur Stares Longingly At A Pinup of Harriet Myers
Various:

DIANE BARTELS: Yow. I'm glad you caught it. Take care of yourself and provide further updates. My wife found out, in preparation for gastric bypass surgery about six years ago, that she had already survived two heart attacks and didn't even know it, one reason we credit that procedure for saving her life. My own situation is odder: once in a great while, I get the SYMPTOMS of a heart attack, check it out, and discover that my heart is as strong as a drum. This goes back to my twenties. It seems to I'm prone to esophagal spasms, a disorder that causes tightness in the chest, shortness of breath, and even tingling down my right arm...and some four times in my life I have checked myself into the hospital and found out that there's no sign of heart ailment whatsoever. As a fat guy, I am not happy with having symptoms that mimic the kind of thing a fat guy should be worried about....again, take care of yourself. Get well.

ALEX JAY: Enjoy. I take it these would be the Spider-Man novels? Maybe Vossoff and Nimmitz?

JAROD HITCHCOCK: Yes, the creeping increase in the time taken up by commercials is a chief reason why I prefer watching series collected on DVD, or time-shifted with a hand on the remote control. (THE RICHES, just now out on DVD, is an example of a show that is probably ten times better watched without interruption. And deeply recommended, by the way.) I need to note that this is NOT true of shows broadcast on pay cable; such high-quality, commendable series as SIX FEET UNDER and THE WIRE give you the full hour. I have not been able to bring myself to investigate just what harm has been done to Showtime's ghoulish but oddly charming DEXTER, the series about the likeable serial killer, as the gory and often profane hour-long shows originally broadcast on Showtime are sliced to ribbons to accomodate not only the still more conservative standards of broadcast television, but also that forty-two minute time slot. My only interest is perverse fascination with the destruction of something I love.

EVERYBODY: Oh, to be in Miami today, with the last name Castro. Don't ask.

Shakespeare, Flying Blue Monkeys, and Captain Keith
Diane: If you go to www.unbox.com and set up their free software (this is through Amazon), you can download the RSC production of Romeo & Juliet for nuffin. They're doing one production per week for free, but if you miss it, you can get it for $1.99 later. But free is always better.

Add me to the list of people who contacted Mssrs. Coulton and/or Aboud. I emailed them around eleven or so last night, and they say they've taken care of it. Nice of them to respond to my email, especially since they were probably hit with an electronic tsunami.

Alex: There are so many pieces of Kruger's that I like. I was tempted by some of the Keith Richards prints, even though I'm not a huge Stones fan, simply because Kruger captures him so well. My other favorite is the Steve McQueen, because he looks so fearless and invincible. I need more wall space. And money. Lots of money. I also want a couple of giclees based on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, but I'm a geek that way. Loved the Flying Dutchman and Davy Jones. Bill Nighy is fabulous.

HARLAN: I'm surprised you haven't written in to, say, Variety, to express your anger that no "con" statement was included.

SXSW PEOPLE: If you go, do try to catch the film "In a Dream", about Philadelphia "outsider artist" Isaiah Zagar, whose "Magic garden is just about the neatest art object/installation in all of Philly, and whose mosaic murals help set the theme for most of South Street (yes; "the hippest street in town"). Our own darling Peg can attest to the "wow"-ness of his work.

You can look at some of his work at http://www.philadelphiasmagicgardens.org/history.html and http://www.isaiahzagar.org/

ADAM-TROY: Nothing big, but I just wanted to let you know I put a couple of your books on hold at the Philly Free Library. I'm expecting enjoyment, and I'm sure you won't let me down.

AMY: Though I'm a blueshound and like the Robert Johnson art (and his) stylized art reminds one very pleasantly of Ralph Steadman), the thing of Kruger's I REALLY like is the non-stylized Jimi Hendrix.

ROBERT: Just stop before you get to Goatse, 'kay? Harlan is far too young and innocent for such things.

Words out...
Unca Harlan:

I'm guessing I'm not the first, but I did find an email address camouflaged on the UH site, so I sent 'em a note to mention that you would like them to call. Hopefully it was a moot point.

Adding Michael Mayhew:

Finally gave my brother-in-law the page you sent me lo these many weeks ago; we finally got around to celebrating his birthday, so I printed out an edit of the thread dealing with the provenance of his gift. I just turned him on to Harlan last fall, so he's now triply tickled, owning a print from a Heavy Metal story adaptation of a Lovecraft tale that's been through Harlan's own hands. Hee! Thanks again for handling all the distribution of our generous host's largesse, and... Harlan... thanks again for everything you've done so far, and advance thanks for everything you've got in the pipeline. Wotta ride...

Alejandro:

Oooh! What fun! I had a paperback collection of Thinking Machine stories when I was a lad of 9 or so, and it very much affected my thinking for... well, my life so far. I can hardly imagine what my life would have been like without those stories behind my eyes. Now, I need to get down to the bookstore and get this tome ordered...

'Night, all. If my brother-in-law drops in, tell him I said "Hi".

HARLAN:

I sent off messages to Colton and Aboud: they should contact you at the usual number. I will call you tomorrow and (briefly) explain the internet to you. Kisses!

hi everyone. at my sister's house late again and i do not tonite have time to read all the posts i missed the last couple of weeks. But i do have a message for harlan, yet another thank you. This time I think you may have literally saved my life. From the intro to Shatterday, (which I enjoyed very much), I remember you saying with your heart attack, it was not just the pain, it was the pressure in the chest. Couple, three weeks ago, I started getting a pain right in the center of my chest, like the esophogus. My penchant for self-diagnosing led me to assume it was gastric, or my shunt acting up, or most anything but my heart. I put off going to er for days, ( I hate hospitals) but to make long story shorter, I started getting pressure with the pain, which never radiated down the left. Still i screwed around for a day or so, then finally I said well, Harlan's usually right about a lot of stuff, so I cabbed me down to Northwester Mem. They stuffed a nitro under my tongue, with baby aspirin, clapped on the oxygen, and did an ekg, which came back perfectly normal. Sadly, or luckily, they also did heart enzymes, which came back majorly fucked up. They kept going ; the docs did an angioplasty, and found I had a 90% block in coronary artery. They shot it out, and placed a stent. Next day, they told me I was a lucky little girl that I came in when I did, as in lucky to still be on planet. So, it was your ( written) voice, Harlan, that made me finally go. Thank you very much. On SXSW, I now believe life is short, and I've wanted to meet Harlan for 25 years. Somehow I will be there, maybe just for the film. I would love to see the panel too, but don't yet know if I can stay or afford the big pass. Paul, thanks for the info on the movie tickets at Waterloo Records. If a pass should become availabe for just the movie and panel next day, I will keep checking this site. In other things, I adore Shakespeare. That makes me sound pretetious, but I loved him when I was young, like a kid. Then in college, I had the most wonderful Shakespeare teacher, Mrs. Peg O'Connell; her class was a mind, heart and soul opening experience. Frank Chuch, I never had a problem with the thought of Jesus and Mary M. being intimate; thought it was their business. But if they did, the Lord did not F--- her; he gently, tenderly, passionately and attentively made loving love to the girl. LOL. Thanks Harlan again. Be well all. And if God doesn't strike me dead on the spot for that last comment, I will maybe see you all in Texas. PS. ATC, congrats on novel. That has to be a thrill and a half. I look forward to reading it. Diane

Happy 75th Birthday, Doc!

Doc Savage turned seventy-five yesterday!

My best to him and to his inestimable team: Renny, Long Tom, Johnny, Ham, Monk and Harlan.

Steve Dooner

The Thinking Machine
Harlan:

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I am three quarters of the way through the Jacques Futrelle's "The Thinking Machine" collection of stories that you edited for The Modern Library and they are delightful. Futrelle may have been a one trick pony but boy, what a wonderful pony. I don't mind seeing it do its tricks over and over again.

It's been a long time since I've read stories like these. In fact, I haven't read anything like this since high school when, from my meager earnings delivering newspapers back home, I would pay for my monthly fix of The Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, the Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Asimov's and read, with wonder and cheerful glee, each and every story. This collection has brought back those fond memories. It is rare these days to find stories that bring so much joy and wonder. And for that Futrelle fully deserves his place in The Modern Library.

AR

Hollywood Reporter....
....web site tumbles upon our esteemed host's WGA comments:

http://www.pastdeadline.com/2008/02/harlan-ellison.html#more

Further, deponent sayeth not.

Erik

HELP!!!!!!!!!!

A guy from the website UNITED HOLLYWOOD called me today. It was either Michael Colton or John Aboud. I have been trying for two (2) (fuckin toooooooooooo) hours to reach one of these guys, to have one or the other call me back for a loose end, and they want you to sign in with this, or log on with that, or view their videos, or looka their facebook, or looka their YouTube, or blahblahblah, with this password crap that makes them all feel like the CIA or James Bleeding Bond or Ashenden the Secret Agent, but is all gibberish to me, as opposed to a simple direct human-to-human communication by phone...WHICH APPARENTLY IS NOW VIEWED AS HORSE'N'BUGGY IN LIEU OF THIS GODDAM LABYRINTHINE LAOCOONIAN SKEIN...but NOWHERE is there a simple way simply to say to them, "Please call me back," without having to give them your life story and private information and enough roughage for them not to have to wander in consummate darkness!

In short, Flying Blue Monkey Squad, if you would...please...kindly...before I go even crazier than I am already...get in touch with one/both of these guys, and ask him/them to call me back, using the number they've used twice before. Thank you manyfold, in advance, Whomever.

Exhaustedly, and even crankier than ususally, Yr. Pal, Harlan

Re: Maila Nurmi. "Hot...Also, kinda creepy."

...appeals to my necrophiliac leanings.

Reply to Harlan & Josh re: The Discarded

Guys,

The show was run commercial free, total running time for the entire program was listed @ 100 minutes. But it finished 10-15 minutes early, it is possible that it was re-edited for Australian screens. Pretty sure Broadcast standards (so to speak) are different here than they are in the states.

But Josh is correct in saying that, shockingly an hour of TV is now only 42 minutes max. (this is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine) Back in the 60's when say Harlan "City on the Edge of Forever" was broadcast total running time was between 50-54 minutes. Then by the 80's we were down to around 45 minutes, now in 2008 we are down to 40-42 minutes. In the next 10 years will be down to half show, half commercials.

As for my rushed comment it was just a feeling & feelings are very strange things, Every time I see Jenna Bush on TV (we get a lot of U.S news down here & I have been watching a lot of it recently with respects to the upcoming elections. My money is on Obama) I can't help but wonder what she would look like wearing nothing but a cowboy hat & boots, not a very noble thought mind you but then what are you gonna do. Anyway after thinking about it for 10-20 minutes, All I can then think about is whether this makes me a bad liberal. Again Feelings are very strange things

Best to All
Jarod Hitchcock

PS: Sorry to violate the one a day rule, but there's a nifty little promotional trailer for Batman: Gotham Knights, a DVD-only project I wrote a story for that folks here might dig. The tone's a bit serious -the piece seems to be addressed to people who don't know who Batman is - but it gives a few nifty looks at the thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuSwj5ok24k

Paul--thanks for the info, though I knew it already--but there is NO way I'd go to an event Harlan's attending without seeing the man himself. Hence the 400. Well, make that 800, because I don't travel without my (according to Harlan) well-trained mate. If I could get into the movie AND panel for 70 a pop, hell, I'd fly down for the day. Helen Hunt may be a lovely person, but I have no interest in seeing her or anyone else. Southwest offers fantastic web fares, particularly from Love Field. This is KILLING me.

But I still love my Robert Johnson giclee. It's by Sebastian Kruger. If anyone else out there loves the man who sold his soul, you can check it out here:

http://www.artonfifth.com/kruger/johnson.htm

Harlan,

Horrifyingly enough, an hour of network TV in 2008 adds up to 42 minutes of programming, 18 minutes of commercials. So if they're running down under without ads, the damn thing wasn't an entire hour.

However, I DO wonder if maybe it was cut down in Autralia, because there was NO rushing involved in the telling of that story. We had plenty of time - if we hadn't, there'd have been no eye to plotz for.

Barney,

Kudos (and just what the damn is a 'kudo'?) go to my friend Paul Shiple, who pointed it out to me. I just thought others here would appreciate seeing a true Ellison collectible on eBay.

Tiny url address noted for the future.

Back to my place on the porch, now.

So close, and yet so far...
I am truly chagrined to say I am not likely to make it to SXSW, which bums me out more than I can say.

I had 2 offshore trips thrust upon me at short notice this month, my sis is coming to visit this week, and I just inheritied a project at work which will have me up to my ears through March. What with recent events in my life, and an even more recent relocation, I just can't do a weekend or more away in March. At best, I could look at doing a day trip out to see the film, but I wouldn't pay $70 for a pass for that.

When it's take your chances at the door, hardly seems worth the 6 hour 300+ mile RT haul from Houston, not considering the price of gas. If we were talking a full fledged interactive Harlan & Susan & Webderlanders event, it might be worth it. But just to see the film? Sorry, can't pass muster on that.

I'm now setting my sights on Icon in April, which should be past the immediate frenzy, and affords the same chance for film and fun with fine WedberFolks. (Already done booked my vacation days and bought tickets, so if this one gets canceled, it's on the company tab).

Paul, my virtual amigo, sorry to have to pass, but we'll catch each other another time....

Cheers
Peggy

Aaaarrrghh......!

I hate being this way, really. I do.

As some of you know, I am in the midst of funeral arrangements for my uncle. His partner is a terrific guy, but entirely too deferential to confront anyone openly (he just gets quietly frustrated, eventually exploding in a flash and then apologizing for it.)

The Neptune Society hasn't been as ... proactive ... as I'd like. This morning I had to get nasty on the phone with them, generally turning this into a true Monday for everyone involved (headaches, heartaches, the sort of day we all attribute to being a Monday). The coordinator I spoke with immediately called my uncle's partner and began working through the details.

I hate being the nasty call that no one wants to get, but sometimes it becomes necessary.

(Thank you. I feel better now.)
____________________________________________________

We know that Harlan opposed the deal, and Josh reconciled himself to it (if I don't mis-speak). I'm certain one or the both of you talked to J Michael Staczynksi about and I'm curous what his take was -- he hasn't posted anywhere yet, to my knowledge.

Entertainment Weekly has an item which mentions the three-week waiting period before online residuals kick in for the writers -- and that it takes a year for them to be paid -- but generally indicates the writers are walking away better for the ordeal rather than worse. This is, for good or bad, the impression the general public is being given.

Then again, if you don't get the checks, what the public thinks is pretty worthless when it comes to paying the creditors.
_______________________________________

Answer to David Loftus: The Sinclair dinosaur was a brontosaurus. Even though the bronto never existed, except in museums who couldn't read the fossil record assembly instructions properly, Sinclair's artwork was based on that now-mythological creature.

Hope this lets you sleep at night.

(And, for extra bonus points, I'll note that -- on the entirely too brief tv sitcom DINOSAURS -- the last name of the family was Sinclair. Earl, Fran Robbie Charlene and "The Baby")(Gotta love him.)

Sad news. Alain Robbe-Grillet has passed away.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jF0U80MBcLs2iYoWEHKB0VraQKPw

Colbert note
The Colbert bit was very nice, though I thought he was handing out cigars--pencils would be more appropriate, I guess. It should be noted that there was a sly bit of humor in that, while I'm sure most of the people who came trotting out were the show's actual writers, Tiki Barber and Kevin Bacon were also there for no apparent reason.

Various
Bill Maher acknowledged the writers last week, introducing "New Rules" (a regular segment of topical humor that has been absent during the strike). He said, "We have a lot of New Rules to catch up on, since..." and then he paused, looking stricken. "Not that anybody was WRITING THEM while they were gone..." I don't think this was a deliberate bit, but an actual moment of oh-shit-I-didn't-mean-to-say-that.

And, fwiw, Jon Stewart's THE DAILY SHOW was "A" DAILY SHOW for the duration of the strike. He returned it to THE DAILY SHOW with much fanfare. His best moment during the strike was when Mitt Romney made some comment about not voting for democrats because they want America to lose, and Stewart said, "You know, my writers would come up with something clever to say about that, but I don't have writers right now, so I'm going to have to wing it." Pause, as he deliberated. "Mr. Romney...FUCK YOU."

HARLAN: your best wishes brought a wide abashed grin to the sweetie's face. Wish you coulda seen it. Come to think of it, in April you will.

I'm hoping that the second of the THREE books I have coming out this year (it's small-press; the third is not), will also be out then, so I can give ya BOTH...!

SXSW, baby!

Amy Kostyn-Jenkins, and anyone else, actually, if you can make it down, there is a cheaper way to do it. There are $70 dollar film passes, available right now from Waterloo Records, here in Austin. The passes get you into all movies, no panels, though, sorry. Now, they do sell tix to the general public, (regular movie price, 7-9$ YMMV) about 20 min or so to show-time, but there is no guarantee the place won't be filled to capacity before that.

You can call Waterloo Records at 512) 4742525 and order your film passes by credit card, and they will hold them until you pick them up. Just need to show I.D. There is info on the other board, some good, some silly, about SXSW. Just in case you wanted to know.

The movie - http://2008.sxsw.com/film/screenings/film/F10122.html#trailer

The panel- http://2008.sxsw.com/film/conference/panels_schedule/?action=show&id=FP060181

Of course, Harlan's panel is slated in the exact same time slot as Helen Hunt, so there should be plenty of seats available. Tee. Hee. Of course, those with badges can get in to see all panels and movies. The film passes are not able to be used to see panels, and you cannot pay your way to hear the panels. So that means, unless Harlan is able to swing some extraordinary largesse to film pass people and/or personal friends, it's badge only kids. Sorry.

Now, as for trying to find a decent hotel for less than your firstborn anywhere NEAR downtown..........

One way to welcome back writers.
I apologize if I re-posting something that has been mentioned on the boards, but I have had a surfeit of life lately and haven't been keeping up.

During a bout of insomnia, I came in on the beginning of the "Colbert Report" and he not only announced the end of the writer's strike, which got a huge cheer from the audience, but he introduced each writer by name and handed them a pencil as they walked out on stage, one by one.

This being the "Colbert Report", the New York Mets' mascot, Mr. Met came out after the last writer was introduced and then Colbert joined the writers (and Mr. Met), who had been lining up on some bleachers after they got their pencils. I don't know what the technical term is for this, but I'm sure most of you have seen "snapshot take", where you hear the sound of a flashbulb and you then see a framed still of whatever you were watching.

Being an IT technician, I am acutely aware of working without compliment, being expected to stop, drop and tech anywhere, work for free, work overtime without recompense, etc., so, while I don't have intimate knowledge of the working conditions of the show, I did rather appreciate this public acknowledgement of the writers.

Was there anything similar on other shows?

Brian Phillips

PERPLEXIA INCOGNITA

JAROD:

I am confounded by your statement that "The Discarded"

"could have been an hour long."

Uh...

It WAS an hour long.

In America, an "hour long" means something like 52 minutes plus commercials. (51? 54? hell, something like that.) But it WAS a standard-length hourlong episode, as was "Watchbird" (which I've never seen), I presume.

Is it possible you're getting bowdlerized versions Down Under?

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Eat Your Heart Out, Michael Flatley
Harlan is actually Lord of the Lindy. I have photos of him dancing the Lindy with Pin-up babe and actress, June Wilkinson, in the kitchen of my old house in LA to the tune of Miss Petunia (vinyl supplied by Mr. E). June is taller than Harlan too.

Tiny URL
*** Alan *** Thank you for the heads up on that. Not that I'll be throwing $1,000.00 at that, but I did want to see some good photos of the thing. I had seen a rather grainy black and white photo in a catalog, but these are much better.

As for the URL - I'd like to recommend Tiny URL;

http://tinyurl.com/create.php

That page reduced your 3 line URL to this;

http://tinyurl.com/2qt5k9

and those shorter links last. I use Tiny URL on average about twice a day. One of the most useful tools on the net.

- Barney

Susan: No problem. Regarding payment, several German paperbacks are still on their way to Casa Ellison (mostly the Star Wars novels and Harlan's brilliantly accurate adaptations of Animated Star Trek), accompanied by a list of expenditures and killings committed in Harlan's name. For now don't send me money as I will be in L.A. for several weeks, where I hope I'll have some kind of address. I could drop off the comic books somewhere reachable by bus. We can think about the details next month.
Saludos,
Jan

Vampira musings
Not sure if it was mentioned, but "Vampira" passed away about a month ago (January 10, 2008). That is to say, the actress Maila Nurmi, who played "Vampira".

She had an eighteen inch waist when she played the character on late night Los Angeles TV in the Fifties.

A good friend and collaborator of mine produced a documentary on the life and career of Ed Wood. Maila Nurmi made her last filmic appearance in an interview for that production. She was apparently quite kind and gracious, according to him.

I've got a novel in the works, titled "Holy Wood". It involves the search for the stolen ashes of a silent screen actress of middle-rank. Think "Maltese Falcon" in modern Los Angeles with a "Song of Kali" sort of atmosphere.

A writerly sort of friend helped a bit when, after I described the scene of literal PanDemonium near the end, wherein every sort of demon, harpy and psychopomp rises from Hades to prowl the streets of L.A.: "Oh? This is Los Angeles. Why would anyone notice?"

This will obviously have to be made plausible. Fiction must be plausible. Life can be confusing and unbelievable. It better be. Not fiction. It better not be.

Good luck A-TC!

KOS

Masters of Science Fiction - Down Under
This Series has just aired in my neck of the woods & we got to see all six episodes.(I understand that in the states two were cut for some reason)

The two I watched this past weekend were Harlan & Mr Olson's “The Discarded" & "Watchbird" starring James Cromwell (great actor) & Sean Astin.

Funniest Line of the whole show was Harlan's: Oy you could plotz over a tukus like that. Enjoyed John Hurts performance, Harlan & Mr Olson's snappy dialogue made it a real treat.

Only negative comment was about both episodes really, they seemed slightly rushed in that the stories were over just as you were getting into them. I think both the above episodes could have been an hour or so long quite easily & been fleshed out more enjoying more character development & so fourth. But Then What Do I Know

Best Wishes to All
Jarod Hitchcock

Mefisto In Onyx collectable edition for sale on eBay
This is all one address. You'll have to piece it back together.

http://cgi.ebay.com/harlan-ellison-and-frank-miller-limited-edition_
W0QQitemZ270211690058QQihZ017QQcategoryZ29223QQss
PageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

JUST JOHN:

In addition to getting wrong the source of the request for my panegyric (as Josh has quite properly advised you), I also neglected to mention that there WAS a "pro statement" signed by a busload of Prominent Authors attached to the ratification pamphlet and ballot. No "con" statement ofr any kind. Not a whisper. Yes, a "pro" shout, but not a "con" whisper.

-he

ADAM-TROY:

1) Give you-know-who a hug and a kiss from me, pre-Thursday, because I like her LOTS better than you.

2) I still haven't quite figured out how to solve that, uh, er, "problem" your Good Offices caused me. But I will. Have no fear. Have shpilkes, have angst, have guilt, but have no fear, you putz.

3) I will EXPECT a bountifully personalized warm-off-the-press copy of the First Castro Novel. I will not ask again.

Aloofly, Yr. Pal, Harlan

VAMPIRA & ME

It's true, Rob. It was at a World Science Fiction Convention (I am trying hard to recall correctly); and an actual photo of us dancing exists. We were jitterbugging -- what they useta call The Lindy -- and I'm spinning her out at arm's length.

She is considerably taller than I.

Yeah, as you put it, "hot." Also, kinda creepy.

Yr. Pal, the profligate Harlan

Upton Sinclair Lewis Oil!


Upton Sinclair authored Oil!

The one I have a problem keeping straight is Sinclair Oil: is it a brontosaurus, diplodocus, or apatosaurus who graced the logo?

On Sinclairs
'Tis very easy to confuse Upton Sinclair and Sinclair Lewis, but they were two different people; Upton Sinclair did THE JUNGLE, Sinclair Lewis did BABBIT, ELMER GANTRY, and IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, among others. I dunno which one did OIL!

Dear Jan:

We would like both the items you found. Many, many thanks. Just tell us how much money (inc. postage) and we'll send it. Do you want it in Dollars or Euros. Just advise.

With kindness--Susan

IaIn Banks. Iain. Not Ian.

And "it is" or "it's", not both. Take yer pick and discard the other.

A-TC -- Wincing best wishes to your wife. Been there, didn't enjoy that. Make sure she doesn't play the heroine and skip the pain meds -- you get them for a reason. (Not really pain, per se, but a whole lot of soreness going on.)

Looking forward to the new book. Love the cover, and very cool to see your name in bold print.

From the HarperCollins website: "Two murders have occurred on One One One, an artificial ecosystem created by the universe's dominant AIs to house several engineered species, including a violent, sentient race of sloth-like creatures."

So it's is about genetically-engineered Hollywood producers?

_______________________________

Jes: Suggestions for interviews?

How about Norman Spinrad, Alan Moore, Dan Simmons and Arthur C. Clarke?
_______________________________

And just to continue getting myself pointlessly in trouble, I love the cover artwork (British edition) on the new Ian M Banks novel MATTER. Very evocative.

Answering Harlan's question
Harlan, I may be wrong, but in all the collective bargaining I've done and been involved in, when the parties reach a Temporary Agreement, then it is a violation of fair bargaining parctices to officially stump for a "No" vote. Else why did you come to an agreement in the first place?

Typically, the contract comes before the Board of Directors, who then have first dibs on saying yay or nay to accepting the offer. That acceptance at the BOD meeting constitutes an acceptance of the offer from the other party. And if they accept, then the offer is sent out to the membership, and the BOD is expected to support the deal they accepted.

This is not the same as taking an advisory vote from the membership on whether or not to officially accept a specific proposal or specific particulars of that proposal. Usually, sunshine rules prevent either party from disclosing what is on the table until they have crafted a deal, so asking for an advisory vote on what is essentially classified material until it is officially accepted by both sides would be tricky business.

Now, including a con statement may not be the equivalent of opposing the deal, but it skates nearer the edge than presenting the deal with PRO sentiment attached. However, an organization also has every right to present the deal to its membership without a reccomendation either way, and let the members decide for themselves.

A-TC wrote:
"AND: Self-plug, we are now less than ten days from the release of my first original (i.e. not media-related) novel, EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD (Harper Collins). Do check it out.

AND: Think good thoughts for my sweetie, who's having TRIPLE (!) HERNIA surgery on Thursday...!"

Will definitely pick it up as soon as I can lay my sweaty little hands on it. Is there a market of choice in your eyes?

Warm fuzzies for your sweetie. Hubby had hernia surgery at the end of December; while he recovery was not his cup of tea, it certainly was less painful than the hernia itself. Remind your sweetie that the doctor's recommendation of "x amount of time before doing anything stupid that might mess up my work" is a sound one.


shagin

A-TC: I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of "There Will Be Blood". I am a HUGE p.t. anderson fan, so seeing it was a given, but it's a real departure from his normal hyperkinetic ensemble works. I picked up Upton Sinclair's "Oil," never having read it before. TWBB is supposed to be very loosely based on it, but this outstanding film piqued my interest. I haven't read anything of Sinclair's other than "The Jungle," and that was required reading in middle school.

Best to your poor suffering sweetie!

HARLAN:

Wish I could see you in Austin, but I just bought a Robert Johnson giclee that puts a $400 one-day (for me) pass out of my reach. Hope everything goes well, and I also hope to see you up in NY. Love to you and Susan from Ben and me.

Various
On JESUS SKYWALKER: by far the best volume in Harlan Ellison's three-trilogy-plus-epilogue decaology, published under the group title, "Triumph of the Whills, or Love Ain't Nothing But Jabba Misspelled," it establishes for the VERY FIRST TIME the nature of Ewok government and is most remarkable for the ten chapters written from an Ewok's point of view, and in the Ewok language. (There is also one chapter written from Chewbacca's point of view, complete with glossary establishing how many a's the "aaaaaaaarrrr" must have for each intended meaning.) My favorite Ellisonian moment in the whole thing is the plaint, "Jar-Jar has kneed us in the groin again."

OTHER ISSUES: For God's sake, see THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Please. Most memorable movie character since Michael Corleone and Hannibal Lecter.

AND: Self-plug, we are now less than ten days from the release of my first original (i.e. not media-related) novel, EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD (Harper Collins). Do check it out.

AND: Think good thoughts for my sweetie, who's having TRIPLE (!) HERNIA surgery on Thursday...!

Not Required Subject of the Post
This reminds me of an open content thread, only without the strict adherence to the topic.

HARLAN!!

YOU once danced with Maila Nurmi? MAILA NURMI?? As in...that beautiful, beatific, boner fide beau monde, VAMPIRA???????

Thanks to Tim Burton's film, Ed Wood, the Web is FLOODED with history about her; I've seen probably every photo shot during her peak days as the sexy icon.

...from what I could tell, she was HOT!!!!!!

Alright. The spikes. The whips. The screams. How good WAS it? And WHERE the hell did you do it?

Zack - No, that's the novelization for El Topo. The cover's a misprint.

Lies, Slander, and Lies!
No way, Harlan. There is no way you're going to tell me that you wrote JESUS SKYWALKER. It says right here on the cover: written by Cordwainer Bird. I may not be able to tell sarcasm from the opposite of sarcasm, but I can sure tell when something doesn't say that it was written by Harlan Ellison! I HAVE HALF A MIND to write this Mr. Bird and tell him that you're claiming his Star Wars novel as your own.

You know, I don't think any of you have even read JESUS SKYWALKER. Only connoisseurs of the fine Star Wars cannon, such as myself, would even be aware of such an obscure contribution as JS:TT. It's a pretty good read, if I do say so myself, even if the character of Assbacca is a tad unrealistic. But I digress...

Shame on you, Harlan. Shame on you.

Doc Savage's 75th birthday
Today, February 17th, is the 75th anniversary of the 1933 debut of the Man of Bronze in the first issue of DOC SAVAGE MAGAZINE. Even if you forgot to send Clark Savage, Jr., a birthday card, you might consider sharing the day with him by rereading one of his classic pulp adventures.
Along with The Shadow's debut two years earlier, this publishing event pretty much launched the American superhero genre. Without Clark Savage, the Man of Bronze, we might not ever have had Clark Kent, the Man of Steel.

Excised portions of this script
as in " Our estimate of sales and advance to you based on that estimate was VERY close to what we actualy got. We even saw some new copies of the books we got from you in local book stores at the same prices we got. No problem at all on this end.

Chrestomathy House, Inc. Quarterly Report
Dear Harlan,offered at the very price, to the penny, we got. To the point that the "advance" on sales we forwarded to you was within five percent of actual sales to this point (with about ten paperback books left unsold, though they are still listed and likely will trickle out the door over the next few months, bring in a slight increse in everyones recompense.)

All to say: it has been and continues to be a worthwhile endeavor Yes, should you wish to repeat it as and when the book-midden reaches sufficient dimensions, then, please, forward it to the same address at your convenience.

As before, I'll offer "jus primae librii" to the local tribe.

KOS

Chrestomathy House, Inc. Quarterly Report
Dear Harlan,offered at the very price, to the penny, we got. To the point that the "advance" on sales we forwarded to you was within five percent of actual sales to this point (with about ten paperback books left unsold, though they are still listed and likely will trickle out the door over the next few months, bring in a slight increse in everyones recompense.)

All to say: it has been and continues to be a worthwhile endeavor Yes, should you wish to repeat it as and when the book-midden reaches sufficient dimensions, then, please, forward it to the same address at your convenience.

As before, I'll offer "jus primae librii" to the local tribe.

KOS

Chrestomathy House, Inc. Quarterly Report
Dear Harlan,offered at the very price, to the penny, we got. To the point that the "advance" on sales we forwarded to you was within five percent of actual sales to this point (with about ten paperback books left unsold, though they are still listed and likely will trickle out the door over the next few months, bring in a slight increse in everyones recompense.)

All to say: it has been and continues to be a worthwhile endeavor Yes, should you wish to repeat it as and when the book-midden reaches sufficient dimensions, then, please, forward it to the same address at your convenience.

As before, I'll offer "jus primae librii" to the local tribe.

KOS

Just to clarify - the request to make Harlan's statement the Con statement did not come from Guild. It came from a member who had read it, who thought it would make a great con statement. Unfortunately, for it to become official, it required ten signatures, and it needed them by noon that day. It was about 11:30 when she contacted me.

That isn't the issue. The issue is that there WAS an official Con statement, from a great guy, Patrick Meighan, who writes for Family Guy. It's up on the official WGA board, but is not, for some reason, contained in the documents we were all sent.

So Harlan's ire is completely appropriate, just slightly incorrect as far as the minor details go. Although, honestly, I like his version better - I WISH our Guild were hip enough that they'd request the use of a statement in which they were characterized as "Quislings, Turncoats, Hacks and Cowards."

HEADLESS IN GAZA (no connection to the Strip)

KOS: Fiduciarywise, how did you do with that chrestomathy clutch I sent? Ought I do it again?

-he

----------------------------------------------------------------
The "Eyeless in Gaza" part:

So Joe Straczynski's Kathryn had a birthday today, and my dear Susan, and Chris Valada, took her out for a day's gambol. And when Kathryn pulled up outside, to take on a load'a Susan, she smiled upon me and said gently, "Joe tells me you've put the cat among the pigeons again," to which I replied, suave as usual, "Huh? What'd I do THIS time?" And of course she was referring to the bilious post I jettisoned here a few days ago, anent the WGA strike; as I've said previously, because I'm an idiot dolt internetwise, I never considered anyone would even GIVE a shit, if they read it; and though Josh had relayed a query from the Guild earlier this week, did I mind if they used my post as the "Statement Against Ratification" in the mail packet being sent to the membership; and I said, hell go ahead, I don't care one way or the other, I'm not trying to convince ANYone of ANYthing, but if MY MY MY MY Guild wants it, I'm down with it. Next Tuesday we storm the Bastille. Wednesday, clam chowder.

So guess what? The packet comes in today and...

THERE IS NO "CON" STATEMENT BY

ANY
ANY
ANYbody.

I doth not give'a shit that they didn't use mine--which is apparently up on the Guild board, chat-room, jackoffURL, whatever--but not to have included a CON statement by

ANY
ANY
ANYbody?

Am I muddleheaded in thinking this is not condign? As the guy says at the end of "Jeffty is Five," won't somebody please tell me? Somebody?

Yr. Pal, Harlan

*Poof*
I appear! Harlan, I'll whack a bumper package of issues in the post for you on Monday. Apologies for being remiss in not sending any for you - ain't nothin' more than me being an unpardonably lazy bum. Hope you and Susan are well.
Steve, cheers for the shout out - it was a kick to get that letter in that you reference. But as you, me and everyone here knows, the reason that interview works is Harlan and Harlan alone; I just turned on the dictaphone and enjoyed the rollercoaster.
(Since Harlan we've interviewed Brian Aldiss, as Steve says, plus Terry Pratchett, Stephen Donaldson, and in the issue we've just finished - 11 - Iain (M) Banks. Any suggestions for future interviews from anyone?)
Erik Nelson - any more news on Dreams With Sharp Teeth? I don't think I've said, but it's gone down extreeeemely well with the other members of the Death Ray team. We'll be happy to report any more info.
While I'm here, anyone catching the new season of Lost? Personally, I think it's hitting new heights. Also, there's been some recent discussion about this, and Steve knows my thoughts on the book, but I've just finished Dan Simmons' The Terror, too. Absolutely crackerjack stuff. Drood can't come soon enough.
Chin-chin
Jes
Ps. Regarding the strike settlement; am I being a rank cretin in being perplexed that of 12,000 guild members, only 3,775 members cast ballots?

HEY! JES BICKHAM!

Where's my next issue of DEATH RAY?

Doncha love me no more?

Was it something I said?

Was it EVERYTHING I said?

Woefully bereft of all DRays past "my" issue, I remain, well, uh, woefully bereft, Yr. Pal, Harlan

Thanks Earl!

No appologies necessary Frank. This place is a looney bin, no denying. But it's my looney bin, and I'm somewhat attached to it.

Shakespere's the greatest. Did I mention that?

DeathRay #9

I picked up DR #9 yesterday at Border's Books. As usual, it's jammed with material, including a piece on Dr Who, fantasy artwork, and with Brian Aldiss as this month's interview subject.

In the "contact" segment is a lengthy letter from a Robert J. Hunt regarding issue #7, featuring a thoughtful commentary regarding Jes' interview with Harlan.

In particular: "Jes Bickham's interview provided many excellent examples of Harlan firing on all cylinders, a useful corrective to the apathetic."

and

"Crabby, curious or coruscating, Ellison is like no one else, his rigour, vigour and vituperative invention ring out like the clash of swords."

There's more. Harlan's modesty (and several copyright laws) prevents me from continuing, but I thought, particularly in light of his publicly stated problems with the WGA contract and corresponding nastiness from the trolls, these words were appropriate.

(Jes wouldn't forgive me if I didn't suggest you rush out to the nearest Border's and get a copy -- $10 and SUCH a deal at that price!)

Josh, you should listen to the Nardwuar interview with Harlan, where Harlan really goes after some cretins from Canada. Beyond the baby seal clubbers, there are some real kooks up in loving Canada.

Sorry Dylag.

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

Nardwuar: "Do you live in a house?"

Harlan: "No, I live in a cave."

Harlan's Star Wars opus.
I bought the first edition of it, in the original Urdu, no less. It's still in the same plain brown sleeve that's accompanied *all pornography since the days of Ed Meese.

MY "STAR WARS" PAPERBACK ORIGINAL NOVEL

ZACK:

You aren't telling us you've never bought in multiple copies, read, and re-read, one of my best efforts

JESUS SKYWALKER: THAT DAMNED TATTOOWEENIE

are you?

-he

HEY! STACY kiddo pal DOOKS!

Thanks, Cookie. Truly, I'm okay. Passion is good for me. And anger may break my heart, but the rage to live transcends. What're tey gonna do to me, sue me, shoot me, throw me in jail?

Naaah.

So stop fretting, all of you. I do SWEAR I am down wit' this.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

JUST JOHN and WM. C. FRANCIS:

Your gracious words did precisely as you would've wished.

They made me feel more than a little better.

If I had the initiative, I'd call Harry and ask him to drop in a bold-type explanation at the start of my words, explaining that while this was not strictly speaking a "private" sub rosa post, that it was originally disseminated among my friends here because I was angry, heartbroken and frustrated; and though I said I didn't mind it being freely posted, I am not yet at the place in my comprehension of this internet madhouse to face the simple truth that ANYTHING one says, even to friends, can be presented as if the one speaking wishes to "convince" anyone of anything. I do not seek the approbation of monkeys, and to be bottom-line frank about it ... I didn't think anyone would pay any attention to it. D'uhh.

Nonetheless, I am grateful for your warmth. I'm okay. Honest.
Today has been a LOT better than yesterday, of which all the above was a minuscule part of multiple angsts, trainwrecks, heartbreaks and, sigh, the best that can be said of yesterday --which, if it wasn't in the 1st percentile of the most chasm-rife and ghastly days of my life, the ABSOLUTE BEST that could be said of it, was that I was arranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

CHARLES EDWARD:

What an absolutely smashing, simply im-PEER-ial post!

Huzzah to you, my liege.

I, your friend, on t'other claw, seem once again to have plummeted into the porridge by way of mah big fat mouth.

Ah, me.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

You guys are really bucking to be smote by the thunderbolt of Zeus. Methinks it be not the wisest time to poke the bear.

Chief, I'm sorry the resolution has you down. I wish there was something I could do or say to cheer you up, but I don't think even as Pollyanna a nature as mine can really do the trick. I was proud of you though sir, so proud I thought I was going to burst to see you out there taking it to the streets. " That's my teacher. " I thought " My teacher and my friend. "

The good and bad of what these 100 days have wrought will become evident in the weeks and months to come, but for right here and now I want to say that you remain and will always be a giant in my eyes sir. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

I realize you may not be of a mood to talk about much but that's cool. I'll sit here with my copy of Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life and read until you're ready to hang out again. No pressure. I got time.

A pal,

Stacy

Zack,

Of course he did!

Like an ant drawn to a sugar cube, Harlan groveled at Lucas' feet for the chance to do a Star Wars novel.

Ellison's near-religious sojourn to Modesto California was well-documented in every American tabloid. He even makes an annual pilgrimage in devotion to that day.

Harlan knows he owes to George Lucas what Hemingway and Faulkner owed to Sherwood Anderson.

Jeezus, Zack, get WITH it!

Star Wars?
You guys are kidding, right? HE didn't write any Star Wars novels; I think I would remember that. I used to be all over that stuff, back when I was slower than I be now. You guys are being sarcastic, but I can never tell for sure when I'm just looking at type. What kind of sick alternate reality have I stumbled upon?!

BTW, the JLA issue didn't appear as a standalone at all, in case you're wondering.

Susan:

Will you also need the German editions of Harlan's Star Wars novels? I liked some of them. To be honest, his Yoda was perhaps too angry and embittered, and I didn't enjoy the long introductions in which Harlan praised George Lucas' genius. I hope Lucas lets him write one more, though. There are still unanswered questions about the Ewoks and Jar Jar Binks, for example. With Harlan's permission, we could all write letters to Lucasfilm.

Susan, as far as I know, you have the original German edition of BATMAN Black and White (pictured in RH #41), so you must be talking about the new, remixed edition that is just out? Both ones easy to get, the new one costs $28, though, at the present exchange rate.

I found the JLA you need, it's in a collection with three other issues. That's about $18.

I posted Harlan's strike piece on a WGA members only web page, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. The few negatives were mostly from dingbats who clearly had no clue as to who our pal was - one mouth breather made a comment to the effect that if Ellison really cared about the WGA and getting his point across he'd use honey to catch the flies, or some such folderol. Short version is, it helped a lot of folks who had yet to find their voice speak out against the deal, and it helped draw out some of the more cretinous drones.

I have to be honest, I don't entirely agree with his take. I think there are some positive aspects to the deal, and I think the Guild pulled together during this strike in a way that bodes well for the future. But I do love to watch Harlan rant, and it's refreshing as hell to hear someone talk about this deal in less than glowing terms. I may not believe it's the stinking piece of sludge Harlan does, but it sure as hell isn't the win any of us hoped for.

As for the Aint It Cool comments, as moronic as most of them were, I have to admit that the young wag who stated that "Harlan Ellison is an asshole. That's what his (sic) famous for, that and writing some Star Wars novels" came as close to pinpointing the wonder that is Ellison as anyone I've ever heard.

Heh. I'm just two Star Wars novels away from being the next Harlan Ellison.

Had a feeling the WGA deal was shit; you have to figure that, knowing that unions have been dead from the neck up for many years. The only real answer is the one I always give: Revolution. An abolishment of the system as it currently stands. Non-violently, of course.

Harlan, guts don't get served up at the great soup kitchen, they get earned. Just keep sloggin, what else can I say.

Anarchism, oh joyous anarchism.

----------

Shakespeare is easily the best poet of all time, bar none, that's no mystery, there is a simple consensus on that issue, but are his plays really that great? Sure, they are really great, but there are narratives I prefer. Poetic wise, that man is the cat. Meow.

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

Speaking of Michael York, did you guys know that he is a born again Christian? Saw him on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the sewer of religious right television fun. Ick.

I still say Jesus fucked Mary M.

About the Ain't It Cool News thing.

It isn't any surprise. Just about any Ellison reference is going to bring out the crazies. It is their Viagra.

But, even if read in that context, the responses are both sad and amusing. Sad, because the lack of intelligence and/or education that is shown. Amusing, because sometimes what is said is entertaining, even if it is an old saying.

One that amused me was (paraphrasing) "Harlan angry; sky blue; film at 11." Amusing only because of context. (We all know that this isn't true. The sky is azure.)

One that was extremely sad said "Harlin is my hero...". Harlin. 3 times he wrote Harlin. It's right there on the screen in front of him, and he can't spell it correctly. And very telling on the state of the average internet poster. They can't read, they can't write, they can't spell, they can't type, they don't comprehend, and somebody should go slap their mommas for not teaching them respect for others. Such is the state of the internet. And therefore there is little need to pay attention to what most people say on the intenrnt.

Speaking of the Gorilla
Thank you for your quiet and considered take on the settlement of the WGA strike. It is as I feared.

Two quotations come to mind. One is from Charles Beaumont and I learned it from you (Shatterday intro):

Attaining success in Hollywood is like climbing a gigantic mountain of cow flop, in order to pluck one perfect rose from the summit. And you find when you've made that hideous climb . . . you've lost the sense of smell.


The other from the Genius curmudgeon of the 19th century Sam Clemens came to mind looking at the site we were warned against:

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Aint It Cool News
Harlan, I did a very quick and unscientific survey of opinions on the AICN website. Took about 5 minutes. I don't think it's nearly as bad as initially painted here on the Pavillion.

First of all, Harry agreed with you and said so: "Harlan and I discussed it just two days ago - and when this came across my desktop - I had to share. Cuz, well he's Harlan - and he's right..."

Now, the admittedly crudely, and subjectively, categorized numbers. Out of 101 comments posted:

28 agreed with you / 31 Neutral, off-topic or addressed to other posters rather than the topic at hand/42 disagreed with you.

Of those who disagreed, many simply disagreed with you that the deal was bad. There were a few assholes who got off on being insulting, and many of them posted multiple times, skewing the results. I don't think there were more than you would find in any other venue you might visit.

Summary: somewhat bell-curved, typical distribution of opinion, if you correct for multiple posts, and only a few true assholes who are insulting for reasons that have more to do with their own failings than anything legitimate.

Many of the posts were hard to categorize, since many contained both compliments and critical comments. Those I tended to put in the neutral column, unless they definitely leaned one way or the other. The most frequent critical comment was actually a fairly reasonable one: Harlan didn't tell us what they lost, so we could understand WHY they got screwed. Some requested that you post another commentary on AICN expaining why the deal is bad. By the way, Harry did not make clear that your original comments were aimed initially at an audience that largely udnerstood what was gained and lost, and that you were summarizing your feelings on the deal for the educated. They seemed to have the impression you wrote it specifically for AICN.

Why do I post this? Because I know that words DO hurt, contrary to the claims of that old saw about sticks and stones. And even though you truly don't care what the uninformed think, it's still not pleasant to have this vague feeling that there are masses of people on some forum spewing venom everywhere. There are not. There are a few assholes, just like anywhere else in the universe, probably no more than would crop up here if they weren't summarily dismissed by regular posters. And there were many people, and dare I say they were by far the more eloquent and intelligent posters, who supported what you had to say and were complimentary of you and your work and your fearless stand against the writer's getting screwed. Others might disagree a little with my numbers and categorization of the posts, if they're wiling to waste the time, but I tried to be objective and honest.

Have a great day, the world isn't completely filled with cretins, there are many, MANY supporters of you, your stand and your work.

Wild Billy Shakes
Before Screenwriting, I was a classical/Shakespearean actor, beginning my career at The Globe of the Great Southwest in Odessa, Texas, reputed to be the most accurate replica of Shakespeare's Globe. How anyone could claim this, given no one knew precisely what the Globe looked like and the fact that ours had a roof and seats, is beyond me (Still Sam Wanamaker came by to look at it several times, before getting built the one on London's South Bank).

But The Summer Shakespeare Festival at the Globe always played to capacity crowds and people came from a hundred miles around to see the shows (After all, what else was there to do in West Texas?...Scrawled on the bathroom wall of the theatre: "Suicide in Odessa is redundant."). We were playing Shakespeare to an appreciative audience of cowboys, oil roughnecks, and the tumbling tumbleweed. No vast intellectual crowd of theatre devotees or English professors.

I just finished appearing in a production of HAMLET, playing Claudius, at Actors Guild of Lexington (Kentucky), to full houses, great reviews, and the production got a spread in the January ish of AMERICAN THEATRE magazine, the national publication of TCG.

I've encountered the Bard and most of his plays in some form or another (stage, film, reading, recording, performing...Timon of Athens keeps eluding me -- or I it.), and I can tell you the Bard thrives and prospers.

Yes, there will always be slope-headed, slack-jawed, knucke-dragging cretins masquerading as students who will never appreciate or "get" Shakespeare. But then they rarely get anything that has real artistic worth. Their tough luck.

Practically every state has their summer Shakespeare Festival, sometimes several cities within states have their own Shakespeare Festivals. We have three in Kentucky currently and the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, just across the Ohio River, does Shakespeare almost exclusively. Regional theatre companies frequently have Wild Bill slated in their seasons. I go to London every year...there are usually at least a couple of Shakespeares floating around the West End, to say nothing of the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the summer outdoor Shakespeare at Regency Park and The Globe on the South Bank. Countries the world over produce his plays. He ain't going anywhere. He's not being slighted or ignored in the world theatre repertory.

The language, when spoken properly with a healthy observance of the meter and verse, is actually quite clear, vivid, and precise as well as being evocatively beautiful. Yes, Shakespeare can be cut (judiciously, but often rigorously)...as there are plenty of references and passages that have no resonance or relevance to anything today. Still, everything you need to know about drama, writing, and life can be found in Shakespeare. Like most great writing, if you surrender to it and make an effort, it will enrich your life.

Thanks, Harlan
I'm in a situation where that Brother Theodore quote will be exquisitely appropriate.

I shall use it with proper credit, of course.

FOLLOW-UP:

1) Adam's and Barney's warnings are good enough for me. I will not be going to Harry's site (oddly enough, Harry and I spoke just the other day, slightly before all of this hit the net and the fan simultaneously). Whatever the know-nothings have said will not be paid even a scintilla of notice by me, so don't fret, folks. As my late friend, Brother Theodore, used to say: "To the fly on the shit-wagon, the shit-wagon is the cosmos."

2) Susan is asking for these FOREIGN EDITIONS of the DC Comics ONLY. No other versions. The specifically. You need neither seek for, worry about, ask about, surmise over ... any other, save these EXACT versions. (By the way, in France and Germany and Brazil and most other countries, these don't look like standard US comic books. They are very much like slim hardcover childrens' books, stiff board covers, spines, slightly larger than the standard US comic size. Thank you for helping us with this archival need.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

OMG.

Mrs Burke did not change her name to Mrs. Brown. Don't know where that came from. Like I said: "illiterate monkey". (Me.)

SHAKESPEARE.

I'm a little late to this party, but Adam_Troy's comment about "two great teachers" put me in mind to comment.

I can't profess to an over-riding love of Shakespeare growing up (though, as an adult, I enjoyed SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE a few years back), primarily because my own reading of the works tended to fall into standard rhythmical iambic pentameter as interpreted by an illiterate monkey.

In High School I was fortunate to take a two-year, two hour a day course called World Civilization -- and it was precisely as monumental an undertaking as the name would suggest.

The first hour was spent studying the evolution of language, beginning with the Rosetta Stone and cuneiform and proceeding up through the ages to early 20th Century literature (we ended year two with modern English and Hemingway). Obviously there was a large section devoted to Shakespeare.

The second hour was historical, following the progress of societies from early pre-Babylonian hunter-gathering, all the way through Hitler's Germany.

As I said, monumental.

The history teacher, Mrs. Brown, had a way of really engaging the students using what today would be unacceptably controversial topics and methods. (Two famous quotes seared into my brain: "Man created God in his own image" and "A lot of people today think the Inquisition was too lenient. These are your enemies.")

And the other -- Mr Furgeson -- was a part-time actor who managed to bring Shakespeare to life in a way I have never heard again. We UNDERSTOOD what was being said, and it MADE SENSE. (Remember, we were relatively run-of-the-mill sophomores in every sense of the word. My own core interests at the time ran more toward the cute brunette girl who sat behind me than TWELFTH NIGHT.)

Mrs. Burke and Mr. Furgeson MADE US THINK and weren't afraid of being beaten senseless by parents or the School Board.

Good teachers can make a world of difference with their students, but the more we strangle them with regulations and tests the less the value of formal education becomes. Without that freedom I seriously doubt I would ever have read the rest of Shakespeares plays or much of the rest of what qualifies as true literature.

Oh. And one last thing. Mr. Furgeson introduced me (and the class) to this writer named Harlan Ellison, even though his works appeared well after World Civ's historical window. Something about "good stuff is still out there, you just need to know where to look."

Now, if only we could teach it as well.
________________________________________

AICN - I haven't read the comments and won't bother at this point, but it intrigues me that when Harlan agreed with the majority he got largely positive reviews for "motivating the troops". And now, when he disagrees with the majority and feels the troops were sold out suddenly the posters go negative.

I believe the word I am thinking of is "mercurial".

(And I don't mean Harlan.)

*sigh*

FLYING BLUE MONKEY BATTALLION HQ ADVISORY #10621

Susan here:

We are sadly lacking 2 DC comic books with HE's work in them. If anyone can get us two copies of the titles below, we would appreciate it. We will, of course, reimburse the cost of comic and postage.

They are:

DC Comics Presents JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #1 (October 2004). "The Julie Schwartz Tribute."
Both German and Brazilian editions.

and

BATMAN: BLACK AND WHITE 2. Hardcover. (Contains: "Funny Money"). German edition.

Anyone who can help will get 10 Karma points sent to them.

With much kindness,

Susan

Shakespeare
My first exposure to Shakespeare came in elementary school. One year we went on a field trip to see a performance of “Romeo and Juliet”; and in sixth grade, for our school play, we performed “MacBeth.” I had two parts: one of Duncan’s guards, and one of the “trees” advancing on MacBeth near the end.

I read “Hamlet” in high school, and took a Shakespeare course in college. There I hit upon a system, if you will, for getting the most out of the Bard. If I had to read, say, “Henry IV, Part 1”, I would first go to the library and find a book called _Master Plots_, which provided summaries of, among other things, Shakespeare’s plays. I’d read the summary so I’d know what the basic situation was about.

Then, I’d watch a videotape of a performance of the play (some college or university filmed stage productions and made them available to libraries) so I could watch the story unfold visually, the way Shakespeare intended (because otherwise he wouldn’t have written the story as a play).

And then, I would read the play in the book.

I found that three-tiered approach a very effective way of both understanding what was going on, and enjoying the particular plays we read. More effective than just reading the text of the play in a book.

One thing that might make Shakespeare more engaging for the general public is to have more performances in modern or relatively modern dress. Kenneth Branagh did it with his version of “Hamlet” (set, I believe in the 1920s); Sir Ian McKellen did it in his 1930s era version of “Richard III”; and Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre did it with a stage production of (if memory serves) “Julius Caesar.” My understanding is that when actors performed the plays in Shakespeare’s day, they wore what was then modern dress, for the most part, if not always. Over the centuries, actors continued to wear those increasingly outdated styles of clothing, because somehow the idea got established that those were the costumes actors should wear.

Rick

A-TC warned me not to look. Barney posted the link and admitted the original posting had generated a trail of intestinal mucus replete with the occasional meaty nugget. The intelligent posts were few and far between. I should have known better.

Where's the eye bleach?


shagin

Ain't It Cool link and...stuff
I'm not happy about posting a link to something with such a long trailing tail of mean-spirited and generally ill-informed remarks, but here it is;

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/35629

To Harry's credit, he did have the first net notice of the Coen Brothers/Chabon project so I'm cutting his site huge slack this week.

Jan suggested I post something from the other boards here but it's way off topic. The two of you who enjoy my blather will now be as happy as Ren with a clean litter box to see my password for the back room is now working again. I'm doing a series on Obama one-sided media takes and links to examples will be appreciated.
I'm doing my own heavy lifting. I'm just saying you're welcome to play along at home as well.

- Barney Dannelke

One Head's Up (To Avoid)
Harlan's manifesto on the Writer's strike settlement has been reprinted on AINT IT COOL NEWS, a site I enjoy as long as I stay away from the truly poisonous Talkbacks; I need to note here that this is especially true in the case of the responses to Harlan's piece. You never saw such such a huge bunch of people who need a cowpie in the face in your life.

Shakespeare
I had the great fortune to be introduced to Shakespeare by two great teachers, the first of them my father, not a great reader, but a fellow with a passion for JULIUS CAESAR in particular, who took me through Marc Antony's eulogy scene on a line by line basis and explained the crowd manipulation that was going on between the lines. When I later took an intro to Shakespeare class in college, the teacher showed the same understanding and enthusiasm. And yeah, you do have to work for it, and yes, I understand it is becoming harder and harder to find folks who have the knack. I am not at all surprised that kids who grow up needing a DVD player in the back of the car, who must be given a handheld video game in order to sit quietly with their parents in a restaurant, who think a movie is boring if nothing blows up or nobody falls in a puddle of shit in the first thirty seconds, cannot parse it.

Musings on the Bard
My thoughts, for what they're worth, on the issue of Shakespeare:

The plays require work to be appreciated. I was fortunate enough to have come into a production of "the Scottish play" in college; it was a two-term production, and a true beautiful beast it was.

In my experience, the more you understand of the plays, the more you love 'em. A major hurdle is the language itself; idioms become lost to time, speeches are made in meter rather than natural rhythms, and some things sound one way to modern ears but meant something entirely different to Elizabethan audiences.

When I was in high school, we were force-fed "Romeo and Juliet", but with precious little in the way of context. The teacher tried, God bless 'er, but reading off a page in rows of desks is a world away from even a staged reading. Add in truly incompetent substitutes at just the wrong time, and old Bill had no chance at all.

Too often, problems come not from an inability to find an accepable answer, but from not asking the right question...

SOME people had a feel-good thing for Bush the Lesser, but I sure didn't.

I don't care how likable some people find a person, if that person can't put together a cogent thought, he shouldn't be allowed in a position of power.

I think many people voted for the Lesser because of the rejection of intellectualism. Now, they seem to be embracing it in Obama.

Shakespeare and instant gratification

STEVE DOONER:

Mah man! My resume isn't as deep as yours -- I've played Benvelio, Duke Senior/Corin, and Macduff on the live stage, and voiced Friar Lawrence and an array of characters from the two Henry IVs (Northumberland, Sir Richard Vernon, Sir Michael, a Carrier) for Speak-the-Speech.com -- but I bow to no one in my love for Shakespeare. I grew up listening to LPs of Maurice Evans, Donald Wolfit, Maggie Smith, and Michael Redgrave declaiming the Bard, and my folks took me to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival every year. I spent a semester of college researching and writing a 20-page paper on the sonnets.

I somewhat agree that there's plenty out there to love, and nobody is likely to know and love everything (I finally read Huck Finn only a year or two ago, and wasn't that enamored of it, frankly), but the tendency of many young folks not to care to make an effort at all, to insist on instant gratification, is not a happy development. It leads, in my mind, to consumption of whatever corporate America wants to sell you, whether that's goods and services or your next President. In other words, it's a passive stance that leads, ultimately, I think, to fascism.

I don't compare the men in themselves, but to me, a good part of the response to Obama is not all that different from the response for George W. seven years ago. It's a FEEL-GOOD response -- in the case of W., somebody who was reassuring and you thought you could have a beer with; in the case of Obama, someone who's thrilling and inspiring -- and though the effect is upon different segments of the country, I think they're equally beside the point. You don't necessarily choose a President on the basis of whether he or she makes you feel good. That's not, in itself, what makes for great leadership.

I'm still fuming, intellectually, about the young woman somebody mentioned as having said she wouldn't vote because it didn't make any difference. Maybe I'll manage to come up with an answer to that astoundingly EVIL attitude.

Shakespeare: Coda (Primarily)
Discussions here have headed different directions, but just a couple of other thoughts on this one.

Ezra

Interesting thought about the King James Bible. I was raised in a Bible church (in this case, a little more liberal than Baptist) where King James was the bible du jour – occasionally ASV and later The Living Bible – but a constant immersion in KJV. The melody of the language was not unknown to me. Yet it didn’t (for me) help that transition to Shakespeare. And I agree – my loss. I glimpse enough of the Promised Land to know that I have locked myself on the wrong side of the gates.

Steve Dooner

Based on your post (and your many other writings) I am not surprised by your agreement. The key to your story was that, in a situation where it would have been easy to quit/move on, you didn’t give up on your learners. I mentioned instant gratification and I hope no one thinks I was necessarily condoning instant epiphanies – just talking about a reality in the way we all approach growth. The journey is often as valuable as the destination. And I think the teaching you have provided helps another group of individuals learn how to dig deep for their revelations.

Harlan,

Thank you for your thoughts on the settlement. I know little of the details, but when I read and heard reports I found myself wondering what had been gained – it didn’t seem self-apparent. Apparently, there is less there than meets the eye.


Mike

Another useful book from Susan Jacoby
(who wrote WILD JUSTICE, my favorite book about revenge):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html

Dancers tend to screw themselves in labor disputes too, because they have such short careers. Most are done in ten or so. Each season becomes precious, and you can’t take the thought of losing one. So you cave. The fat bellied IATSE stage hand waddling behind his broom made three times as much as me, because there were enough grey headed stage hands to keep the younger ones understanding that whatever else, it's also about the money.

When I was with American Ballet Theatre I served on the negotiating committee during two lock outs. The first time we caved, of course. But the second time, we had an older dancer that held us together. We stayed pissed. We did a huge party at Roseland Ballroom to raise cash. We lived lean and hung on. We won. Single rooms on tour, significant pay increase. Got everything we asked for and the next year they cut our weeks of work in half. No money in the budget. Couldn’t pay the bills. I spent six bitter months on unemployment, wondering if there would be a next contract.

As a youngster I could not foresee that over the next few years the management would find ways to raise more money. The weeks of work would grow back, and those wage increases would stick. In the end, all that uncertainty and misery was just a bunch dancers growing a better place in the arts world. I guess my point is that change is a long term thing, and whatever a younger person braces for, there is always more suffering than planned, from unexpected places and in unexpected ways.

Youngsters need to listen to a guy like Harlan. It’s a guy like him that knows what it REALLY takes to win.

Writer's Strike isn't completely over...
If I am wrong, I'm sure someone will correct me, but wasn't this initial vote only to end the strike? There's still the tiny, inconsequential, not yet settled, oh-it's-so-minor-it's-not-worth-mentioning issue of actually *approving* the MOU? The WGA West can STILL reject the contract.

From what I'm reading, that doesn't appear likely, but if enough writers think as Harlan does, or if enough can be persuaded by the arguments of Harlan and others who are unhappy to start thinking like them, then it's remotely possible that the agreement could be rejected.

So what happens in that situation? Does the WGA just fall apart, or do they authorize another strike, or is there yet another possible outcome?

I've recently stumbled across the United States Labor Party. It's pretty new, so I guess that could be a sign that some people are still willing to fight for a working man's rights.

The Outhouse Blues

Coincidentally, we've a thread over on the board that begins to touch on this issue.

This ain't exactly the era of Labor's rebirth.

No union in any market now - I suspect - has a shit's chance at sundown in cutting a fair deal in behalf of its members.

Thanks to many years of reckless deregulation (we are in the middle of debating Clinton's role in the 90's when he bent to Conservative policy - from the Telecommunications Reform Act to NAFTA - thereby contributing to this country's now steady deterioration, whose beginnings came from Reagan), guilds and unions are an endangered species. Harlan's summary of the writers strike resonates, but it offers few surprises. Members of the Writers Guild - these days - probably have about as much clout as Albertsons workers had in the supermarket strike years ago.

This is meltdown. And it's only the beginning.

AARRGGGHHH!!!!!
...something into which you...

(Sound of head banging on desk)

Harlan,
I'm sorry that something you into which put so much effort turned to shit. You walked the walk (on a sore foot), you patiently tried to explain what was going on to everyone who stuck a microphone in your face and to us on this board. You even seemed to allow yourself a small bit of optimism that this time it seemed like people were understanding the issues. "Getting it" I believe was your phrase. Alas it seems the ones who most needed to "get it", the ones representing the writers, did not. Or worse, they knew the score but didn't feel it was worth the fight.
You know and we know that you did what you could. And we are again reminded why you so doggedly maintain meticulous control over all contracts and business deals you enter into, and consistently urge all here to do the same. Keep looking out for number one, pal, 'cause there sure doesn't seem to be anyone else out there giving a damn about who put the words in Spock's mouth.

WGA strike regret
Harlan, I am so glad to read what you wrote about the WGA strike. I thought I was going out of my mind, seeing them approve it. I thought it was a rotten deal too.

Writers Guild Ends Strike. Regret Begins Now.
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/02/13/writers-guild-ends-strike-regret-begins-now/

And I reprinted your post:

Harlan Ellison: Writers Guild Got Screwed!
http://mikecane2008.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/harlan-ellison-writers-guild-got-screwed/

You have been an inspiration to me. And still are. Thank you.

Exit, pursued by a bear
Ah Steve Dooner then I happily apologize for misunderstanding the true tenor of your Wednesday post.


The Ellisonian perspective is always an interesting one. Interesting in this case because the media I've seen are all characterizing the settlement as an unalloyed victory for the writers.

Not so apparently.

I have nothing intelligent to say about the writer's strike.

On another topic: If you don't care for Shakespeare (and also if you do), I suggest you try WRECKS AND OTHER PLAYS by Neil LaBute.

I read this collection of short plays last fall, and it knocked me out. I've read and re-read portions out loud, to myself, time and again ... just savoring the language.

Ignore LaBute's inexplicable and inexpiable remake of THE WICKER MAN. But do read his short plays. Fantastic stuff.

Harlan, Perhaps Erik or Josh could video you narrating your important, heartfelt response and post it on Youtube, if you all were so inclined. It would be a wonderful follow-up to your previous one, which has over 114,000 hits.

HARLAN ELLISON ON THE WRITERS STRIKE SETTLEMENT

YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RE-POST THIS ANYWHERE:

Creds: got here in 1962, written for just about everybody, won the Writers Guild Award four times for solo work, sat on the WGAw Board twice, worked on negotiating committees, and was out on the picket lines with my NICK COUNTER SLEEPS WITH THE FISHE$$$ sign. You may have heard my name. I am a Union guy, I am a Guild guy, I am loyal. I fuckin' LOVE the Guild.

And I voted NO on accepting this deal.

My reasons are good, and they are plentiful; Patric Verrone will be saddened by what I am about to say; long-time friends will shake their heads; but this I say without equivocation...

THEY BEAT US LIKE A YELLOW DOG. IT IS A SHIT DEAL. We finally got a timorous generation that has never had to strike, to get their asses out there, and we had to put up with the usual cowardly spineless babbling horse's asses who kept mumbling "lessgo bac'ta work" over and over, as if it would make them one iota a better writer. But after months on the line, and them finally bouncing that pus-sucking diphthong Nick Counter, we rushed headlong into a shabby, scabrous, underfed shovelfulla shit clutched to the affections of toss-in-the-towel
summer soldiers trembling before the Awe of the Alliance.

My Guild did what it did in 1988. It trembled and sold us out. It gave away the EXACT co-terminus expiration date with SAG for some bullshit short-line substitute; it got us no more control of our words; it sneak-abandoned the animator and reality beanfield hands before anyone even forced it on them; it made nice so no one would think we were meanies; it let the Alliance play us like the village idiot. The WGAw folded like a Texaco Road Map from back in the day.

And I am ashamed of this Guild, as I was when Shavelson was the prexy, and we wasted our efforts and lost out on technology that we had to strike for THIS time. 17 days of streaming tv!!!????? Geezus, you bleating wimps, why not just turn over your old granny for gang-rape?

You deserve all the opprobrium you get. While this nutty festschrift of demented pleasure at being allowed to go back to work in the rice paddy is filling your cowardly hearts with joy and relief that the grips and the staff at the Ivy and street sweepers won't be saying nasty shit behind your back, remember this:

You are their bitches. They outslugged you, outthought you, outmaneuvered you; and in the end you ripped off your pants, painted yer asses blue, and said yes sir, may I have another.

Please excuse my temerity. I'm just a sad old man who has fallen among Quislings, Turncoats, Hacks and Cowards.

I must go now to whoops. My gorge has become buoyant.

Respectfully, Yr. Pal, Harlan Ellison

Teaching Ellison
I'm using some Ellison stories and particularly Introductions/Forewords to books as teaching material for a Year 12 (final year of High School) subject called "speculative Fiction". It has been absorbibng to re-read mamy of these over the last few weeks, having firstly read them years ago, and my students are really appreciating the style and the personality or attitude that comes through the introductions.
I think they like your style Mr Ellision.
Anyone else out there been using such things similarly?

EZRA: No loss for me. I am a bardolator through and through. I have directed Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar and MacBeth in semi-professional productions. I have also played Caliban, Brutus, Friar Lawrence, Bottom, Laertes, Petruchio and even Othello on stage. I am also known as a Shakespeare nut to my friends and can quote ya chapter and verse straight through Hamlet, King Lear, and a dozen others. There's lots more on my Shakespeare resume too, but that's enough.

Yikes. Let’s try that with spacing.

A few have natural proclivity for the fine arts, and naturally approach and acclimatize to them.

But by and large, the fine arts require an introduction.

SOMEBODY has to be the teacher.

When I was getting to the end of my ballet career I wanted a transitional discipline that could be practiced in a smaller space, so I began to study karate in a hard core East Cleveland dojo. The instructor’s background was in the “Three F’s” – which are, “Fighting, Farming and Fucking.” He had retired from full contact and married by the time I started training with him, but he remained, shall we say, a little rough around the edges.

He really liked teaching me, as I could closely imitate any position he could show and learn sequences of moves very quickly – that being what I had been practicing to do since I was twelve years old and what I had been paid to do full time since I was eighteen. When he finally asked what was going on and I told him I was a ballet dancer he was at once shocked, repulsed and curious.

I gave him tickets to a show featuring Agnes de Milles “Rodeo”, which is a love story set at a barn dance, and Kurt Joos’ “Green Table”, which is a post WWII masterpiece depicting the horrors of war. Sensei came out of that performance absolutely electrified, and never missed another show in the six years I knew him. Magic happens. When a 7th degree black belt says, “Hey man, let’s catch the ballet this weekend,” even really tough people that would rather die than be caught in the same building with men in tights say, “…What the … you’re serious? … well, I guess if I don’t have to pay…”

Sensei would bring bikers, repo men and other assorted characters to the ballet and we’d all go out after and talk things over. One of my most surreal memories is of a two-hundred and fifty pound biker in colors, with a beard forked and braided, sitting across from me in a coffee shop asking “what do you call that when the little skinny chick was up in the corner and started spinning down?”

This I know to a certainty: the Fine Arts – Opera, Ballet, Music, Painting and Literature – speak to everyone.

Nobody likes everything, and everyone likes something.

But a closed mind misses EVERYTHING.

What does a teacher do, but open minds? And each mind opens to a different knock.

A few have natural proclivity for the fine arts, and naturally approach and acclimatize to them.
But by and large, the fine arts require an introduction.
SOMEBODY has to be the teacher.
When I was getting to the end of my ballet career I wanted a transitional discipline that could be practiced in a smaller space, so I began to study karate in a hard core East Cleveland dojo. The instructor’s background was in the “Three F’s” – which are, “Fighting, Farming and Fucking.” He had retired from full contact and married by the time I started training with him, but he remained, shall we say, a little rough around the edges.
He really liked teaching me, as I could closely imitate any position he could show and learn sequences of moves very quickly – that being what I had been practicing to do since I was twelve years old and what I had been paid to do full time since I was eighteen. When he finally asked what was going on and I told him I was a ballet dancer he was at once shocked, repulsed and curious.
I gave him tickets to a show featuring Agnes de Milles “Rodeo”, which is a love story set at a barn dance, and Kurt Joos’ “Green Table”, which is a post WWII masterpiece depicting the horrors of war. Sensei came out of that performance absolutely electrified, and never missed another show in the six years I knew him. Magic happens. When a 7th degree black belt says, “Hey man, let’s catch the ballet this weekend,” even really tough people that would rather die than be caught in the same building with men in tights say, “…What the … you’re serious? … well, I guess if I don’t have to pay…”
Sensei would bring bikers, repo men and other assorted characters to the ballet and we’d all go out after and talk things over. One of my most surreal memories is of a two-hundred and fifty pound biker in colors, with a beard forked and braided, sitting across from me in a coffee shop asking “what do you call that when the little skinny chick was up in the corner and started spinning down?”
This I know to a certainty: the Fine Arts – Opera, Ballet, Music, Painting and Literature – speak to everyone.
Nobody likes everything, and everyone likes something.
But a closed mind misses EVERYTHING.
What does a teacher do, but open minds? And each mind opens to a different knock.

Congrats Writers (capital "W").

Nicely done.

Yeah Mike Jacka & Steve Dooner ok I see what you're saying but...

Suit yourselves of course, but remember the loss is yours.

I was lucky (and unlucky) I suppose. I was raised in a small southern fundamentalist christian community. The unlucky part is obvious but the lucky part was that I was immersed from birth in the rhythms and cadences of the King James Version of the Bible, probably the last environment where that happens any more. By the time I actually encountered Shakspere I had the music and was ready to eat it up.

Gerber News
Has anyone yet seen mention of Gerber's passing in any mainstream media? I haven't found a thing as yet.

Steve Gerber
Very sad to hear the news about Steve Gerber... I recently came across a couple of old letters from him responding to my questions at the time about the science of THUNDARR THE BARBARIAN... such a great talent that will be sorely missed. But yes, he does indeed live on in his work....

Mike Jacka,

No argument. I actually agree with you. No one is under any special obligation to like anything in the world of art, literature or music. One can hope that others will appreciate something you love, and one can try to lead people to the water, but that's about all. Shaw resisted liking Shakespeare, and T.S. Eliot disliked 'Hamlet' and loved 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre' of all things. Great men can think in unusual ways, and that is a very good thing.

Steve Dooner

Last Minute Valentine's Day Gift
With all of the sad and serious news around here of late, I thought it a public service to provide a little levity.

A buddy of mine sent me a link to this product, a love-seat toilet. I would certainly recommend clicking on the images contained below the product description:

http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2007/01/31/love-seat-toilet/

That is just wrong on so many, many levels

leaving marks on the daily grind
On the passing of Steve Gerber and Roy Scheider.....
As long as there is paper to reprint their works and material with which to make DVDs...their works will continue on.

They left their mark for others to enjoy.
How many people in the world can say that?

Steve Gerber remembered in Tony's Online Tips
I wrote about Steve for today's column:

http://www.worldfamouscomics.com/tony/back20080213.shtml

Tony

Another RIP, in case nobody had mentiond this one already
Barry Morse, Feb 2. Another good one gone.

--tr

Steve Evil,

As The Iliad is an epic tale of Troy, so Pope’s The Dunciad is an epic tale of dunces. (According to my Companion to Literature in English, the dunces were writers who had annoyed Pope.)

In using the phrase “Hardingesque dunciad” I think Conrad Black is alluding to Warren G. Harding's... intellectual limitations, shall we say. Black was writing about the 1940 election, and despite the fact that Willkie was no Harding and that FDR respected him, I think Black is saying that FDR feared that if the Republicans won in 1940, Willkie would not be able to prevent the triumph of the reactionaries, the isolationists, the greedy, and the Hardingesque dunces.

Shakespeare and So On
Personally, I think an epiphany that is struggled for and delayed and pursued and wrestled with is probably worth more than one that comes instantly. "Instant gratification" isn't something I necessarily associate with great art. I love Shakespeare and reread several of the plays on a fairly regular basis, and in fact I get more out of reading them than I usually do out of seeing them performed. It took me years to get to that point, though, and it also took the contributions of a few teachers who succeeded in conveying their own passion for the material. To me that journey make it all the more worthwhile.

Do I think that everyone needs to "get" Shakespeare? No; we each find our pleasures in different places. I'd prefer to live in a world, though, where everyone is at least prepared to put some effort into Shakespeare and be open to finding what so many others have found there.

That's what's missing, or at least seems to be missing, among many of today's young people. Sure, there are always going to be a few who read with passion, who have real intellectual curiosity, who want to learn and who bring real ideas and questions to the table. What horrified me about the vast majority of students when I was teaching, though, was not just that they lacked intellectual curiosity, but that they lacked any sense that intellectual curiosity was a good thing.

It's not just that they don't get it; they actively don't WANT to get it. In many of them, it goes beyond disinterest to active hostility. They resent being forced to try to think about something, especially something that happened before they were born which they see as having no bearing on their life or earning potential.

I treasure my memory of the students I did connect with, and some of the rich work they did. But I don't miss the classroom one little, tiny bit. I teach online classes now, and in the absence of compelled gatherings it's much easier to identify those students who really want to do the work and understand what they're reading. The others don't participate, don't care, take their Cs and Ds, and move on.

The Passing of Steve Gerber, R.I.P
Steve Gerber was among of the first professional writers I ever met…we encounter each other in a strange fashion; he, along with Harlan, were GoH’s at a 1976 sf/mixed media can called 4-D Con held at Kent State University.

I was new in fandom at that time. I was in the company of some new friends, a Pennsylvania sf writer writer named Betsy Curtis and her son Paul (who went on to do some notable work for Marvel Comics, I believe). I was dating Betsy’s daughter, Katy at the time…

Around midnight that Friday night, we were looking for a party to attend…failing to find Harlan around (who had sensibly gone to bed in a safe and undisclosed location) Besty, an ornery woman when she made up her mind to be, insisted we make our own party and began to randomly knock on doors around the hotel.

And wouldn’t you know that the first door she knocked on was Steve Gerber’s! I’ll always remember that look on his face when he answered the door in his pajamas, confronted by a little old lady, her skinny be-speckled son and a black dude the size of an average NFL running back at his door demanding a party…

I think some pot or alcohol may have been involved.

But Steve was gracious, kind, but very insistent that no party would be taking place in his room and bid us a fond farewell.

All these years later had wanted to see or write to him to see if he remembered this incident and now he’s gone. Forever.

Safe travels Steve, wherever you are. I’ll never forget you, that night and your joyous works of art…

Chris M. Barkley

No one is going to like what I say here, not even me. But I will now defend the literary troglodytes and climb in the mud with them. Let me start with this heresy – I can take or leave Shakespeare.

I read the works in high school and college and barely slogged through them. The language didn’t work for me and, because it did not work, I did not get the depth of the stories. Years have gone by and I have seen various versions of his works. Let’s talk about Hamlet. I have seen enough versions, gained enough understanding of the story, that I now look forward to seeing it performed. But I still struggle with that damned language. Other works are varyingly successful or unsuccessful based on my familiarity with the work. I need that familiarity/redundancy for these pieces to work for me. And, perhaps my worst sin, I can only approach Shakespeare if it is performed. I cannot read the plays; I cannot hear that music in my head.

But does that mean I (and other, may I humbly say, intelligent people) am an indication that the end of times is near and that civilization as we know it has come to a hideous termination when I acknowledge that Shakespeare does not work for me? Instead, it represents differences in experiences that make each of us respond differently. My experiences do not result in a connection with Shakespeare. On the other hand, I can listen to a well-interpreted Mahler symphony with tears in my eyes, but I do not expect everyone else to bring that to the performance.

And, how much of this is about instant gratification. (And I don’t mean that in a bad way.) If I am able to read something and gain an instant change in my life, why would I spend the time to wade my way through the Bard to hopefully have a delayed epiphany (maybe delayed 20 years)? If I can get instant “aha” moments, where is my motivation to work on a maybe “aha” moment? Somewhat rhetorical. I recognize that the joy and beauty is in the language. But, for every generation, it becomes harder. The words change their meaning, and Shakespeare works it readability index closer to that of Chaucer and, eventually, to Euripides. (And is Twain headed that way? I cannot answer. Another heresy, I have never read Huckleberry Finn. The discussion has made me realize I need to do so, and quickly.)

Years later, I can get something from Shakespeare. As I’ve mentioned, Hamlet is becoming a friend. And I would say it is worth the work. But I am not ready to instantly lament the end of the world if one in 20, or one in 100, or only one in 1,000 makes that connection instantly. In Alex’s story, at least one person got it (and congratulations to Rachel.) There is a bright spot in the world. However, in Dooner’s story I think the horror is not about each individual’s inability to understand, but rather that the entire mass did not get it. I don’t think any of us want everyone to convert; we just want someone out there to understand. (A few years ago I had an entire class of twenty of our company’s leaders of tomorrow go blank when I made a reference to Dr. Strangelove. What appalled me was that NO ONE got it.)

My apologies for the length (if you’ve actually read long enough to get here) and I hope these ramblings have made some sense. But I think it is important to remember that any one person’s inability to come to grips with Shakespeare or Twain or Mahler or Kubrick or Grappelli or anyone you think is a genius does not instantly mean they are worthless or that culture has climbed back in the sewer. Just as long as they don’t think fine culture is Paris (not the city) and as long as there are enough other people in the world to keep the aforementioned in print, we are still a noble group of mammals.

Mike

Mea Culpa!
OH GOD! WARREN HARDING WARREN HARDING WARREN HARDING!!!!!!!!!
I meant WARREN Harding!!!!!!! Not "Thomas Harding"
That's Thomas Hardy, HARDY with a Y! I've had a long day, you have no idea. I go flagelate myself before the gods now.

Anonymous.

. . .of Hardingesque dundiads.
Shakespeare is for those who can appreciate the deep mystery of life. Life, for most people, goes unexamined.

A question for more literate folk:

Currently reading" FDR: Champion of Freedom" by Lord Conrad Black of Crossharbour.
Forgive my ignorance and illiteracy, but could anyone out there explain to me what in nine hells Lord Black refers to when he writes that FDR feared a republican administration would produce a "Hardingesque dunciad"?

I understand it is a reference to Thomas Harding, and I am aware that a dunciad is a series of poems by Alexander Pope satirizing writers. What the hell do dunciads have to do with pre-Pearl Harbour isolationism?

Back to Mercer Meyer for me.

-Steve Evil

Harlan,
I still think about Colorado Mountain College when I see Dan's name--that workshop decades ago. All those people crying, leaning up against the walls after reading his story. Did I remember that right? Were they leaning up against the walls? That's the way my memory insists it happened. I do remember the look on his face when you spoke those amazing words of praise. The whole room hushed-- it was like witnessing prophecy. I think we all felt it when you pronounced it-- that his life was forever changed. Damn, did you call that one. I wonder how many moments you've had like that where you saw it in somebody before anyone else and proclaimed it with such fearless certainty. I can't imagine you bein' wrong--ever.

Cindy

Huck, Hamlet and my prosonal progeny
Steve Dooner, gonna tell you a story, which has some bearing.

When my daughter Rachel was being inducted into the Cum Laude Society last year, her best friend gave a speech that centered on Hamlet. Their class was reading the play, and best friend Rui used it to illustrate why Rachel was being inducted.

Every kid in the class was bored shiftless by the play. Bored by Shakespeare. Dull, dull, DULL, they all said. Except for Rachel, Rui explained. Rachel was driving the rest of the class nuts by raving about Shakespeare's brilliance between classes, during study periods, during lunch. Wouldn't stop talking about it.

What Rui forgot while giving this little speech was that the teacher was sitting in the audience. Suddenly, she refocussed. Saw the teacher glaring at her. Stopped dead in the middle of another remark about how "everybody but Rachel" just didn't understand what, um, ah, er...

"Busted!" yelled another teacher. The audience roared with laughter.

No surprise to me, of course, as Rachel had been running to discuss every scene with me at home. She was genuinely excited by Shakespeare. And, yes, she loved Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when she read that.

The depressing aspect of this, though, is that these are all pretty smart kids at an exclusive private school that costs more than I like to think about (my younger daughter is still there). Rui, no Shakespeare fan, went on to Princeton this year. She's a National Merit Scholar. But Shakespeare left her yawning.

I'm sure Rachel's home environment has a lot to do with her appreciation of literature. She grew up with a father who rereads Huck every year, after all. But how do we get through to the rest of them? Are we watching the great works as they drop into the abyss of the forgotten?

I'm not blaming the teachers. Too easy, too obvious. I don't buy it. But we're failing somewhere.

STEVE DOONER:

I have a sense that your two posts--pre- and post-Simmons--are straight and true. No one, ESPECIALLY Dan, should be in doubt for a second that I love his palship considerably, am his friend sans let and inordinately, and that I side with him almost automatically. But this time, Steve, I think you operate from the test-stand of goodheartedness and concern; and I urge you not to take any of this rigamarole to heart. My most recent experience with (let's be forbearing and call it merely "cultural illiteracy," rather than the arrogance of the uninformed) does a mortise-and-tenon with yours.

But soon I will die and can be as easily forgotten.

Chin up, trooper Dooner. Suck it in and keep on ploughin'.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ADVISEMENT OF ELLISONIAN ACTIVITY

FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO PLAY THE "6 DEGREES OF--" GAME:

Harlan Ellison...to...Lewis Carroll.

Yesterday, spent 6 & 1/2 hours before the mike in Skyboat Studios, (reading? / performing? / narrating? / pick one)THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS by my late colleague, Prof. Dodgson.

Soon to be released as part of a set -- with ALICE'S ADVENTURES UNDERGROUND rendered by the estimable Michael York -- on audio tape and CD by Blackstone, in conjunction with a marvelous little film wherein I play a, harumph, er uh, sort of a...well...a "person." The film was written and produced by the estimable Gabrielle De Cuir; stage-managed by my audio producer, the estimable Stefan Rudnicki; intended for release universally to promote the phenomenon of audiobooks; and it is called THE DELIVERY. A short film, but a dear one.

Actually, estimable.

The reading was exhausting, but Stefan says it's the best thing I've ever done. And so, with my usual humility, who am I to contradict the maestro? It is a quirky, to say the minim, truly quirky, performance. Prof. Dodgson would be, well, startled. About a dozen different voices, a few of which were:

THE WHITE QUEEN as a demented channeling of Scarlett O'Hara cum Carol Channing

THE WHITE KING as a bloviating Col. Blimp version of Richard Burton

TWEEDLE-DUM and TWEEDLE-DEE as Ned Sparks and W.C. Fields

THE WHITE KNIGHT as a Yiddish Theater Peter Lorre

THE RED QUEEN as Margaret Dumont

The FROG guarding the gate as a cockney-tinged Maurice Chevalier

HUMPTY DUMPTY as Lewis Black...I think. (On the other hand, I may have done Dumpty as Al Pacino out of Jimmy Durante.)(As you can perceive, it was an extremely schizoid day of work.)

All of these (and MORE, as we say in the funnybooks) were in the repertory assemblage, for six and a hae minutes. Yesterday.

Do not ask me WHEN WHEN WHEN. I do not know. The DATs haven't even gone to Blackstone yet. It was only yesterday. I have told you everything I know. Just wander over, time to time, to Blackstone's site, whereat they recently announced they were re-releasing my 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, and I'm sure, passim the fullness of time, but certainly before the 2008 BEA, all shall be given to thee, dost thou but abide sweetly.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ADAM-TROY:

Josh loaned it to me around the time you recommended it; and Susan & I, disbelieving and horripalated, watched the poor devil immolate himself. Talk about petards, geeezus!

Yr. Pal, Harlan

BOB MORALES: Thanks, pal. Heard from Gambuto. All quiet on the Western Front. Speaketh with you soon.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Dooner Takes the Merest Umbrage to Mr. Simmons' Remarks

BARNEY: Of course, Dan Simmons missed my central point--which is, that I was NOT willing to do a professor's dance, or to be outgoing, until those listening to me were willing to overcome their own passivity. If he reads my post again, he would see that I stopped the class dead, rather than sit there and rhapsodize about Mark Twain for my own ears to hear. My post was meant to address an intellectual resistance to Mark Twain and a noticeable hostility toward a subject that was derived entirely from a "lack of frame of reference." I was not speaking about "student-centered teaching theory," which I practise, by the way. Dan, quite unfortunately, chose to blame me for failing my students. I actually don't need him to do that--I do that plenty enough for myself and more frequently than he could ever realize.

Dan also seems to think I made my remarks about being a good speaker out of some kind of vanity. In reality, I made those remarks because I was posting here, in the Pavilion, in a place that is not peopled entirely by teachers. Some here might even be inclined to think that a boring teacher is the one responsible for a boring class. This is not always the case. Very often--perhaps more often than not--the teacher IS at fault, but sometimes the students do not come to play. Every class can't be batted out of the park too, and every lesson doesn't drive home as well for one group as much as it does for another.

Educators also know that sometimes you get the wrong combination of people in a room and that they can feed off each other's negativity. Or that one semester's course may impact students better or worse than another, and that teaching methods always have to be tailored to specific groups. Dominant personalities can also force a class into odd directions, and students can even rest comfortably on assumptions about the world that they have already made and choose never to budge an inch.

I met a group of learners last night who were in psychological foreclosure regarding Mark Twain, not Whitman nor Dickinson, but specifically Mark Twain. They were dismiising the text because it was written partly in dialect, and because they were not entirely willing to wade through the minstrelsy humor and the doggerel of Tom Sawyer to get to Huck's profoundly good heart. I was shocked by this largely because I never saw it happen to such a degree. It made me wonder if we are changing as a society in a way that will make the teaching of 'Huckleberry Finn' ever more difficult.

These particular students were not terribly interested in this subject matter because they felt distant from it, and they were having trouble seeing why the work was a landmark in its time.
As I said, they had no problem with Whitman or Dickinson the week before, and they spent that night illuminating those texts in ways that would blow Dan's mind.

Lastly, just so Dan knows, I spent the rest of the night doing group work to help create a better context for students to come to Twain. Though I had hoped to teach the novel last night, I wound up doing two hours of cultural studies that I usually don't have to do. I teach Twain every year and have had great successes with the material in the past. Yet, I also know several teachers who have recently given up on teaching 'Huck' and who have decided to concentrate on shorter works instead. I was unwilling to do this, and that is why some of this happened.

Howver, Barney, you got what I was saying right away, and I appreciate that.

Steve Dooner

HAPPY DARWIN DAY
From so simple a beginning
endless forms most beautiful
and most wonderful have been,
and are being evolved.

- CD

Steve Gerber
I haven't read a comic book on a regular basis since my employment at a San Diego, comic bookstore ceased in the fall of 1986 and I moved on to more 'adult' careers. But my love of comics has always remained and in the 1970's there was no comic book that I loved more then Steve Gerber's "Howard the Duck" Its humor and sensibilities appealed to my tastes in movies, tv, music, politics and how the books various artist (Frank Brunner and Gene Colan being the most noted) brought a new kind of comic to Marvel's "House of Ideas".

I met Steve by accident when he wandered into comic con at the El Cortez. He had taken a road trip, documented in the HTD "Dreaded Deadline Doom" issue which covered the time he would be on the road. Smiling he asked me "Is there really a mortuary here called GOODBODY?" He had seen the bus benches downtown advertising them and thought it was hysterical. We talked for about 20 minutes before a fanboy, recognized him and spirited him away to a inkpot award.

Our brief chat...and unfortunately I never got the chance to chat with him again...still made the destinct impression on me that Steve Gerber was one of The Good Guys, and joined the short list of creative people I met who walked the talk: Jack Kirby, Ray Bradbury, Ted Sturgeon, Steve Gerber....and of course Harlan Ellison.

Between then and my departure from the comic shop, I bought "Stewart the Rat" and "Destroyer Duck" two of Gerber's post-Howard works. Both showed that his talents for satire and the telling human moment had not faded even after the lawsuit with Marvel over creative rights. As I said he was one of those who walked the walk.

There are those who can truely call Stever Gerber a friend and I envy them that. I have the comics and the memory of meeting someone whose works have a special place in my library.

Dan Simmons response to Steve and me
http://forum.dansimmons.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=0&Board=General

For anyone who wants to read a brilliant follow-up to the teaching Twain back and forth between Steve and myself from Dan Simmons, hit the above link and go to the Twain, Ill Met discussion. Also, if you read the responses in order you will be treated to one of the most embarrassing lapses of memory SO FAR that my brain has ever put on public display.

Considering Dan is on a Very Real Deadline I am nothing less than honored by the length and scope of his response. Thank you Dan.

- Barney

Kos, no more delusional peanut butter; sticks to the roof of the mouth but makes your hind quarters itch something fierce.

Open source? I was talking about the elite, mainstream media, where most Americans get their news, not some wire service you might have seen in the Czech republic. You look at what most people look at, this is why there is a democracy deficit in this land. Sure you can access anything, but if you do not know where to look or why you should look there, then what's the fucking point?

It is heartening to see a conservative who thinks Suharto was a bad guy. You are one of the few, since conservatives loved the guy from day one.

At least the democrats look like America, while the conservatives look like whitebread boobs.

PIPA at the University of Maryland is one of the top, most revered public opinion surveys in the world. Or look at PEW or one at the University Of Chicago. You can have Gallup, which is a right wing poll, but for me and my money I take PIPA, they have been right so far. Look at the outrage about the war alone. You don't need any study to know that.

The Democrats didn't win in 06 for their campaigning skills, that's for sure.

This is fun, you are right, batting your soft balls is mighty fun, thanks dad. Read me a story...no, the one about the girl and the fun she does with puppets. Thanks dad.

The Physics of Coltrane’s Technique: How Pros Hit the High Notes
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/science/12saxw.html

EZRA:
You shouldn't say "Macbeth" aloud, but it's okay to write it: Spirits don't read.

Regarding change of address for HERC. You can put it up here but, the best thing is to just send me a postcard. Am working on the next Rabbit Hole now. And will send out a reminder to those HERCers who have lapsed.

No need to worry.

Thanks--Susan

Scheider

I have to agree with you on Jaws. They'd hire Ryan Reynolds (no offense, I like Reynolds, good Canadian boy) or Josh Harnett and it just wouldn't have been the same.

Scheider is to actors what ugly rock was to music. There used to be some real hobgoblins in rock but they could sing their asses off. Freddy Mercury couldn't get a record deal today without hitting the dentist and the gym. Scheider could act and whether or not his face was the face you thought of when you said, "Small town sheriff" or "scientist" or "cop" he immediately and convincingly became those people. I re-watch 2010 almost entirely for Scheider's performance.

Ah, Steve Gerber. This one hurts. His work was, to this lonely kid in the 1970s up to his neck in junky Marvel superhero comics, a secret whisper that said comics didn't HAVE to be crappy junk. From there I went down a road I might not necessarily have found until later, and I will always be grateful to Gerber for that.

Peace and love to his family and friends.

Hey, HARLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!!!!
Hey, Harlan!

Didja ever catch up with OVERNIGHT, the hilariously appalling documentary I and Josh praised here some time back(about the bartender Troy Duffy who received a movie development deal better than anybody since Orson Welles, and then proceeded to blow the whole thing by being an egomaniacal asshole extreme even by the standards of egomaniacal assholes)?

I can send you the movie now, if you'd like...

A-TC

Lor' luv a duck...
Damn. Steve Gerber ANfuckingND Roy Scheider? No bloody wonder I'm doing my taxes now. Already a loser of a week. Again, damn.

Loved what issues of Howard the Duck I could lay my hands on as a kid, including the larger black & whites Marvel briefly put out in the late '70s or early '80s (can't remember, don't have 'em handy, don't really care about that part). I know he wrote a number of other comics I read, but Howard connected with my sense of the absurd.

And if Roy Scheider had only made "All That Jazz", that would be enough for me to miss him. That it was only one of a number of fine performances is gravy, loads of it.

That McCain is not struck by lightning for reaching out to the neocons while men like this die should be proof enough that there is, indisputably, no God.

The Twain, ill met
Steve,

With your permission our exchange now comes in an illustrated format.

- Barney

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=78385948&blogID=357090912

Steve Gerber has passed away
Folks,

Steve Gerber, creator of Howard the Duck, and a good friend of mine, has died, aged 59. Steve was a strange and wonderful guy--and one of the finest minds to grace comics in the past half century.

His weblog is still up, with an announcement by Mark Evanier. http://www.stevegerber.com/sgblog/

--Alex

The Twain, ill met
***Steve*** You have from me more sympathy than you can possibly know. I've been periodically locked in mortal combat with a two act play I've been trying to write called THE TROUBLE BEGINS, which is all about Twain and race issues. It's mostly just too big and too complicated for my writing skills and about too many "damned" things. It just keeps running away from me.

***ONE*** of the problems is the level of exposition required. Just when I think "well, at least they know this ONE thing" I'm confronted with the fact that they don't know a single thing about Twain. I'll be talking to someone and realize (for instance) that the person thinks the ONLY things Twain ever wrote were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.

Most modern readers can't handle the dialect. If, by some miracle they can handle the dialect, they choose to get offended by Jim's voice - which they cannot differentiate from "minstrel." Not that they could tell you the first thing about minstrel traditions - just that it knee jerk offends them if they are black, OR, it's something they feel they OUGHT to be offended by if they are white (because of media training and a complete lack of any capacity to place anything in a historical context) OR, god help us all, they think Jim is some funny Amos & Andy shit but keep their mouths shut, because they know those are deep waters and can sense there will be an attack from some quarter. They'd have that attack coming - but sometimes ripping off a scab like that is better than total silence.

So, yes, HUCK is getting harder and harder to teach, even without the difficulties the final third of the novel presents. And if you think HUCK is an uphill battle you should try PUDD N' HEAD WILSON which combines all of the above divisive race issues and layers in a very complicated nature/nurture psychological barrier which is almost always misunderstood by first time readers.

Good luck. My atheistic prayers are with you. ;-)

- Barney Dannelke

"We had the sky up there," said Huckleberry Finn "all speckled with stars and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them and discuss about whether they was made or just happened."

- HUCKLEBERRY FINN

Speaking of John Grisham...
He's in town tonight at my very own place of employment. Him and local celebrity Boo Ferris are yukking it up at the Bologna Performing Arts Center. It's probably over now, it being after 10, but it happened. I'm not sure why. It was called "Books and Boo" or something like that. Cost 100 bucks to get in. They gave the university English department tickets, I think.

This confuses the hell out of me.

A Twain fiasco

I assigned 'Huckleberry Finn' in my evening class in American Literature and walked into the class brimming with excitement to discuss a truly classic work that is also a blast to read.

I right away addressed the "Pap" chapter with Huck's abusive father railing about the "govment" and "mulatters" who have the right to vote just like a white man.

Nothing, no reaction.

I read outloud the passage where Huck huddles with a shotgun in the darkness, preparing to shoot his own father if he should attempt to murder the boy in the throes of his delirium tremens.

Not a sound from the class.

I looked at the fog chapter where Huck piles "trash" on Jim's head by fooling him about the fog and asked the students for their reaction of Huck's own racist insensitivity to Jim.

One student opened a newspaper. Another passed a note.

I finally looked at the "I can not pray a lie" chapter and showed the religious contortions that Huck goes through to please the racist adults who have corrupted him with their views of the world.

Silence.

I begged them to tell me what they thought about all this. They said they just weren't into it. One student mentioned how much they liked John Grisham instead. Another said that she had read it in high school and had already forgotten most of it.

Mind you, I am known for being a dynamic, outgoing lecturer--I have received the teacher of the year award, acted on stage for years and have delivered public addresses that have pleased very large lecture halls. I even sing, tell jokes and perform like a dancing monkey on a string when needed. I am not a fusty old bore.

I left this class entirely sick and ready to weep.

Right now, I am very down on the 'damned human race.'

Steve Dooner

Mark Evanier on Steve Gerber.

http://www.newsfromme.com/

Steve Gerber
Steve Gerber, the creator of "Howard the Duck", died of pneumonia while waiting for a lung transplant. Details at:

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/steve_gerber_1947_2008/

Studies!
And I gots me a study that shows most Americans are to the right of Mussolini and eat Moon Pies for Christmas Dinner.

No, really. Educated folks always gots themselves a study that proves flies like shit, or flies don't like poop. Whatever they need to make it all flow like butter. It's why we have universities: to do studies proving what we know is wrong, except when what we know need proven right because the weather has changed. "You don't need a weatherman..." etc. Meanwhile reality, whatever it really is, keeps on keeping on no matter what the latest study shows. Those who quote "studies" always have an agenda and the truth is rarely on said agenda other than by accident. Word.

That's why studies and surveys of the "common folk" of the USA mean doo wah diddy squat. "Garbage in, Garbage out", you get what you're looking for, if you're the one paying for. The only "studies" that count are the ones we have most ewery November, first Tuesday. If you don't like what those say, you can always pay for one of those doo wah diddy squat sort to make your bruised ego feel brtter about your opinions.

As for Suharto: Guess you missed the wire service story I read that interveiwed every living communist of 1965 left in Indonesia about what a bastard Suharto was. Yep, even mentioned the role of the CIA in it all. Never fails to amaze me how we see what we want to see when it comes to the news and the world.

I knew in 1965. when I was twelve, exactly what was going on in Indoesia, and I got it all from reading mainstrem media. It's amazing what you can learn if you read widely and deeply in just the average usual sources. In the intelligence game it's called "Open Souirce's". (but you knew that), and what amateurs don't know but can learn is that more often than not ALL the secrets are there, in scattered bits and pieces.

But it's so much better for the ego if one instead believes in secrets and conspiracies and back room operators and that only w Wise Few led by some Wise Old Man (Hello Nim Chimpsky!) know the Real ande Terrible Truth.

It's called gnosticism, and in one set of sheep's wool or another it's always been around to make fools of us and as always it is still the purest of snake oil. One-Hundred Per-Cent Authentic Fake. Hear the hiss?

Hilary is running dscared. Obama is on a winning roll. He's made five, maybe six straight points, he's backing up his bets with full odds, and the High Rollers are packed ten deep around the table throwing Blakc Hundred Dollar Chips at the Hard Twebve and Any Seven Boxes. Meanwhile McCain is over playing the nickel slots and praying for a jackpot before the nickles run out.

He'd play the dimes, but he's a JC Penney man. Ywo points to the one that gets' THAT oddball reference!

This is gonna be fun.

KOS

Yup...I dug Roy Scheider.

He was one of the reasons I liked Marathon Man.

He was utterly one of the reasons Jaws was great.

And I liked him in French Connection.

In fact, whether the film was good or crudded-out, I ALWAYS liked HIM.

I haven't even read yet exactly what nailed him. I got the news second hand last night.

**A film I wanna recommend

Experiment In Terror

Ran it this weekend; Ross Martin in an early tour-de-force psychopathic role; toward the end of the movie he is dressed exactly like the ol' Unabomber. To the extent it makes me wonder if Ted Kazinsky used this for his reference visually.

I was told of this film only last year, never having heard of it. A great noir from 1962 directed by Blake Edwards (with lots of cool camera angles), and a kick-ass chilling jazz score by Edwards' long-time associate Henry Mancini.

Stars Glenn Ford and Lee Remick. Oh, and a teen-aged Stefanie Powers (so young she was unrecognizable where I sat, but still damn hot).

Writing For A Living
A friend alerted me to a post on John Scalzi's blog about what it takes to truly write for a living. It's a great read, and even if you have no desire to make your living by the Written Word, it's still great advice on how to run your financial life.

http://scalzi.com/whatever/?p=362

Steve,
Just wanted to give my good thoughts and sympathy for you and your godfather. It's never easy, even when you know it's coming.

Chuck

Keeler
Harlan,

I was watching one of your old Burke's Law episodes on DVD the other day, and heard a character make a passing reference to Christine Keeler (of Profumo scandal fame/infamy). Did she also inspire your choice of character name for Edith Keeler in "City on the Edge of Forever"?

- Phil

Comma porn, avoid it. ick

Well, it looks like the writers strike is over, what do our writers think about the conditions of the deal? See guys, activism does win.

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

Hillary had the fucking gall to blame "activists" for why she lost in a sweet this weekend to Obama. "They don't represent the electorate," she says. Yes they do, as I have mentioned, from the PIPA studies of public opinion, most Americans are to the left of even Hillary. But Hillary just wants to whine, knowing full well that Barack will be our next President.

The good thing about McCain is I don't see him going after Obama.

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

Suharto, Indonesia's monster of a dictator finally bit the big one recently and I looked around at the media, to see if the propagand model still held up. Would they avoid mentioning the fact that Suharto was protected and funded by the US for years? Would they downplay his crimes as compared to official enemies? Would they mention our complicity with East Timor? I think you know the answer; uniformally, they did exactly what I knew they would do, they didn't mention the US connection and they downplayed his crimes, using as many loving quotes from his family as they could. Imagine if they downplayed Hitler's crimes like this.

2008 and the Chomsky model still works. Never fails.

My understanding is that Roy Scheider was tagged to play hanging judge Julius Hoffman in Aaron Sorkin's upcoming "Trial of the Chicago Seven". I have no idea if filming was complete or not at Mr Scheider's death.


Teller (of Penn &), in collaboration with Aaron Posner, is producing MACBETH here in DC at the Folger Shakespeare Theater. Sounds exciting and not just because it's my favorite of Shakespeare's plays. Sounds like ledgerdemain will be rampant in the production.

Oh wait...I wasn't supposed to use the word MACBETH, right? I was supposed to say, uh the "Scottish play"?

I'm doomed...but maybe not until after I see the production next month (which is quickly selling out by the way).

The most heart-rending devastating scene for me is still when MacDuff hears that his family has been slaughtered.

And the most terrifying "Lady Macbeth" ever is Isuzu Yamada's portrayal of Lady Asaji in Kurosawa's version, THRONE OF BLOOD.

"Did Heaven look on, And would not take their part?"

Roy Scheider
Um, hello, his best performance was in ALL THAT JAZZ.

SORCERER is the best of his thrillers. 52 PICKUP isn't so distinguished by Scheider's everyman presence as it is by the utterly harrowing work of John Glover and Clarence Williams III, playing villains as scary as only crooks can be in real life.

I grew up watching him, and I'm sorry he's gone.

Well he did some work after LAW & ORDER, principally the film IRON CROSS, which will have a Cannes premiere later this year. The story seems really interesting: "Joseph, (ROY SCHEIDER) a retired New York cop, who witnessed the massacre of his family in Poland 1941, travels to Nuremberg to visit his son Ronnie having turned his back on him for the last five years for rejecting a promising career in the NYPD and marrying a German woman..." (press info on IMDB)

He obviously could have retired long ago, but he was actually less busy in the 80s than he was in the past few years.

---

From the I-Con site: "Harlan Ellison will be in attendance at I-CON 27, and will be presenting our Gallun Award ***via teleconference with Ray Bradbury***" - emphasis mine

From an internet forum: "My friend's been working on a project with Harlan Ellison (that's another thing that he finally got freedom to speak about this week) and he and Ellison are supposed to finally resume their planning meetings of this hush-hush project they're working on." (02/09/08)
http://www.606studios.com/bendisboard/showthread.php?p=4244187

HARLAN: Somewhat random info: A Czech SF&F book store lists 21 available books and magazines that contain a story by you. (daemon.cz)

Roy Scheider

I'm such a big fan of Scheider, I want to say a few words. His career seemed to cool off a bit after 2010: ODDYSEY II (or whatever it was actually called), but even then he was terrific in lower budget films such as THE FOURTH WAR and NIGHT GAME, and also in a smaller role in THE RUSSIA HOUSE.

And 52 PICK-UP. That movie contains a remarkably unsettling sequence. Roy Scheider plays a married man with a young girlfriend on the side, and it was all a set up for blackmail. So the bad guys have Scheider in a chair, at gunpoint, in a deserted building, and they show him a film of his girlfriend being tortured and killed. After they have explained what they want from Scheider, and explained how he can take the fall for the girlfriend's death, they leave, and then ... well, find the movie on DVD and watch. Perhaps, like Mr. Loftus, you will find the movie forgettable, but Scheider is terrific, and that scene really got to me. This is not the cutesy-cutesy Elmore Leonard of GET SHORTY or even OUT OF SIGHT. This is tough and nasty stuff, and I liked it.

Also, Scheider was on a LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT last year. That may have been his last performance, and is well worth finding.

SORCERER and TRUE LIES
Adam---
I agree about the scene from SORCERER on the bridge- which was done in an era without CG effects. Truly remarkable.

Another sequence I admire is from James Camerons TRUE LIES
(not talking of the thin plot or the sexism...JUST the one stunt sequence.) Where Jamie Lee Curtis' character is trapped in a speeding limo. The driver is dead but his foot is locked on the gas pedal! The limo is heading for a huge gap in the bridge and Arnold's Character (Harry) climbs down to the runners of the chopper and tries several times to grab her hand as she reaches for him through the opening of the sunroof.
After a few close calls...he grabs hold of her arm and theres this utterly specatular shot of (obviosly two stunt performers) the female being yanked up and out and clear of sunroof just as
as the limo plunges twenty feet down, slamming into the remaains of the bridge down below.)

There were obvious cuts and edits between the real actors and the stuntmen not to mention the camera crew in the film cars and canera helecopter but that one scene with the pull-out was in one unbroken shot and its the money shot of the movie.

One hell of a stunt! The few times I saw it in the theater you could actually hear several audience members exhale--they were holding their breath!--and it was just shadowy flickering image on a screen and they were all holding their breath.

Cool stuff.

dependable guy

Always liked Scheider -- never saw enough of him. "Marathon Man" didn't live up to expectations, but it was great casting to put Scheider in it. Even liked him in forgettable films like "52 Pickup."

Steve B. wrote: "Just a short note that will mean nothing to anyone other than me on this board, but my god father (the spiritual kind, not the mob kind) is lying irrevocably on his deathbed at the moment. For those of you inclined to think these sorts of thoughts, please give him a mention for a speedy and painless departure. I'd ask for a miracle, but he's plum out of those."

A quiet passing that brings an end to unnecessary pain is never meaningless, Steve. Keep his memory tucked safe in the treasure box of your heart.

***

A fine way to start the day, by learning two new words: rorqual and rathskeller.


shagin

Scheider
I have said elsewhere about Scheider that his part in JAWS, if cast today, would go to either a baby-faced twentysomething difficult to read as an adult, or to a muscle-bound homonculus who would perform acts of prodigious strength until a climax where he punched the shark into submission. By contrast, his Chief Brody was a flawed and limited man who is never in his comfort zone and who ultimately RISES to heroism. It's why the story works, and why Scheider was key to the success of the film. (The concept that a character in danger needs to be vulnerable is also the reason why the first DIE HARD movie works infinitely better than any of the sequels, where John McClain gradually morphed into a superhero of sorts, capable of defying physics at will.)

Ahhh, SORCERER. Has a strange rep as an awful, awful film, but that scene of the truck crossing the plank bridge during the monsoon is one of the most frightening in film history.

There is, for those of you within shouting distance of Los Angeles, an excellent pictorial essay in the current issue of LOS ANGELES MAGAZINE (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julie Christie grace the cover)( http://www.lamag.com/ME2/Default.asp ).

Bob Burns has the second or third best collection of Science Fiction memorabilia in the Los Angeles area (depending on who is asking, and who is answering). (Harlan's is number one, to be sycophantic about it.) The current issue of LA Mag has a twelve page spread of pictures of various props, including a recreated Robbie the Robot head; models of spacecraft from WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE and ROCKETSHIP X-M; and alien heads from a couple of other films.
______________________________________

I've always drawn a connection between Roy Scheider's character in SORCERER and Harlan's tales of driving dynamite trucks in the South. I know, they're nothing like each other and I'm sure the conditions were far better in Harlan's case, but the connections exists nonetheless.
______________________________________

WHAT IS IT? is one of the tracks on Cris' new CD. Unfortunately, the follow up song is not entitled IT IS FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE. Otherwise...
______________________________________

Just a short note that will mean nothing to anyone other than me on this board, but my god father (the spiritual kind, not the mob kind) is lying irrevocably on his deathbed at the moment. For those of you inclined to think these sorts of thoughts, please give him a mention for a speedy and painless departure. I'd ask for a miracle, but he's plum out of those.

R.I.P. to the great Roy Scheider from me as well. Best Dr. Benway ever, and ditto for Chief Brody. Sorcerer and French Connection (among many others) were solid films and performances from the late Mr. Scheider as well.

Another farewell to Rep. Tom Lantos. An extraordinary life, well lived sir.

KOS - another nifty thing about Jones soda is the picture on the bottle. They have an online, open submission policy and anyone visiting the site can vote for their favorite(s). (http://www.jonessoda.com/gallery/)

Scheider/Glover
So sorry to hear that Roy Scheider died...it was not too long ago I finally tracked down "Sorcerer" (on Harlan's "Watching" recommendation) and sat with slack-jawed girlfriend marveling at just how good it was. Scheider was so very excellent at playing Hollowed and Haunted.
____________________________

WHAT IS IT and IT IS FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE may be my favorite pair of titles ever put together.

Just read that Actor Roy Scheider has passed away. Just damn.

Harlan, another question for you.

1) Should those pages be sent to the HERC P.O. address?
2) Your name still doesn't appear on the panelists list. Are you sure they know you're coming? That's me, a kidder, I am.
Actually, they have you here: http://sxsw.com/info/releases/Jan152008_Harold_And_Kumar_Convesations_With_Hunt_And_Eisner.pdf
so- it's on.

Erik's trailer is up on Matt Dentler's blog, Feb 9th.
http://blogs.indiewire.com/mattdentler/

Erik, if you're reading here, I noticed you are listed in SPOTLIGHT PREMIERES. Are you actually entered in the competition? Just curious, 'cause... you know... you'd come away a winner.

Also, film passes went on sale yesterday or today. $70 for all films after badged folk get in.
http://www.austin360.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/austinmovies/entries/2008/02/10/sxsw_film_passes_are_on_sale.html
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Internet is the font of all known knowns, unknown knowns, and even unknown unknowns.
The revolution WILL be televised, and you WILL be sold the DVD Director's Cut.

Frank, I've worked on several DIYs back in my day. From having fake school newspaper meetings (to meet the layout deadline) to cranking the mimeograph machine to xeroxing the clip art to slipping the pages under the windshield wipers of that week's parking lot of choice (since no retail store cared to demean themselves with giving away our ramblings on the unfairness of immigrant dating habits being superior to our small, redneck whitebread ones, or lack of handicapped parking spots and on the tri-state college's grounds ((We got Robinwood to shell out the cash to make some. Good for us.))). Grandma knows how to suck eggs, son. DIY in Austin means someone has enough start-up capital and/or a printer and enough staples to promote their latest art sale in their garage or loft. "Rags" is my cute little pet name. Don't be fooled by syntax. The Dogstreet Slave was a rag, and a damn fine one, thank you very much. You want to come down here and give these kids a lecture on Journalistic Truth and How It Will Help America? They can run your course summary after the snarky columns trashing the local emo bands.
Don't get me wrong. Some are great, some are shit, but they're entrepreneurs, one and all, whether they're trust fund babies with nothing better to do or fanatic 'liberals' who just want to keep reminding people what a shitty job the administration is doing (okay, the LaRouche supporters creep me out). They are doing their part, yea, just as those who vent on web forums.
Fight the power, baby.

Kisses from the lounge,
p.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kat and I went to see Crispin Hellion Glover at The Alamo Drafthouse tonight. He was showing his slideshow and movies WHAT IS IT and IT IS FINE, EVERYTHING IS FINE. We spoke to him and his father, after the show, and they are terribly nice and incredibly talkative. His theatrics are unusual, wonderful, and should be seen to be appreciated. Just seeing his work on "corporate entity sponsored productions" does not compare to his vision of stage and screen.
Best line, honestly answered in the Q&A: "I'm really into snail consciousness." I even believe he meant it.

So far, Teller (Penn & Teller) has surreptitiously checked out my white and black canvas-spat dress shoes, and tonight Crispin's dad told me he liked my white necktie.
I am a B-list fashion plate.

Robert Crais
Was Robert Crais the L.A.-are mystery/crime fiction writer whose works Harlan had praised in the past (as well as praising his friendship)?

I just came from Phoenix's annual VNSA book sale, which jam-packs a huge fairgrounds livestock building with used books for, literally, hours and hours of digging and stuffing into cars. I picked up a bunch of Crais' books, but I'm not 100% sure he's the man.

Thanks. -TODD

One assumes you all have seen this
but, if not....

http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message.htm

Great essay on all sorts of great deep dish book larnin' stuff. This spot had not been updated since August '07, but, the above "message" is well worth the hiatus.

I love Me Dat Man, Dan.
Erik

Paul, I know you did Harlan a solid but things that are DIY are usually what we alternatives use as avenues to get out censored information--how do you think all this good activism happens, crystal ball?

I will still rub your belly, but on odd days.

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

The media wants McCain to win, I can see it now. Time and Newsweek are giving the noble warrior his red carpet, but I like the fact that he yells at fellow republicans a lot.

He once told John Cornyn to go f himself. You have to love that.

It just occurred to me:

If I neglected, any time in the past two years, to

WILDLY JOYOUSLY HYSTERICALLY

RECOMMEND, OH GAWD LAWSY YESSIREE, RECOMMEND

a wonderful book titled

HIPPO EATS DWARF by Alex Boese ...

run, do not saunter, to getcherself a copy SOONEST

consider that previous line ending thus: !!!!!!!!!

Yr. Pal, Harlan (who has jus' done you a solid)

PAUL in AUSTIN:

You are a godsend. Yes, please, save the entire page (and as long as I'm being a greedy schnorrer, if you'd also pull the front page and/or the--usually--editorial page containing the newspaper/magazine indicia, to provide provenance for the clipping when catalogued or scrapbooked) and I will be more than casually grateful and in your debt. The staff at colleges and filmfests and suchlike MEAN well, but they usually forget or are inept when it comes to providing me with the incunabula and minutiae of one of my visits. So having someone eage-eyed, on the ground at the battle line, is, well, a godsend.

Thank you, thank you; and whatever costs are incurred, just ask and ye shall be embellished.

Yr. Pal (fer real), Harlan

KOS: cool that you loooOVE Jones. Honest to, I first picked it up because I liked the customer-submitted photos they use on the labels. Keep an eye out for their "limited edition" weirdnesses (which they put out to raise funds for charity): noplace else you'll ever find (if I recall right) "Roast Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, & Green Beans," which everyone agrees was Horrid, but that wasn't the point. Aside from such madness, sample all the flavours you can get -- some are definitely "eh...," others awe-inspiring & tend to disappear forever so stock up your soda cellar while you can. The new Wal-Wart got in a bunch, & nobody 'round these hyar parts could fathom it, so they dumped the lot for half retail, a Message From God.

Michael, Jason, &c.: Mexico-labelled Coke is even available up here, $1.79/bottle. Three in the icebox at the moment, long glass bottles. A necessity for those who enjoy the occasional AUTHENTIC Cuba Libre.

As for the elections: I'm already bored. Unless the conventions shake stuff up, it's down to duelling mediocrities. "We gon' have CHANGE, I say CHAAAANGE... but only slowly, lots of thet thar CAUTION." Bleh.

French language question: Working on a project and having difficulty with this phrase: Le nom de M. Smith, ŕ qui le Canada s'honore d'avoir donné le jour...

Is it an idiomatic way of saying Smith was born in Canada?

Thanks for any help.

Harlan, a question for you.

The local free paper The Austin Chronicle has started making mention of SXSW movies and the like, mentioning yours in the process. Just a small precis, but I wanted to know if you wanted me to keep an eye out for and collect any magazine/ newspaper/ local DIY rags that make mention of DWST, for your archives? As I understand it, you usually need the whole pertinent page. If I'm wrong, just let me know what you'd like or need. I don't have a scrapbook but I collect scraps here and there, and I'll be on the lookout for mentions. It's no problem at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Real sugar Coke is good, yes. Even better is RC, the real soda flavor. But root, root for the king of hot-weather, thirst quenching, ice-cold ambrosia in a bottle- Black Cherry Soda. Jesus turned wine into it, so you know you're in good company.

F'real Sugah
That imported Mexican Coke is freakin' delicious, used to get it when I ventured down to the local authentic Mex grocery/restaurant in Upstate NY of all places...

In much the same vein, if you're ever down South (not sure quite how far down you need to be...I was near Llano TX, which is preeeety far) take a look around for Dr. Pepper in glass bottles made with actual cane sugar. Oh-my-lanta what a tasty tasty treat!

re: Soda Pop

I haven't tried the particular brand that KOS recommends, however I do have a handy tip for those here who 1) remember with delight the original Coca Cola from the old days when they made it with sugar, not corn syrup and 2) live in the LA area.

There is a grocery chain here called Vallarta, that's sort of like a Vons for Latin American folks. In addition to the usual 2 liter plastic bottles of standard crap soda, they sell (though often in a different aisle), imported Coca Cola from Mexico, in recyclable glass bottles, made with actual sugar. The stuff tastes much better then the 'merican kind.

Vallarta is also a handy place for all kinds of special herbs, chiles, and banana leaves -- which are useful if you are making Puerco Pibil following the recipe from the DVD of Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon A Time in Mexico ( a mediocre movie but the recipe is fantastic).

MM

Soda Pop
It's not often you rediscover a love. Rarer still when it is a love not only lost, but forgotten. Rarest of all, a childhood love.

Soda pop.

I'm all grown up now, and so I just didn't drink it. Actually, I did, in a way: going to a movie? gotta' have popcorn, and if you have the salt you gorra' have the sweet and wet. Ditto for the occasional fast food expedition.

But buy a bottle and take it home? Rarely if ever. It all tasted so blah, so generic, so very, very bad. All Same All Time.

The same flavors mixed in the same boring ways. The same sickly sweet corn syrup sweet that does not fulfill.

The horrors of non-sugar sweet shall be passed over in silence.

So recently, while the female of the household sifted through bargain bins of leftover Xmas supplies at a local emporium ,I wandered same aisles idly fantasizing what a lost snowglobe left lonely upon the shelf might feel, and spotted: a shelf with half a dozen four-pack's of something called "Jones Crhistmas Cocoa Blend Soda Pop".

I had seen "Jones Soda Pop" here and there over the years, but it was pricey. This was on clearance for a buck a four-pack. "bhat the hey!", I bought a couple packs.

Love rediscovered. Renewed. They make this stuff with real cane sugar. With real flavors.

I just finished a bottle of their berry soda. Last night it was green apple. Every sip brings back summer memories of the lake we fished at, and the old cooler filled with water wherein the bottles of Pommac and Strawberry Crush and Squirt and RC Cola would hang by their necks like drowned men. How we would plop down a thin silver dime and slide it into the little slot, and the bar would be released allowing just one of the precious bottles to slide free, and we would return to watching our bobbers float silently in the sun-freckled water while sipping the true goodness so slick and cool in our fevered palms.

I'm gonna start searching out more Real Soda Pop from other sources.

This is like Hydroxes versus Oreos. It's reality fighting back against Tapioca World Version 2008.

Love Is Good.

Fight the Good Fight, drink the Good Stuff.

KOS

p.s. Frank, is that you breathing in my phone line?

Have taken care of Mr. Wiki.
By the way, the last Rabbit Hole I received was #42 (Fall 2007). I've been assuming there's a production delay or nothing to report and have seen no mention of 43, but I'm beginning to wonder. Probably nothing, just someone let me know whether I missed one. Thanks.
L.Q. Jones talks about A BOY AND HIS DOG in a new interview at IGN (just the first page)
http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/850/850786p1.html
Jones will also be present at two screenings of the film in San Francisco (apparently there is a print making its rounds in California):
http://landmarkafterdark.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=236&Itemid=2

Heads up to Harlan, youtube has the entire A Boy And His Dog movie on there. Just wanted you to know.

DTS said: " But -- and I learned this from asking the question over and over -- there ARE a lot of readers who pick up books solely based on the cover, and whether or not it catches their eye (or eyes)."

An interest in a thoughtful cover worked for me. I was a teen browsing the Science Fiction/Fantasy shelves, intrigued by stick telephone turning into a cobra and scaring the snot out of this guy trying to make a call; the title was interesting, SHATTERDAY, but of secondary consideration. Hell, I couldn't even remember the author's name when I tried to tell my mom about the book (until the day she bought it for me, I would have sworn on a stack of Nancy Drew books that the author's first name was Xavier), but the cover held fast to my imagination. SHATTERDAY, DREAMSNAKE, and SHARA'S EXILE were my introduction to books that didn't come with "#" before the title.

You won't hear any complaints from me.


shagin

REPLIES

1) Let us get it straight, folks: Jerry Pournelle is a friend of mine. He is a GOOD friend of mine. He has BEEN a good friend of mine for decades. He is NOT an ogre, he's as soft-hearted at core as am I. His manner can be brusque, and he can be bombastic when he's upon his political horse--as can each of us--but as I have said endless times previously, he is one of the few guys I'd call to have at my back in a dust-up. And the aspect that plays like a baby-doll is that WERE I to call with a gardyloo, Jerry would be here in a heartbeat.

He is loyal, he is smart as a whip, he is honest, and he is in no way deserving of the idiot epithets spewed by strangers who know him no more closely than I am known to the bloviating third/fourth/fiftieth-hand assholes who trumpet what an ogre I am. Takes one to know one.

The news that Jerry was ill is SERIOUS news, and I called him a second after I read the post here, my first knowledge of his situation. Jerry lives ten, at most fifteen, minutes from me; and I said to him, as I say to you here: we may have been at crazy-extreme opposite ends of the political rainbow for forty years, kiddo, but you are peaches in my book, and we understand how deep runs our bizarre friendship, and if you need ANYTHING, hit the phone, I'll be there in ten, maybe fifteen, minutes.

And anyone who wishes to repost the above at Jerry's -- or anyone else's -- site, has my permission, nay, my blessing.

2) JOHN HEATTER: your contact information for Susan/HERC can be left right here. I have brought your plea to her attention. If you choose not to post such private information here, just drop a note to HERC at PO Box 55548, Sherman Oaks, CA 91413, which appears on each and every "Rabbit Hole" you've gotten.

3) DTS and WHOEVER ELSE: I have now had an opportunity to look at the DROOD cover. I think it is elegant, just right for a potential bestseller, and I weep for you who do not see it as a godsend step-up serious attempt by a publisher to crossover-legitimatize a writer who ought to be longer, and more often, on the bestseller charts. Barney's ruminations are well-conceived, and I think correct. This I DO know: I would have slaughtered entire nations to've gotten a cover this seriously-intended, back in The Day.

4) KOS is absolutely dead-on about those who "kill for their country," and he is also absolutely no-argument dead-on when he points out to Frank that McCain was not, in fact, involved in ANY way in the carpet-bombing circa Johnson's tenure. He was already a POW, languishing in the hell of the Hanoi Hilton through that entire phase of the war. And while I may or may not be interested in McCain as a President, I sure as shit know KOS is closer to reality on this sole point, than is my dear Frank. Further, deponent sayeth not.

5) BARNEY: Money for PITTSBURGH and WEREWOLVES goes into the mail today. My thanks, mijo. (Having just read your new post: isn't her name CornwEll, Patricia Cornwell, not "wall"? ???

6) Would someone, ANYone get into that stupid crap Wikipoopia entry and take out the utterly WRONG assumption that SPIDER KISS has ANYthing to do with Presley, because it doesn't, it isn't, it never was, and it never will be. Stag Preston is bits'n'pieces of a lotta different rockers, plus oodles of whole cloth, and...

if he resembles ANYONE -- and this is who I had in mind when I wrote the short story that was later expanded into the novel --it was JERRY LEE LEWIS. Anyone who reads that book and tropes it as Presley, and doesn't see The Killer, is fit only for Wikislovenly. Would someone get in there, PUH-leeeeeez, and make the fatheads of Wikiarrogance understand at least THIS error, among the dozens that continue to run loose in my entry.

Gawd I hate Wikicrapia. And those who continue to rely on it.

That's it for me today. Josh and I will be going to the big Writers Guild mass meeting at the Shrine Auditorium tonight. You'll be hearing about what happened on the Late News, and tomorrow morning. Writers Guild Rules!

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Last words on book clothing
FRANK & BARNEY: Promise to say no more after this, even if it isn't a controversial topic (I don't want to run it into the ground). Though the DUMA KEY cover Frank doesn't like might have been executed in a much prettier fashion, it DOES catch the eye (I'm not an artist so I can't say if it's due to the combination of colors, or the composition and colors); and even if King _wasn't_ the author, I would've picked up the book and read the inside copy of the DJ. Frank, you're wrong about book covers. Yes, the author's name will reel in those who have read his or her work and who might have heard of the author, or (an even smaller bunch) who might have read a good review. But -- and I learned this from asking the question over and over -- there ARE a lot of readers who pick up books solely based on the cover, and whether or not it catches their eye (or eyes). Which is, I believe, where Barney is wrong: something about the whole composition just doesn't work. And though Barney and I (for reasons that don't need to be elaborated) might automatically think of Jack the Ripper and foggy London when seeing the cover, one has to remember that a lot of people (unfortunately) don't remember anything before the birth of Britney Spears -- which is why I think the impulse buyer, or reader of ocassional thrillers, will give the book a pass if it sports the current dustjacket.

Then again, I thought the citizens of the U.S. would rise up as a whole and kick Dubya out of the WHite House during his second run for President, so what do I know? And as Harlan said, Simmons likes it, so maybe that's all that matters.
Now, I'll shut up about it all.

Cheers,
DTS

CONTACT INFO FOR MARIE SEVERIN

is only available through direct contact with Clifford Meth.

His words: "Yes. But you'll have to get it from me personally..."

His email is listed where he made the entry here.

Dan Simmons DROOD book cover
OK - I'm not going to be around tomorrow and possibly Monday so I'm calling that .jpeg cover post a public service to Harlan and going now.

I think this is one of those cases where after the strikingly detailed covers of Ilium and OLYMPOS and the perfectly bleak and dismal (but still beautiful) cover Simmons snagged for THE TERROR,* - after those, this new cover for DROOD is coming as a bit of a culture shock to his readers. But it shouldn't. Since Dan has never tried to stick to one genre I see no need or purpose to his books having anything like a uniformity in design. Frankly I'll take any sort of experiment at all over the kind of uniformity that, for instance, John Updike not only settled for - but actually seems to have preferred.

But, speaking directly to *this* cover - I think it's appropriate and smart on MANY levels. First, it's going to draw in some Ripper "fans" - whatever those are - and that's going to be good for some sales if the success of Cornwall's Jack the Ripper is any indication.

I should note here that there is no reason whatsoever that Jack the Ripper needs to appear in this book. None. Or, his appearance or presence may be as oblique as "the Thing" was in THE TERROR which was very sideways, but brilliant in my opinion.

However, given the incomplete nature of The Mystery of Edwin Drood and the murkiness of Dickens own life at this time from a biographical point of view, the concept of having an out of focus fogbound central character nearly eclipsing the rest of the art may be very shrewd indeed. Or, is that a Dark Well of Silhouette that we might pour what we want or think or need into? Remember how popular cameos and silhouettes were in this era?

As for the blood red (furnace red?) "thingees" - those design elements were quite common to that era and one finds them stamped into the cloth and lenticular boards of books from the era and used as border elements in posters and fliers and frontispieces
from that period all the time. Of course, they could also be seen as very precise cuts and then, well then, what are we looking into? A book? A body? A furnace? For fans of imaginative literature I think maybe engaging that imagination a little more couldn't hurt. The alternative is a very literal cover like this;

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/The_Mystery_of_Edwin_Drood.jpg

I'll take Dan's in a heartbeat.

Of course I would have also cracked up with insane glee if they had done some ridiculous Victorian script advertising that some or much of the narrative POV was from Wilkie Collins ***INSTEAD*** of art. But my sense of humor is somewhere straddling perverse and deranged so don't listen to these irresponsible notions.

- Barney

Denofiniquity, PA.



*Anybody who read and enjoyed THE TERROR should seek out Lansing's ENDURANCE. I'm listening to it in my car as an unabridged work and the thing is positively overwhelming. The weakest of these guys survived stuff for endless months that would have broken me in perhaps two or three days. Astonauts had it easy compared to these masochists. Insane.

***Frank*** The new King cover IS ugly. And it may be too literal. But it does address a certain kind of tacky Floridian art impulse which is one of the things King is writing about here. I'm about halfway in and I've not written off the book or it's cover. In some ways he is now stepping in and becoming the John D. MacDonald that some of us have been missing since the publication of LONELY SILVER RAIN so many years ago.

***Harlan*** The other one came today. I think it looks FINE and I'm sending it along w/ o any complicated notes. If you don't like it it'll look nice on my shelf nice to my signed 4th printing and I will sleep like a big bald bookish baby.

- Barney

Covetous, PA

....Aaaannnd since I'm the other half of the DROOD cover controversy, I'll let Dorman's words and sentiments below speak for me exactly. It's Simmons' book, and art, as we all know, is interpreted best by ones own self. If Simmons loves it, then who the hell am I???
__________________________

Sorry to read Pournelle's not well. Hope he recovers quickly.
__________________________

In answer to one person's query (and not dredging up our battle royale): Yes, officers know part of the job is to kill for your country -- the dying for your country is, in fact, a LESS desirable option. More importantly, they know precisely what they are doing when they order men and women INTO harm's way. Viscerally. Personally. Not theoretically, as do some fools in government who mouth the right words and then sit down for an evening of television. When a person dies under your command, it is a grievious thing.
__________________________

Lessee. I've annoyed Frank, Harlan (twice!), Keith, Steve D, Brian and Rob. And it was only, for me, a four day week.

My work here is done.

Errors and updates.

Hey, gang.

I just found an image and reference to Harlan and his book ROCKABILLY under the wikipedia entry of the same name:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockabilly

The caption reads: "...based on the life of Elvis Presley."

I thought about editing it myself but I'm lost with these sorts of things. Any of you techno-savy would be doing us a favor.

Also, I haven't been getting my Rabbit Hole newsletters. Apparently there's been some confusion with the post office when I moved, even though I kept the box open. Is there any contact where I can get Susan to update this info? Guess I've been too lazy to send a letter.

Marie Severin
Clifford...

Is there an address for Marie? As someone who worked with her way back when, I'd like to send her a card/note.

Tony

Dammit guys, covers don't sell books, the name and the story does. Sure, the cover is murky, boring, but let Simmons do what he wants.

Now on Steve King's new novel--there, that's one shitty looking cover.

-----------

Ron Paul gets more money from the troops then any other candidate running combined. See, the troops agree with me too.

---------

"I'm glad Guiliani quit the race, he had the balls to go after people like me."

Bill Maher.

Shagin

Um, wait, I mean, no, wait, umm, NO, I mean, don’t start packing…crating, um, no, no
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, I mean…

Did I mention mine are 19 and 21 did I mention that they’ll be leaving home soon did I mention there mother gets all the credit did I mention she would get final say on approval of such a transaction did I mention…

(Note to self, do not open any sturdy boxes with smooth sides and no air holes delivered in the next few weeks. Return to sender, address unknown, no such number, no such zone.)

Mike

DTS: Thanks for the original post on Simmons' Drood, I flipped over to his site because of it (I have to admit that my reaction to the cover itself is an indifferent Eh, Whatever, but I can't wait to read it, as I think The Terror was one of the best books published last year). However, the real gem on Simmons' site right now is his February March 2008 Message to Readers (http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message.htm). It's an amazingly erudite essay, written in a wonderful preview of Dan’s Wilkie Collins narrative voice, that will have Unca Harlan himself nodding in understanding (even if it does take a rather nasty swipe and Larry Niven and/or Jerry Pournelle (actually now that I think about it - maybe only Pournelle – the initial provocation sounds like him)).

Love to all,

jono

Carpets and Covers
I dunno good cover from bad, but I gotta say that "Dan Simmons" on "Drood" sure makes me want to lay out some Simoleons for the book.

The only full-price hardcover I bought last year was "The Terror", and it was worth it. "Drood" is on the list. Yesterday was Charles Dickens' birthday too. Also Sinclair Lewis'. Good day for writers.

I have it on good authority there were no carpets dropped on North Vietnam. Honest. They were on the list, right after Nixon's kitchen sink, but the war ended before they got that far down the list.

Anyway, McCain was captured BEFORE the massive bombing of 1972 that ended the war. Can't blame him for the B-52s leveling Hanoi. When he flew they were under so many restrictions they just about had to ask LBJ's permission before dropping their pants to take a crap.

I'll refrain from further refighting of the Big V.

What's so hard to understand about there being a certain sort of person who likes the idea of fighting, and will seek it out? They're called warriors, and they do exist. Just as every other type of personality: Child actors, writers, college students and porn stars. Its called humanity, so far the only game on Earth for us sentient types. One-Hundred-Thousand Years and still kicking. Stay tuned.

I've heard plenty of patriots talk about killng for their country. Russell was a better epigramist than historian. Hell, half of basic training is talking about killing for your country. As for why anyone would want to do it: See above. They do exist.

Check out a classic Steve McQueen role if you want to see the type in action, Hollywood style: "The War Lover". Great film.

Anyone joining the military, that has a whit of sense, understands two things: that it is an institution dedicated to killing people and/or breaking things; and that every job in the military is either doing that directly, or done in service of making it possible for someone else to do that.

I'm not wise enough to argue as to the rightnesss of it all. But that IS how it is, and those who volunteer usually (as in almost always) know it. It's made very clear to them, very quickly, if they somehow joined wihtout knowing it.

The artist who disappeared leaving the "Nemo" was Everett Ruess. His journals are published under the title "A Vagabond For Beauty", and he has been the subject of at jeast one documentary film and one other book.

Fascinating character.

Philip Jose' Farmer is ninety. "Riders Of The Purple Wage" is perhaps the finest piece of SF written in the 1960s. It's my pick, and yes I am probably wrong. De Gustibus Non Disputandum. To have been a fly on the wall when that MS. arrived at Ellison Wonderland.

Jerry Pournelle is apparently seriously ill. Good wishes can be extended to him at www.jerrypournelle.com. Be nice to him, he's really not the ogre some have painted him to be. He's a good friend, and one worth having around a good time longer.

KOS

Harlan, DROOD, and clothing for books
HARLAN: Obviously, I'm one of the concerned parties at which your message was addressed (no need to be coy). As to whether or not the cover pumps _my_ adrenals, you're absolutely right: it doesn't matter. Especially since I long ago learned not to judge a book by it's cover (the paperback version of CARRION COMFORT being a great example), or even mix up the author with the fiction (and vice-versa).

But (triple exclamation marks), whether or not the dust jacket stirs the adrenals of the bookstore browsing customer (especially those who pick up new items because of artwork-cum-advertisement known as the cover), is a whole 'nother matter. And therein, I believe, will lie the problem. Yeah the blurry photo or the guy in tophat is reminiscent of Jack-the-Ripper prowling through White Chapel, and yeah it'll even call to mind THE ALIENIST, etc. (which is a good thing, marketing-wise), but for reasons I can't quite explain (which involve both the above-mentioned photograph or painting, the calligraphy used for the title and the red "thingees" underneath it), my first reaction is that the cover will have potentially new readers of Simmons work -- and/or readers who love well-written thrillers -- turning away because the artwork turns them off.

Me? I'll be waiting on the edge of my seat to read the new book (and if Hillary Clinton is elected President, I'll be expecting the signed copy that Mr. Simmons promised me a year or more ago, when I made a bet with him on his forum). And I hope I'm wrong about the cover, but I've always operated on a visceral level, and my gut reaction was one of, well...yeeech!

But if the author is happy with it, hey: it's his baby that has to wear those clothes out in the world, not mine.

Cheers,
Dorman

From a post by Ron Fiore, a cover and some interior pages of early George Carlson work. John Martin's Big Book 1929.

http://www.goofbutton.com/2008/02/early_george_carlson.html

.

Dan Simmons DROOD book cover
Here you go;

http://www.dansimmons.com/images_books/DROODcover-7_lg.jpg

- Barney

Jules Verne
I purchased the Naval Institute Press edition of 20,000 Leagues because I have an earlier effor by one of the translators, Walter James Miller. In the 1970's-80's he produced the partial re-translation titled, THE ANNOTATED JULES VERNE, TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA. It was that volume, where he replaced much of the excised material while keeping the original english text for the time being. The heavily annotated book showed in detail how bad the standard translation really was, right down to the re-riting excision of any passage that mentioned Evolution or Paleontology.

The Naval Institute Press edition was a fulfillment of the promise to finish a complete re-translation, which Miller was able to accomplish with another enthusiast, Fredrick Paul Walter. If you get a chance to read the earler annotated edition, I'd recommend it. The detailed lowdown on the original translation is like reading a detective story.

And, for your enjoyment, here is a link to a terrific site, Jules Verne's Nautilus, by Michael Crisafulli. It simply bursts with Vernian treasures!

http://home.att.net/~karen.crisafulli/nautilus.html

Chuck

DROOD's cover
Gotta admit, the part of the cover that absolutely nails me is "By Dan Simmons."

As I was saying before this noxious cossukah decided to do its own thing:

Had occasion during one of my regular phone chats with Dan, to mention the couple of comments you've lodged here recently, in re the cover of the forthcoming DROOD (at the writing of the final chapters of which Dan has been engaged for the last five days). He only LOVES the cover. As is.

So whether it pumps YOUR adrenals or nay, it is moot. The Author likes it, nay, the Author LOVES it; and that is as rare as worms wearing argyle socks. So there.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

DAN SIMMONS' UPCOMING NOVEL & ITS DUST JACKET
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

Harlan buddy, mine field is a good way to describe our little food fight. I meant what I said about McCain but also mean no offense to our fighting men, especially since I have uncles who were in the Navy and Army. Sure, the higher ups were the cause of the awful war, but McCain was a Officer and had the info, he knew who he was bombing and why. He still defends the war to this day, which is his main offense.

But yes, me and Steve are lovers once again. Can't stay mad at my Stevie for long.

-----------

Since that war the general public has become more decent, they would never have allowed us to carpet bomb civilians, at least not in front of the cameras. The unwashed have become saner. McCain is still nuts.

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

I like Huckabee. Sure, his religion is crazy, but so is Tom Cruise's. He would make a good fun uncle, but President, no fucking way in hell.

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

Obama all the way, right Harlan, right!!

Queen Dame Hillary must not have the golden keys, noooooooooooooo

a-wunnerful, a-wunnerful . . . and now . . . .

Paul Richards recalled:

:: Don't forget one of the greatest performances of the 21st,
:: still being talked about today- Ronald Wilson Reagan.
:: People were still talking about his last role when he died.


Ayup. I'm still shaking my head over that performance. A lot of people said it was award-winning, but personally, I thought he sleepwalked through it.

Now, has it occurred to anyone else that Huckabee looks remarkably like he was separated at birth from Kevin Spacey?

Lee, that is it precisely. 20,000 thank yous. Light on your feet indeed.

ATC~ Don't forget one of the greatest performances of the 21st, still being talked about today- Ronald Wilson Reagan. People were still talking about his last role when he died.

Today is Jules Verne's birthday. We can go around the world in less than 24 hrs and read using electricity the whole time. What mad dreamers we all be.

DORMAN - I agree with you completely about the DROOD cover. I think I understand the intent, it's the execution that lacks. The picture and coloration is far, but the choice of typesetting and those crazy red lines? Nope. I'd never pick it up.
_________________________

KOS - Dad actually greenlit and published the annotated edition. It might interest you to know that the retranslation of 20,000 LEAGUES added back roughly a fifth of the original novel's text that had not previously been translated or published in the US. The Naval Institute's edition is a truly beautiful volume.
_________________________

I'd written a detailed response to some of the comments about the brouhaha with Frank, but deleted 'em.

Doing as Harlan asked, I'm silent on the topic.
_________________________

Ending with humor:

Last week, on vacation, as I curled myself painfully around the porcelain god as a result of food poisoning (NOT alcohol related!), I glanced up to see, tattooed on the lower portion of the seat back, the name of the manufacturer.

"Church"

Had I known it was a warning about my buddy Frank -- and not simply an affirmation of the various promises I was making provided I survived the night -- I would have been more delicate in my handling of our debate.

From a narrative standpoint, is this what they mean by the term "foreshadowing"?

Mike J. said:

"I share this only partially to brag. Primarily, this is shared to remind all of us that all kids (and I’m including 19 and 21 in the “kids” category) haven’t turned off, haven’t tuned out, and haven’t dropped out.

Mike"

Mike,

Kudos for your kids!

I'll be shipping my friend's daughter down to you this weekend. Steve B. recommended in cases where I'm shipping kids I should use sturdy boxes with smooth sides and no air holes. Look for the package and don't mind the stench.


shagin

Frank Church's comments about John McCain didn't strike me as offensive in the least. A "rice-paddy bombing snake?" Well, McCain flew attack planes, so I'd accept the bit about bombing rice paddies. "Snake" could easily apply to his willingness to say almost anything to appeal to nearly anyone who might help him get elected to high office.

Now, McCain can be a funny and likeable guy sometimes. But so can Mike Huckabee, and he's a maniac. McCain uses his wartime rep in ways that strike me as, well, twisty and turny. One day he'll mention his time in a POW camp as proof of his patriotism. The next, as proof that he understands suffering. And the next he'll cite it to share his resentment of people who _didn't_ suffer as he did, i.e., those anti-war commies, and get the right-wingers salivating. And the next, he'll bring it up to demonstrate why he'd be more likely to avoid war than anyone else, because he alone has experienced the sufferings and dangers of being Under Fire... and the next, it's evidence that he'd be a bigger war-lover than Dick Cheney because he's been a _real_ soldier, and would _know_ how to run an international War on Terror...

As for Steve Barber's response... well, Steve acknowledges that it's not so much about what Frank actually _said_, as it it about a set of memories Steve associated with the comment. But I do not agree with Steve. I've discussed this before, the strange moral contortions we perform when talking about vets.

Marie Severin Update
Spoke with her yesterday. She's doing much better. For those who are interested, I write about it here: www.thecliffordmethod.blogspot.com

Kids and Voting
I have bragged about my children in here, and I will again. There is hope. Not all teens are mindless MTVatrons. My two kids (19 and 21) did not vote in the primary here in Phoenix because they could not. Like their mother, they are registered independents – chosen because they do not like the thought of being marked as part of either of the parties (and done at the threat of being disowned by their grandparents.) They live at home (anything to get them that college graduation) where we are having lively discussions regarding who to vote for. And these are informed discussions – not just “I won’t vote for Hillary because she’s ookey!” (Well, that’s the argument I use, but…) I may not agree with their final decisions, but they are developing informed opinions.

I share this only partially to brag. Primarily, this is shared to remind all of us that all kids (and I’m including 19 and 21 in the “kids” category) haven’t turned off, haven’t tuned out, and haven’t dropped out.

Mike

Cool Cereal
Douglas,

Kamloops sounds like a cereal made with washers and nuts, but it still sounds better than Fibold Studge.

Harlan has alluded to an anecdote about Dean Stockwell, but I have never heard it. I think it's one of those things you have to ask him about in person, when the cameras are off.

**

Politics:

Steve, thanks for posting a further explanation of where you were coming from re: Frank's post. It is entirely different from any of my experiences. The last Cramer in my family to serve in the military was, I think, in the Civil War.

I wonder, continually, about the type of people who volunteer for service. I think it is so brave on the one hand, and so foolish on the other. Not to mention knowing that if you enlist, you are basically OK with the concept of killing someone else. I would never be okay with that, unless there was a "Red Dawn" invasion scenario going on. I'm at class today, so I don't have the exact quote, but Bertrand Russell said something like: "Patriots always talk of dying for their country, but they never talk of killing for it." Like so many other "givens" in our society, I don't think people truely think about what the hell they are doing half the time, or why they are doing it.


Ezra: you referred to Hillary, I think, in an earlier post, as the one person in all of Creation who will energize the Republican base to come out and vote against the Dems. So I take it you are voting for Obama? Don't get me wrong: I like Obama better than I like Hillary. But I think Hillary is a better politician, and has a better understanding of the politics than Obama. I would L-O-V-E to see a Hillary/Barack ticket, and in 8 years I would vote for Obama for President, fer sure.

-Keither

Jesus, Douglas, don't scare me like that. For a split second, I thought Stockwell had died and I had missed the news. My brain wasn't computing your "alive". Instead of "2008", how about "to date" or "to present". "2008" seemed so final, he says with a sigh of relief and still not quite awake.

ATC:
Dean Stockwell: 1945-2008 (Alive; 63 years)

Charles Lane: 1931-2006 (Deceased; 75 years)

Lane's last credit, according to IMDb, was as the narrator of a short film.

Cheers,
D.

The Steves (both B. and D.) have each made salient points, and I commend them for it.

Also, what a surprise to see Mr. Riddell make an appearance here. (This is the guy who usually posts his eljay comments in purple, if that tells you anything.)

Lastly, I've been hearing rumblings tonight that the strike may be closer to its end than previously assumed. Not wanting to stir up the broth if it's merely a rumor, but is there any truth to this?

Barber and The Terror
Hey, BARBER: The subject line seems like it was ripped from the "Sweeney Todd" headlines, nu? Glad you enjoyed THE TERROR, as did I. And despite my parting of the ways with the author when it comes to his view of the
"war on terrorism" (and just about everything else regarding the climate surrounding that political shitstorm/smokescreen), I'm looking forward to reading DROOD, his next book, which is scheduled for 2009. But I wouldn't be surprised if he has fewer readers this time out (no, NOT because I wont be reviewing his book for half a dozen papers -- but because of the cover! It is, in my humble opinion, a study in how to turn off readers -- go check it out on Simmons' site).
--DTS

Salvador Dali on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXT2E9Ccc8A

Harlan said: "As I say, folks: step carefully. This is a minefield, which is why, if you notice, there has been nary a word on this subject--though I hold interesting views and voted yesterday"

You mean folks still vote? Are you trying to say that not everyone is like the 19 year old daughter of a dear friend of ours who, when asked her thoughts on the primary race and upcoming presidential election, answered: "I'm not gonna vote anyway. It won't make a difference what I think, so I figure why bother."

I am so very pleased that enlightened young women like that hold the future in their hands. To think sufferage secured the right to vote 87+ years ago. *sigh*

Okay, back to my snarky corner. Both hubby and I voted. In the words of Lazarus Long as filtered through Admiral Bob: "If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong."



shagin

LONG FILM CAREERS
Also Helen Hayes, b 1900, first film (short) at age 10, last movie 1985. 75 years.

Interesting Views
Dear Harlan,

Thanks for that sober assessment of the minefield that is politics. Is there any chance of your writing an Op-Ed piece on those "interesting views"? I mean, of course, for some paying market more accessible to the wider world than this charming net-nook.

I know I am a hopelessly reactionary misanthrope, but I've long thought your political opinions are worthy of being shared. You've always been capable of surprising those who think they know what you will say. I won't ever admit to what I think you might have voted for yesterday, but I am certain the details are interesting, as you say.

Steve B. : Your father helped get the annotated 20K pubbed? I do homage in his general direction. When I was twelve, besides wanting to see naked women, I lusted to be Captain Nemo. I would sketch diving suits and submarines, while daydreaming of disappearing from the earthly world to cruise sublime ocean depths.

Harper Goff rules. Odd reference and say no more shall I.

Anyone else here ever heard of the young artist in the thirties whose favorite book was 20K? He also loved the desert out by the Colorado river, and would disappear for months with his favorite book, a burro and a few supplies, coming back to LA every now and then to sell his linoleum cuts (sort of like wood cuts) of desert scenes. Then one trip he was overdue. His wealthy parents hired search parties; which found his last campsite, near some cliff dwelling ruins.

Carved on a wall, above a doorway to some ancient structure, was the single word "Nemo". Nothing more was found of him. Well into the eighties there were reports from occasional desert travelers in the area of an old desert rat , sparking rumors that he had survived as a sort of "desert Nemo".

Nemo lives. In the heart of every twelve year old, boy or girl, who dreams of adventure and a better world.

How old were you, Harlan, when you read 20K?

KOS

Addendum
Whoops. Rossito was 65 years, not 75. Still impressive.

Long Spans
I was doin' some movie trivia work in my newsgroup earlier today, and had cause to compile a list of the various personalities with the longest screen careers. I counted from earliest known screen credit to most recent, even if they had periods of inactivity in the interim. (I'm goin' somewhere with this.)

Longest Careers that I know of:

Milton Berle: 1914-2000 (Deceased; 86 years)

Mickey Rooney: 1926-2008 (Still working; 82 years; seems to be
the last silent-movie actor still active)

John Gielgud: 1924- 2000 (Deceased; 76 years)

Angelo Rossito*: 1927-1992 (Deceased; 75 years)
(* think "One of us! One of us!" and THUNDERDOME)

Lillian Gish: 1912-1987 (Deceased; 75 years)

Rose Marie: 1929-2004 (Still alive; 75 years)

Charles Lane: 1931-2006 (Deceased; 75 years)

Gloria Stuart: 1932-2004 (Still alive; 30 year gap; 72 years)

John Mills: 1932-2000 (Deceased; 68 years)

George Burns: 1929-1994 (Deceased; 63 years)

Two special names that deserve mention.

One of the world's great directors, Sidney Lumet, started as an actor, with credits in 1939, a great film released only a couple of months ago, and more on the way. He's coming up on seventy years, and counts as a long-lived creator, if not (solely) a screenwriter.

Julius Epstein, co-writer of CASABLANCA, appears to have had the longest-lived screenwriting career, with credits in 1934 and 1983, a span of forty-nine, not quite fifty years. I can't think of anybody who remained active longer.

Except that I was a little stunned when I connected all of this noodling to the awareness that I personally knew somebody with teleplay credits in 1962 and in 2007: 45 years.

So, yeah, Harlan's fast approaching Julius Epstein...

REPLIES

RIDDELL: Got the package. Sent a letter c/o Z. A week ago. I suppose you'll get it anon.

MORALES: Still not a peep from Damon Gambuto. But don't chivvy him. He'll either come across, or he won't. As time passes, my imperative to speak to him grows less and less compulsive.

STEVE, STEVE, FRANK, KEITH, ROB, et al: Go carefully with each other on this perfectly appropriate, yet potentially crusty, political back&forth. Frank has "a way of speaking," as you know, Steve B. And those who answer him know he has a good heart, most of the time. He touched a nerve in you, my chum, and I would be willing to bet he said awfuck to himself because he wouldn't have done it with m. aforethought. You are, as I see it, condignly motivated in your umbrage. But Frank meant you no personal pique.

As I say, folks: step carefully. This is a minefield, which is why, if you notice, there has been nary a word on this subject--though I hold interesting views and voted yesterday--emanating
from

Yr. Pal, Harlan

I mean HERE in the smoking room!

(That's a new one!)

Steve Dooner...

Exactly!

Hey - you can't cling to a bias and be true to the facts at the same time; nor is one generalization an improvement over another. (And I feel yours was an answer to Ezra's question too)

BTW, nice to hear voices hear in the smoking room again!

This place was giving me the creeps. The joint was so quiet I could hear the floorboards creaking.

It was like the old dark Miller place on Mockingbird Lane.

Cramed?
Rick:

You're getting Cramed tonight? Geez, that sounds like that's going to hurt.

Seriously, give me a buzz later tonight. I'm having dinner with my in-laws earlier, but I'll make time to yak with you if you're in town. I so rarely get the opportunity to demonstrate to friends that George Romero was making documentaries.

steves
I know what a Barber is, but what the hell does a Dooner do?

Later, I am off to get seriously Cramed tonight.

Steve Barber:

Everything you say is very reasonable, except that you neglect one important point. John McCain is actively using his POW experience and his "hero" status among Americans to push a hawkish foreign policy that will kill our soldiers for another hundred years (if he gets his way). This makes him contemptible and not worthy of respect. It also negates any past sacrifices he made. I would personally like to see him thrown to a pack of gold star mothers and watch them re-enact 'The Bacchae' (metaphorically speaking, of course).

Steve Dooner

Forgive the many typos below. I didn't feel like editing my thoughts when I finished them.

"Oh God, what have I done"

I did not mean to turn this into a huge debate. Frank wrote something I personally was affronted by. It has nothing -- whatsoever -- to do with McCain himself, it has to do with the suggestion inherent in Frank's comment that the military are bad people because (at the orders of the civilian government) they bombed the shit out of North Vietnam. Was it a just cause? No. Was it something our loyal military officers had any choice about? No.

Instead of kvetching about how we done the returning soldiers from both Vietnam and Iraq, let me tell you a story.

A very long time ago in a land very far away we sent a lot of men to die. Good or bad, defensible or non-defensible, we -- America -- did this. Protesters have no immunity from this communal act (sorry Harlan...). We as a nation did it.

Many of those men, my father included, went and did their job according to how they'd been trained to do it. I'm not talking about the conscripted grunts, I'm talking about the officers and career men. People who feel a deep enough lyalty to this country to volunteer -- volunteer! -- to defend it. And that involves taking orders from politicians like the Chimp in the White House.

In this land very far away, men who were doing their jobs got shot at just as much as they did the shooting. In many cases, some of those men got captured.

It was not a vacation for them. They were tortured in ways I've had described to me by men who know what pain is. McCain, politics aside, was one of those men. I never met him, but I knew plenty of his co-residents at the Hanoi Hilton. I saw them limping or being carried off the plane on stretchers. I saw my mother's sobs as she recognized some of them, and that left an indelible mark upon a young kid who grew up maybe a few years early.

I then saw my father take a stand when, a few years later, he was told by a different group of politicians that he could not, as the commander of a powerful floating weapon of war, rescue boat after boat of drowing refugees. Refugees we as a nation were responsible for -- but he was told to give them supplies and cast them adrift. My father was among the first of the major surface combatant commanders to tell the politicians what to do with themselves. He flew to a big meetign of the brass in the Pacific and told them if they stuck to that policy, they needed to remove him from command. Other commanders, McCain and the POWs sounded thier own objections.

They changed the policy.

I've seen the broken limbs, the scars and the agony of families impacted by the Vietnam War, up close and personal. I've heard the "rice paddy bombers" epithets to the point of sickness.

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that Frank has every right to voice the opinion, that has never, ever been my point. But, in that same light, I have the right to voice my own in objection. And I come to it from a personal standpoint which he maybe cannot identify with. He may be able to watch the DEER HUNTER without losing it completely. I don't know. But what he wrote -- to me -- was offensive.

I don't like McCain any more than the rest of you (he is a beaten dog too eager to please, in my opinion), but using his wartime sacrifices to belittle the man is too far for me to stay quiet about. It makes light of what he and so many other men did on our behalf only to be kicked in the teeth in return. (And we're doing it again, to the current Iraq vets -- only the goveernment is doing it officially, as policy.)

Shutting up about this topic, but there's the rationale.
______________________________________________

20,000 LEAGUES. The retranslation and annotated edition of the book came out in 1993 from the NAVAL INSTITUTE PRESS.

Yep. The same "Dad" referred to in the above diatribe was also responsible for the modern translation. Glad a couple of you are familiar with it, since I thought it was being lost in the mists of time.

uh
That should read:

"I'm not that close TO military society."

-Keith

Defending the Frankman
Never thought I would be doing this, and never thought it would be from my buddy Steve, but I think Frank's comment shouldn't be taken too much to heart. I don't think it's over the line. He didn't call McCain a Baby Killer or any one of a number of other offensive things. McCain was doing what he had to do as a soldier.

Maybe I don't fully appreciate the gravity of what he said because I'm not that close Military Society. Would love for Steve to come back to me and let me know why he feels this way.

-Keith

I don't really understand the animus against John McCain. I don't agree with his positions but he is doing all of us the favor of stomping all over the extreme rightwingnut portion of the GOP. Anything that pisses off Grover Norquist & James Dobson & Rush etc is ok by me. I'd buy him a beer. I just won't vote for him.

I do find myself in a quandary. I detest the Clintons; their crassness and vulgarity and ruthlessness (the race baiting in South Carolina was just the latest example). Obama makes a fine speech, but what would he actually do?

I find myself asking the same stupid question every four years.

Can't we do better than this?

Frank
Personally, I think Frank was very restrained.

Iain.

I'm no fan of McCain either, but Frank should've known better.

After the way both of 'em have caved in to bush for 8 years, the average temp in hell will be within a millionth of a degree of absolute zero before either McCain or Hillary ever gets my vote. That said, if Hillary's nominated they may as well just inaugurate McCain right then and there, since the election itself will merely be a formality.

It is indeed paralogia.

It's not that the criminal (lies to the police, it's that he tells a truth that it beside the point.

"Why did you shoot that man?"

"I don't even own a gun."

It was true. He didn't own a gun. He borrowed it from a friend or relative.

He didn't lie.

The Syndrome
Paralogia, I believe.

Oh, and ditto on TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES being the first novel I ever read.

Re: Writer in a bottle
Paul: I haven't read "The Bottle Imp," but you've given me a strong reason to. Which Stevenson wrote it? Or I could just look that up right now, couldn't I? Dur. Robert Louis Stevenson. Brain spots are on my brain today apparently.

When I say that Harlan is a genius for saying that writer-in-a-bottle stuff, I say it because HE inadvertently helped me out of a plot jam that I didn't know I was in. To put it bluntly, the WIAB is so fucking perfect for what I'm doing right now that I am going to steal it from Harlan and use it. I'm gonna use the hell out of it. And if HE wants me to, I'll give him full credit for the idea when I get this thing out into the world.

No, I'm gonna give him the credit even if he doesn't want me to. And no one can stop me, because I'm Zack Malatesta! I'm the Fucking King of Mars!(Not really, but someday....)

Yours Truly,

Zack Malatesta
King of Mars

Y'know
Question for Harlan (or anyone else with the answer:

In an essay you once referred to a psychological syndrome, complete with fancy dancy name. I seek to research it.

The syndrome is one wherein a criminal/evil person seeks to mitigate some horrific act they've committed by referring to some ancillary detail that wasn't horrific. The specific instance you offered from your experience that illustrated the syndrome was your witnessing of a prison interview with an inmate convicted of kicking his young son to death. The inmate referred to having done so, saying something like, "Sure, I kicked him to death, but I was wearing sneakers. They've got rubber soles and aren't that hard." Thanks!

I always feel like a dunce. Even though I know I am not. I suppose it comes from hanging out with the few people smarter than I.

It looks like I will be voting for a Democrat, for only the second time speaking presidentially. Since I've voted Republican twice, that puts me right in the middle. Two R's, two D's, one Libertarian, and a couple of I's (Hello John Anderson and Ross Perot). Mediocre rules. Twice I sat it out, first time due to being nineteen and stupid, the second time to being burned out after eight years of Reagan and being stupid.

Why?

Why vote for a moderate Democrat who calls himself a Republican (McCain for those who have not been paying attention to my dreary posts) when I can vote for the real thing (Barack is moderate. As much as Hilary, or more; likely more).

Come on now. Do you really expect Frank Church to be reasonable about the Vietnam War?

It's likelier my cat's farts would start smelling like rose bushes in the dewy dawn of a summer morn.

I don't know why I chose that simile.

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea was the first real novel I read, too. It was in fifth grade. I believe I read it two or three times over a couple of years.

Twenty years later I discovered that the translation everyone had been reading for decades is apparently one of the worst ever of any French novel. Totally abridged and incoherent in parts. And here I thought all those years, whenever I didn't understand what the fuck Nemo was talking about, I was dumb.

I wonder if Harlan read the modern translation, done in the 70s or 80s?

And does anyone else recall that great SNL skit wherein Kelsey Grammer played Captain Nemo, endlessly reminding his crew and passengers that "It's twenty thousand leagues traveled -UNDER- the sea. We're not actually going twenty-thousand leagues ~DOWN~!

Good stuff, that.

Is it my imagination (a' la "Baader-Meinhof Syndrome"), or is every other documentary on History Channel/Military Channel/History International/Discovery (all owned by the Times Discovery people) produced by one Erik Nelson?

Seems if it's got Nazi's, or aliens, or monsters in the backwoods or bigfoot in my sneakers, then like as not Erik had a hand in it. Like as not. Big money in that market, I guess.

I gets myself some of that potted meat and those little round crackers, and I watches 'em all night. It's a mite loud, that potted meat (you got to watch for the peckers they grind up in there. Think I just spotted one of them suckers, uh huh. uh huh. Yep.)

I really like the ones with Nazis AND aliens. You got to love that combo: sickest humans ever with the sickest fantasies humans ever had (I mean, come on: Remember that movie in the eighties where the writer has an alien probe the size and shape of New Jersey shoved up his ass? You'd think a guy would keep THAT particular one to himself. Which is worse: that it actually happened or you believe it happened? Shows what a writer will do to get hisself a Best Seller, if ya ask me and you did. I got it on tape, sucker.)

Old Adolf shows up so often on History Channel" I used to wonder if maybe that "H" in the corner of the screen wasn't maybe for Hitler?

"Planet Fear" is on Pay Per View tonight. I'm gonna tie the little woman down and make her watch it with me. Bwah hah hah!

Remember: horror movies exist not to tell us there are monsters out there. Any sensible five-year old knows that. They're to teach us that monsters can be killed. Remember that, and all will be well. All Will Be Well!

You bet.
"
KOS

On McCain
BARBER: While you're taking offense at Frank's comments, remember that he's only exercising a freedom that many good -- and usually educated -- soldiers would say is his.

FRANK: You're dead wrong about McCain. (And Barber's right: the rice paddy bombing thing was in pretty bad taste). McCain's not a snake. My take on the guy is simply that he sometimes pushes the same snake_oil_ that others of his ilk (politicians) try to sell the public. And before the 2000 elections, I would've given him a 8 or an 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 when judging him on sincerity when it comes to doing good (no politician rates a 10, because the very act of being in politics nowadays, sad to say, seems to negate complete altruism).

If you wanna pillory McCain, do so for his Uncle Tom act when that verifiable snake, George W. Bush (with the help of his toadies), lied and publicly tarred and feathered McCain during the primaries. Any respect I had for the guy went right out the window after that. Anyone who rolls over and shucks and jives after that sort of treatment not only has no self respect, but is capable of doing _any_ damn thing to survive as a politico. Yeech.
--DTS

paul

I find the following quote attributed to Quentin Crisp:

"Artists in any medium are nothing more than mere hooligans who cannot live within their income of admiration."

Forgive me, all, but I couldn't let this pass. I tried to.


Frank.

As the son of a Navy veteran, and being personally acquainted with a number of Vietnam POWs, I found your comment extremely offensive.

Sorry kids. I will be silent for a few.

McCain insists that he is as conservative as they come-- believe him!

McCain is a snake, a rice paddy bombing snake.

Hear the hiss, hear the hiss??

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

Ezra, didn't know you read Harpers. My training is working.

Time and Newsweek should be used as kindling, not read.

John McCain.

Sheesh, his name even SOUNDS like it came out of a Stephen King novel...

Writer in a bottle
Mr. Ellison:

I for one worry about the whole idea of a writer in a bottle, if only because I had nightmares for years after reading Stevenson's short "The Bottle Imp". While the idea of having a writer in a bottle, with the ability to make all sorts of wonderful things on command, sounds like a laudable object of desire, the writer's discovery that he's being sold for less than what the purchaser paid can't be good for his ego. Or, in my case, discovering that I was free because I couldn't be given away.

Unrelated, I trust that the package from Mark and Cindy Ziesing arrived without troubles. If I ever return to writing, it's going to be to write a book on the same subject.

Quentin Crisp?

If I may ask any and all here for a small research favor. It seems I cannot find an apothegm credited, I believe, to Quentin Crisp. Harlan's indexes and my Bartlett's comes up zero as do my online searches. It is a line I've read in Harlan's essays a few times that goes roughly, "Artists are nothing more than hooligans who cannot live within the income of their admiration."
I would love to make sure of the correct line and source. Any and all help/info/pointer dogs would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your good offices,
Paul

Caitlin R. Kiernan
For anyone interested, today noted SF&F author Caitlin Kiernan has blogged about some serious medical issues and the costs associated (http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/). She has also requested that any who want to help should bid on her current round of EBay auctions (http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=spookycrabbit).

I also know she's friendly with Unca Harlan and HE would be amoung the first to recommend her writings.

Love to all,

jono

SSsssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh....


(Be vewy, vewy quiet.)


(We're hunting wabbits...)

KETC Info
Also, this:

Main Switchboard:
Access a staff directory, a KETC department or the receptionist by calling (314) 512-9000. To send a fax to KETC, call (314) 512-9005.

Telephones are staffed weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. At all other times, callers may leave a recorded message that will be noted and responded to if so desired.

HARLAN:

Heard back from Damon Gambuto; I'll call you with info tomorrow.

HARLAN:

I sent Damon Gambuto a message by other means, and I'll get back to you when he responds.

LORI KOONCE:

A few Webderlanders -- and I guess I mean you -- still do not grasp what an electronic dunce they're trying to assist, when they advise me to (well, f'rinstance) go to a certain link, and it's KETC, a tv station, when I'm trying to get in touch with an interviewer who posted his column on something called WiredScience, or somesuch. I fear, my dear, you have only caused my brow to furrow in helpless shame at the depth of my own illiteracy on this medium. I know you mean well, and are only trying to help the idiot-I ... but s'help me, kiddo, I am absent the teensiest clue!

Abashed, Harlan

20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
WOW! My favorite author reading the first true novel I ever read (my first taste of literary SF - must have been around 5 or 6 years of age)... Too cool!

--

Can you post here the connecting link to take me to the site where Amazon.com alerted you to the imminent CD release of my 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA performance?

Harlan

Try this link

http://www.ketc.org/contact/contact.asp

The main switchboard numbers allow you access to pretty mucy anyone at KETC you'd want to talk to. I haven't called the staff directory, but assume you can get ahold of a number that will help you from there! They have a fax number if you can't access a real person!

smoked myself, a J . . . j-walking . . . the jaybird, uh, -word


:: In "An Officer and a Gentleman", when Gere's character barks at Sgt. Foley "Hey! I'm
:: talking to you, m-ther--cker", the network version has him say "Hey! I'm talking to
:: you, you jerk!"

:: Which then makes Foley's reaction ("WHAT did you call me?!!") seem a tad extreme.


I understand how he feels. I totally lose it every time someone applies that word to me.

A NECESSARY CORRECTION
That clip that I though was from the CITIZEN KANE trailer, where Welles says, "I wrote the script and directed it," is, in fact, from the end credit sequence of THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, which he DOES get sole credit for writing. I got a bit confused because the sequence uses the same stock shot of a swinging microphone that was in the KANE trailer. (Or else, one that's extremely similar to it.)

Orson, if you're up there, forgive me.

Todd,

Maybe I'm a meshugana with his head so far up his ass he can see where last year's dentist bills went, but I can tell ya THIS:

If McCain is elected Hell WILL have become the new Arctic Canteen!

(And after we're there, please remember this discussion!)

(Though, to give you some consolation, a few minutes ago, a friend on the phone just told me to shut the hell up! That I've pushed him over the edge! And now he'll vote for ANYTHING but a Dem! I'm beginning to wonder if I'm not becoming the Republicans' best friend! Anudder Nader!)


Alan Coil,

Per your advisement, I actually would have conducted that entire debate on the other board, except that Todd and KOS don't participate over there.

David,

With no measure, I hate to give you this news; but a couple years ago - on AMC, I think (the "new and improved", with ads intact) -
I actually saw it for the first time (thus far the ONLY time): Blazing Saddles with every "nigger" blipped! It was awful, man; missing the ENTIRE point, as you can imagine!

Hi kids. We're back.

One round of food poisoning (mine), one of the flu (Cris'), and as many travel-related issues as can be imagined.

On the other hand, we saw whales. Big ones and little ones, enough to send old Ahab into therapy. We spent two nights in a rain forest -- getting rained upon in positively Biblical proportions -- and upon a living breathing honest-to-goodness volcano.

Oh, and I read Dan Simmons' THE TERROR based solely and totally on our own DTS' *not-one* *not-two* but *THREE* newspaper quotes in the "I LOVED THIS EFFING BOOK" pages. And he weren't wrong about it neither.

Sorry. I'm tired.

But I'm back.

LORI: No word of any kind, not even a whisper, from either the interviewer or the WiredScience webmaster ... or anyone else on this request for a contact number.

Help would be appreciated.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

RYAN: Yes.

-he

My Favorite Network Language Edit
In "An Officer and a Gentleman", when Gere's character barks at Sgt. Foley "Hey! I'm talking to you, m-ther--cker", the network version has him say "Hey! I'm talking to you, you jerk!"

Which then makes Foley's reaction ("WHAT did you call me?!!") seem a tad extreme.

Hey Uncle Harlan
Please let me know if you have gotten in contact with the guy at WiredScience yet. I'll be more than glad to try to get you to talking, but there's no need to bombard the guy!

Lori

A comment from an earlier post demonstrates EXACTLY why political discussions should be taken to the other place, not fought out here on the front page.

Please, if your opposition is a jackass and you have to say it, do so at the other place.

Please.

Edward Gorey documentary
I figure since many of the people here are interested in less ordinary works, I recently learned, during a solemn walk through the internet trying to learn more about the late Edward Gorey, that there's a documentary in the works filmed over four years until his death in 2000.

It's still not done, but it looks interesting enough that I hope it gets finished. Not trying to steal any thunder from any other documentaries, of course ;)

http://www.edwardgoreyfilm.com/

Goodbye Plot-hole!
Harlan! Writer-in-a-bottle! Genius! You can't hear me now, but I am cackling like a mad man. A mad man, I say!

No Nod For Rob
Rob, try to read closely before you make statements such as, "And it's the kind of absence of reason demonstrated by Todd that makes me grow ever more disillusioned."

You are quoting a posting of mine that builds on an earlier posting of mine that out and out states that this lifelong Republican would have voted for Edwards this November, and that this lifelong Republican was sad to see the everyone embrace Clinton and Obama so tightly that Edwards had to give up the ghost.

Speechify all you want about disillusionment, Rob, but pointing to my post as an absence of reason is stupid. If anything, it should prove that some people can think beyond party lines.

-TODD

Censorship, Le Guin & politics
I'm an ULTRAMAN fan. The first season only mind you, none of that Ultra family crap. (Call me a purist I guess.) Anyway, over the last year or so a nicely packaged two-volume set of all the episodes in the original single season series have been issued for the joy and edification of all and sundry.

The "censorship" aspect comes in when you compare the english dubbed version of the audio track with the original Japanese language version with the english subtitles. You will find, in the heat of the batle with the various rubber monsters, frequent expostulations such as "damn!", even a couple "god damn!" and at least one "bastard!" Of course the english dubbed version carefully elides these. We get various grunts and non sequiturs.

Apparently the youth of Japan are a lot less sensitive than wholesome Americans.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The current issue of Harper's magazine has a nicely done article by Ursula K Le Guin about reading and publishing in these United States.

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

To be clear about the matter I do NOT support John McCain because I disagree with his positions on most of the issues. BUT one of the pleasures to be derived in seeing him be successful in his bid to be Prez is the fact that it absolutely chaps the collective ass of the Grover Norquist/James Dobson wing of the GOP.

Which of course leads to a question I'll toss out to anyone who cares...

You've got the Right on the ropes. You have the opportunity to hamstring them for a generation.

Why oh why would you nominate as your party's candidate the one individual guaranteed to galvanize and energize and unite the Republican party in the general election?

THE TELLTALE TRAILER
A few weeks ago, there was a discussion on this board about how much of the CITIZEN KANE script was Orson Welles's, and whether or not he originally intended to give co-writer Herman J. Mankewicz any screen credit. Well, in the excellent new docummentary VAL LEWTON: THE MAN IN THE SHADOWS, there's an excerpt from a special trailer Welles made for KANE. In it he says, "I wrote and directed the picture." Not "CO-wrote." Just "Wrote." Perhaps he though Mankewicz would never see the trailer? Or was it some sort of, well... Freudian slip, since he tended to consider himself quite the one man band?

He was getting away with the same sort of thing on the radio at the same time, taking full credit for scripts that were originally written by others. Granted, he usually did extensive rewrites, but he did not originate most of the scripts.

Bush and McCain
KOS: It goes without saying that you were right in pointing out (not that you needed to with me) that most folks aren't 100 percent conservative or liberal. However, politicians, merely )or, rather, largely) by their actions, define themselves as either liberal or conservative. No matter how you want to spin it, Mr. O'Reill-- um, KOS -- no matter how you want to spin it, George W. Bush and John McCain are conservatives. Just because they do stupid things that some conservatives can no longer defend, doesn't change the basic facts.

Good night, and good luck.
--DTS

Fourth Floor, Beggars and Horses
One Line Reply Department: If Bush and McCain were conservatives, you might have a point.

KOS

20,000 Leagues abridged?


HARLAN-

Is the Blackstone site correct in stating that your reading of 20,000 Leagues is an abridged version?

Thanks.

--
Ryan

KOS,

"This is sarcasm when you wrote...Right? Please tell me so?!"

"Humbly", I'll leave that for YOU to work out on your own.

But, in light of your reasoning - that "equating voting Republican with stupidity" as the "sort of sneering attitude that makes people despair of the Democrats" - I'll leave you with this to consider:

One, try to guess how many Democrats - or, more, progressives - have had to cope with "sneering" attitudes from the Right; the Right, whose myopia bespeaks of America's driftwood mentality ever so easily misled and shaped by Limbaugh-types.

Hell - most Lefties aren't snobs like MYSELF! I'm simply - almost uncontrollably - pissed and fed-up with votes like yours which have gotten us where we are. (Not to mention achieving the pointless deaths of Iraqis - including women and children - as well as our soldiers)

Your "priorities" worry me much more than the effect my "sneering" attitude might have on YOU. All that's taken place since 2001 hasn't simply happned because Bush. It's happened because of CONSERVATIVE AGENDA that goes back 20 years. Most of Bush's actions are a tangent of Republican policy. You shouldn't worry about the "sneering"; you should worry about the bigger picture.

Finally, if McCain is elected and the country continues its spiral - because he continues the course Bush has set for us, ever catering outrageously to the interests of the wealthiest - I want you to remember what you just posted. Nothing defines "stupidty" more than putting your finger in the same electric socket over and over, disregarding the obvious recourse needed to cease the destruction you're doing to yourself.

(Jeezus...to think I originally had it in mind to post a one-sentence reply. 'Least allowed me to let off some steam. Blame Ili Manning for the MOOD!)

Brief additional info
Now that I got the company's name right: the CD is also listed on Blackstone's Web page, same dates and price.

"New Releases" page: http://www.blackstoneaudio.com/newrelease.cfm (about halfway down the page, leftmost column.)

Item-specific page: http://www.blackstoneaudio.com/audiobook.cfm?id=4564

DBH

Amazon info
Here's the relevant text of the notification e-mail from Amazon (received 18 January 2008):

(begins)
Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who has purchased or rated books by Jules Verne, you might like to know that Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea: Classics Read by Celebrities Series (Classics Read By Celebrities Series) will be released on February 1, 2008. You can pre-order yours by following the link below.

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea: Classics Read by Celebrities Series (Classics Read By Celebrities Series)
Jules Verne
Price: $19.95

Release Date: February 1, 2008

(ends)

The link to the relevant Amazon page is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1433209535/ref=pe_5050_7728360_pe_snp_535

Pardon the typo in the earlier post - that should have been BlackSTONE Audio vice "Blackthorne".

And HE: you've given me a lot of entertainment, education and food-for-thought over the years, you've done me one major personal favor in the past for which I owe you still, and you're thus entitled to address me as you see fit - but "Don" is OK by me if it is by you. (And thanks for settling that niggling question in my last.)

Cheers!
Don Hilliard

SCOTT: Thank you.

MR. HILLIARD: Never worked on "Adam-12"; in any capacity.

Can you post here the connecting link to take me to the site where Amazon.com alerted you to the imminent CD release of my 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA performance?

Yr. Pal, Harlan

It's Twue!
DAVID L: The Brooks interview aside, the gag also appears in the rather bizarre paperback novelization of _Blazing Saddles_...which according to its writer Tad Richards was line-for-line to the screenplay and first cut of the movie (per Brooks' orders.) Warners may well have chickened out on the gag and cut it before final release. (It's "arm" in that version, if I remember rightly.)

Something I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned here: Blackthorne Audio is apparently re-releasing Harlan's recording of _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ on CD sometime this month. (Having bought the cassette version back in '01, I got a notification from Amazon a week or two ago.) Was anyone else aware of this?

And a question sparked by the mention of Stephen J. Cannell (and Harlan's friendship with him): Harlan, did you "ghost" or script-doctor one or two episodes of _Adam-12_ in its later days when Cannell was producing it? (I won't mention which episodes prompted me to wonder, knowing you don't discuss specifics in that area - but I _have_ wondered.)

Cheers!
Don Hilliard

If the story is apocryphal, Mel Brooks himself is to blame. I wouldn't be surprised if I've related that one here myself, sometime in the past. And as I remember it, the final word was specifically "elbow," not arm.

The tale comes from the Mel Brooks interview with Playboy, circa 1975 or so -- about the time "Young Frankenstein" came out.

The other passage I remember with fondness from that interview was when the questioner asked Brooks to comment on the farting scene. Farts are a repressed minority, he said; the wind was never broken over the prairie in a Ken Maynard picture. You see the cowboys eating tons of beans, and never a single fart. I just wanted them to have their say.

But you showed Mongo eating beans too, and he didn't fart, the interviewer observed.

Please, Brooks replied; that would be vulgar.

Email sent
Harlan: FYI, I sent an email to the address given at the Wired Science site, attention to Mr.Gambuto, with Rick's email address attached.

As a long-time fan of your fiction, and a new fan of Paolo's, I grinned with envious delight at the thought of a surprise telephone critique from Harlan Ellison!

respectfully,
Scott

At the end of the day, it all depends on who actually shows up at the polls and pulls some levers, does it not?
I was studying in Brazil the year before Carter got elected, and remember reading intermittant magazine articles about his "black base" and thinking he could never become a serious contender.
I also remember making the mistake in 1971 of thinking that Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm was making only a "symbolic run" as the first Black American candidate for president. It took the excellent, and fairly recent, documentary film *Chisholm '71* to educate me as to how wrong I and many other Americans were about how serious, and strategically savvy, Chisholm indeed was.
As for the current contest, I keep wondering what would happen if every sane American between the ages of 18 and 21 actually voted for president this time around.

Blazing Saddles
On the subject of excisions from and/or changes to "Blazing Saddles," there is a story, possibly apocryphal, that Brooks himself deleted one line from the final cut of the film. It occurs at the end of the scene with Sheriff Bart and Lili von Shtupp that culminates with Lili asking Bart if it is true what they say about his people. The screen is dark, we hear a zipper, and Lili ecstatically cries "It's true!" Supposedly this was originally followed by Bart's voice, still in the dark, saying "Excuse me, ma'am, but you're sucking on my arm."

Steve J.

When people ask me why i think Barack has a shot over Hilary, I cannot help but feel, deep in my heart, that if i have to codify my reasoning, I do so with the certain knowledge that the American Voting Masses will not be voting based on factual knowledge, an even-handed assessment of who truly is the Most Qualified to be elected a President. If that were the case, Dodd, Richardson, hell even Biden would be leading the pack- they're the ones with the most government experience; by far, more than Hilary or Obama or McCain or Romney. No, in my heart, though I wish it were not so, i see it as a knee-jerk toss-up of what type of prejudice is worse: misogyny or bigotry. Which is too black, or too old, a woman or a heathen?

I see a country that has deep seated racial issues, but could still elect a black man to the Presidency. Especially if he is a damn likable young man.
But I am afraid that this country cannot get behind, nor endorse the real possibility of a woman as president, and even hoping this country could, it most certainly won't be THIS woman. The stigma is too great. Regardless of how many people loved the Clinton Administration, it won't happen again. Yes, I am a deeply entrenched optimistic cynic, but that time hasn't come yet. Maybe next round. If Ann Richards were still alive, and thirty years younger, she would OWN the next election. But I don't see too many possibilities in the future.

McCain is so OLD, but that won't stop anyone if they'll eventually have to admit they voted for a slick religious businessman. Nixon was neither, and people still won't admit they voted for him.

But what do I know? If we were going just off of gut feelings and sound bytes that make us feel good, it'd be Ron Paul vs. Dennis Kucinich. Now there, I'd have a dog in THAT fight.

Dem and Dose
I am toying with the idea, at my advanced age, of applying to Clarion. I've never been a prose writer, though I have dabbled. Professional status is something I have not attempted in straight fiction, just journalism and drama.

Harlan: I am curious whether you think Clarion as it currently stands is worth the not inconsiderable time and coin? You liked my little essay/story about the Ice Cream, enough so to have started me daydreaming again.

I heard through the grapevine last week that the sides in the strike were talking seriously, but did not want to say anything. Since it is now getting out in the trades, I guess it is true (!), and I wait eagerly to hear the word.

Rob: This is sarcasm when you wrote:


"(Nope! Lefties are exempt from the charge! Liberals are all too pure, too great, too upright, too noble, too princely, too CAPITAL, too ACE, TOPS, towering, transcendent, god-like...SUPREME! That's correct: Liberals don't use fear; they use "the Staff of TRUTH"! Now...where was I...?)"

Right? Please tell me so?!

As for your equating voting Republican with stupidity: That's the sort of sneering attitude that makes people despair of the Democrats. It seems that when they have a shot at running the country again, a lot of them start with the old superior "we are the anointed meant to rule over the great unwashed" schtick and they lose another close one.

The Dem's and the Country Club Republicans both think they have a God Given Right to rule, and anyone who gets in their way is obviously stupid and/or evil.

When I write a villain, I usually avoid making him stupid or evil by his own view. Fiction ought be plausible. In politics the plausible is too often thrown out the window along with reasoned argument and sympathy for the other person's point of view. More's the pity, but there it is.

As it stands, we are going to have either the first black President, the first woman president, the first Mormon president or the oldest president (McCain will be seventy-two this year Reagan was seventy when he entered office as president).

I find it interesting what an Italian-American barber said once to a friend: "I think the Republicans are dangerously stupid, but I think the Democrats are dangerously crazy!"

Apparently a lot of people in the "Fly Over" states believe something like that. I don't believe that, but if you think they are stupid for not voting Democrat, don't be shocked if they think you are crazy. Maybe both sides are wrong?

Heck, I might vote for Barack if it is between him and McCain, just so the next person tells me America is a hopelessly racist country I can smile sweetly and say, "And just who is in the White House?"

He's a damn likable young man. Really.

KOS

WGA Strike
DeadlineHollywood.com is reporting the WGA and producers are close to a deal; they quote the L.A. Times and New York Times. Let's hope it's a good deal. Everyone's ready to get back to work.

To Mr. Ellison & sundry:

I am looking for a review that Mr. Ellison wrote of "The Goonies," a film I am currently writing an essay on. I have looked high and low for this review and am unable to find it--it is not the brief blurb given in the collected "Watching" essays. If anyone could let me know how to obtain it I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks in advance--

DVG

Re: JAWS (new dialogue?)
I checked my DVD and the dialogue you wondered about is there. It may be that a new audio mix on the TV versions have made it either louder or more clear because originally he says it almost under his breath rather than speaking it loudly.

The long awaited JAWS documentary (THE SHARK IS STILL WORKING) is supposed to finally come out on DVD from Universal this year. To give you an idea of how long it has been in the works the makers were originally hoping to have it ready for JAWS 30th anniversary--3 years ago. They have a good website and there's even a trailer for the documentary which you can view there as well as on Youtube.

Newtwork censorship
The instance of network tv censorship I remember fondly is the scene in THE GODFATHER when hot-tempered Sonny Corleone is on the phone hearing that his beloved sister has gotten yet another butt-whoppin from her husband, and he shouts into the receiver in supernova rage: "Son of a buck!" Then, like an Extinction Level Event, for emphasis: "SON of a BUCK!"

Harlan,
I'm sure you've already made amends-- if not-- kiss Susan and tell her what she already knows-- that she is your angel and your savior, the light that brought you to the surface. I love you and I love Susan, the other half of my dear and darlin' friend.
I know you are already reluctant to ever yell at that sweet and faithful soul again,
Love,
Cindy

"Wow! Why did I vote for McCain??"

I forgot my goddamn question mark, man, ok!

I mean, OK????

A Nod To Todd

One time long ago, Todd, you said here "you won't change our minds and we won't change yours". Well, of course, that's changed . There are actually former Righties looking at Barack. SERIOUSLY, I THINK.

But not enough in numbers I suspect.

Y'see, Todd's post the other day re: Edwards stirred a thought in my tanker (which I shared over on the board):

When I saw Bowling For Columbine last year, I felt genuinely enlightened. I felt a tad less naive about conditions in Canada compared to those we face here. Specifically, the way so many homeowners would leave their doors unlocked when going away (in both urban and rural settings).

This tendency lends some insight about the role of fear in politics; how it appears absent in the psyche of Canada's general public, where, by contrast, it is used constantly as a political tool here.

Here, fear seeps into the collective unconscious thanks to the "alerts" of all types hammered out by organizations from the NRA to just about every Republican you run into - warnings about socialism, Islam, government tyranny (with nary a mention of CORPORATE tyranny), commies, gays, abortion murders gone wild, "the horrors of marijuana", and anything else they can think of - (Nope! Lefties are exempt from the charge! Liberals are all too pure, too great, too upright, too noble, too princely, too CAPITAL, too ACE, TOPS, towering, transcendent, god-like...SUPREME! That's correct: Liberals don't use fear; they use "the Staff of TRUTH"! Now...where was I...?)

...and voters more-than-not vote against their best interests.

I see this pattern, and I recognize it. Yet, it never fails to blow my mind how, after so much recent history, so much RECURRING history, voters will still come out and vote Republican.

We saw what happened after Reagan: waves of scandals, from S&L to IranContra; from record-breaking deficit to record-breaking rifts in the economy.

We saw what happened under Bush senior: deep deterioration of the economy thanks to perpetuation of trickle-down.

Now, alongside the NAFTA outsourcing, which was also a Conservative agenda (and, yes, Clinton bent to that one) we see more corruption and destruction to America's infrastructure than ever before.

Yet, how many voters in the end will head out there and reconcile that McCain's "charisma" as a "war hero" will somehow make the difference if given the choice between him and Hillary or Barack. They'll forget the patterns and do this, only to get sent to a pointless region like Iraq to be killed or lose their homes in an economic spiral that will continue to favor the wealthiest.

Then they'll look again and say, "Wow! Why did I vote for McCain! I better vote for ANOTHER Republican!"

This happens over and over and over. If measured by the insight capacity of the public-at-large, we have a fuckin' stupid-ass country.

And it's the kind of absence of reason demonstrated by Todd that makes me grow ever more disillusioned.

David L et al: I've seen some of a bowdlerised _Blazing Saddles_ &, yup, made it more hilarious in an unintentional way. Like, they left the "bean scene" in, but all the farts were replaced with horse whinnying. But they totally axed the "That's not my froggy" lines!!

A local (Minneapolis) channel ran _Shaka Zulu_ -- great miniseries -- & left the extensive nudity mostly intact for the first episodes. Naturally, it fit the story's setting & era. But then they digitised out the Naughty Bits (which are far less prevalent in the later episodes), & many scenes became terribly distracting.

I hate censorship that allows exploding heads & screaming death in "entertainment" but loathes the female breast... unless it's in an airbrush-thick layer of damp cloth & being used to sell me something.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN HERE:

Yesterday, Scott Vander Werf posted a URL to the WiredScience site, referencing an interview conducted by a gentleman named Damon Gambuto, with author Paolo Bacigalupi. I am desirous of speaking to Mr. Gambuto, but need someone with a valid e.mail address to go over there and, on my behalf, ask Mr. Gambuto (or the WiredScience webmaster) to get in touch with Rick Wyatt over here, and to pass along a phone number (not to be given out) whereat I could speak to Mr. Gambuto for a minute. I thank you, whomever you are, in advance for the good offices.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

BARNEY:

Chabon came in today. Super! Just what I wanted; check on its way, despite your "no rush" admonition.

On the Thurber: I would PREFER the U.S. edition, for the same reason you're inclined toward it.

Susan is pissed at me, at the moment. I yelled at her.

(Sigh.)

-he

ALEX:

I've had that Tony Raiola-published Phantom for years.

What you OUGHT TO BE checking out and rushing to buy, each and every one of you, if you love (as do I) The Phantom, is the spectacular (and reasonably-priced for such a piece of art) Ghost Who Walks sculpture being offered by Electric Tiki, aka Tracy Mark Lee. Check out their website: the Flash Gordon is to die for (I bought a second one, for Tim Richmond, as the perfect gift; and after last night's dinner with Paul Levitz of DC Comics, I'm purchasing ANOTHER Flash Gordon as a thankyou); the new Green Hornet & Kato is spectacular; Tracy's Zorro, Lone Ranger, Mighty Mouse and Dick Tracy are pure treasures here at Ellison Wonderland. I cannot commend with adequate enthusiasm my rabid adoration of these great icons!

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ZACK:

I'm in your debt. Packed and ready to roll. And I've even decided to accept the path of a new life-direction. With a tiny reconfiguring of your suggestions.

Beginning tomorrow, I will launch myself into the new career of writing in a bottle. It may be cramped, but then, it is a pinched soul I possess; all it needs is the vessel.

FIND A STRANGER IN THE ALPSbwaaaaaahahahahahahahah! O gawd, that is PUHR-esh-us!

Losing it, clearly losing it, Yr. Pal, Harlan

McCARTHYISM, SORTA

After the post by a -- repeat, A, not necessarily THE -- Frank McCarthy, and the riptide of replies by OTHER Franks, all of whom we know'n'adore, I had the odd, bypassing thought that it might've coulda whaddaya think, been the magnificent Frank McCarthy, painter & cover artist of paperbacks (i.g.: the Bantam edition of Louis L'Amour's LATIGO, etc.). Unlikely, but if it WAS that Frank McCarthy, even though of advanced years, he has carte blanche to say anygoddamthing he chooses, being as he was/is one of my favorite contemporary painters of The Old West.

As I burbled, unlikely. But one never know, do one?

Yr. Pal, Harlan

REPLY TO SHAGIN

Sandra:

Envelope received. Utterly unnecessary; potentially awkward moment; but in the spirit of not disrespecting the elegant gesture, I will simply say thankyou and let it go at that. Say hi to the kid from Susan and

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Yup
That was the great one I could not remember. "Find a Stranger In the Alps."

James Thurber & Cornell Woolrich
***Harlan***

THURBER - I've noted the Thurber request(s) and I'm looking into it. In the case of MY WORLD - AND WELCOME TO IT there were two HC 1st editions done in 1942. The American edition was Harcourt Brace & Co. and the British was Hamish Hamilton. Because Thurber was American I would lean towards the Harcourt Brace but, and I'm sure you know this, there are plenty of instances (Twain, Stephen King, etc.) where the British edition may have been published weeks or even months earlier. If you have some True Gen or strong feelings on this let me know. Otherwise I'm just going to focus on the American editions.

WOOLRICH - because of your fondness for old time radio programs and your connections to Cornell Woolrich via the late pulps and your introduction to the Woolrich anthology ANGELS OF DARKNESS I thought you might enjoy some of the information found here, courtesy of one of the posters over on the Rara Avis list;

http://www.escape-suspense.com/cornell_woolrich/index.html

Take care, hugs to Susan, talk to you soon,

- Barney

Rare PHANTOM / LEE FALK book
Harlan, check eBay under PHANTOM LITTLE TOMA I just spotted this on a casual run through "newspaper comics." It's an auction that's got another day to go.

--Alex

Harlan, you know we're all your friends here, but this is an intervention.

Your obsessive use of internet jargon must end. It's always WTF and LOL with you. BRB this and ROTF that. Do you know how that sounds? You are unintelligible. We're worried that, if you insist on talking this way, you will be looked upon as a kind of moron or rube, and you will be completely unable to get a job on Wall
Street when you grow up.

Now, in order to facilitate the transition, we've found a nice little nook in Silicon Valley where you can be free of the corrupting influenza of the World Wide Web. There you will be completely deprived of its sweet, electric nectar. It will be hard for you, we know. It may be the most wrenching ordeal you'll ever go through. But you won't be alone, Harlan. No, we will be here, on the internet, cheering you on. Of course, you won't be able to see us because you won't have the internet, which is why we are telling you ahead of time. You can do it, Lad! We have faith in you, Harlan. We know you can kick this.

And once you've kicked it, you can engage in whole new areas of hopefully nonaddictive interest. You could build a ship in a bottle or, perhaps, take up writing. You do have an excellent imagination; and, who knows, if you're successful, you might just grow up to be the next Harlan Ellison. Boy, wouldn't that be swell! But not as swell as getting a job on Wall Street, which is the whole point of our intervention.

You're leaving on the hour, Harlan, and we won't take no for an answer. You just gotta go, or we won't be your friends anymore. No, that's not true. But really, you have to go, or we won't be your friends anymore. Now be a good boy, and have fun hundreds of miles away from everyone and everything you know and love. And remember to try your best to kick that Gibson's Lingo square in the shin, or no one will love you ever again.

Television Language Edits (a couple favorites)
Two instances, I'd like share, of movies being broadcast on television with dubbed-in "cleaned up" language. I did a quick scan of recent posts, and I don't think anyone has mentioned these yet. If y'all did, I heartily apologize.

Anyway, two examples. One funnier, one funniest.

The funnier:

I caught part of the film OUT OF SIGHT on the USA cable network a few years back, and they had some excellent language replacements.

Instead of "fucking", they dubbed in the word "viking".

Instead of "ass", they dubbed in the word "act"...which isn't that funny until one of the characters says to another "I saved your fucking ass!", which was of course re-dubbed as "I saved your viking act!"

The best one, in that film, was the replacement for the word "motherfucker". They dubbed in "monkeyfeather". As in "Whatchoo gonna do, monkeyfeather?", or, "Me and this monkeyfeather right here, see..."

I gots me some giggles from that one.

The FUNNIEST:

Caught THE BIG LEBOWSKI on Comedy Central a few years back. Now, those familiar with the film will of course remember the scene in which John Goodman, thinking that a teenaged kid has bought a porsche with ransom money stolen from Jeff Bridges' car, proceeds to beat the shit out of the porsche with a crowbar. As he does so, he screams at the kid: "Do you see? Do you see what happens when you FUCK A STRANGER IN THE ASS?" over and over.

In the language edited version, Goodman screams over and over what might possibly be the most surreal improvement-through-censorship on a line I've ever encountered:

"Do you see? Do you see what happens when you FIND A STRANGER IN THE ALPS?"

I roll on the floor laughing. The line is so completely nonsensical that it's perfect.

I have not made any of this up.

Television Edits

This is a tale not so much of censorship as of unadulterated jackanapery. Probably the person responsible got fired. Probably, to this day, they feel it was worth it.

Back about twenty years ago Channel 5, here in LA, would do a thing called The Channel 5 Movie Theatre, where they would acquire some Hollywood film and run it, every night, at the same time, Monday through Friday (if it was some monster flick, and you were a kid, that was a real boon). During the long commercial breaks, they would run a little sequence of clips from the film, edited to the score, to keep you from changing the channel.

One night when I was in college they were showing An American in Paris, and of course the little "keep watching!" clip sequences showed Gene Kelley and Leslie Caron and Nina Foch all cut to the jauntiest section of the Gershwin tune (la tah-tah, la tah-tah, la tah-tah pada-da tah-tah!).

EXCEPT, during one of the breaks, the images were from the next week's movie...Airport 1977, a gawdawful film about a plane crashing into the Bermuda Triangle. So imagine 30 seconds of the most impactful moments from that hoary old disaster flick: A plane crash into the sea! Panicked passengers! Blood! Screams! Drownings!

All edited perfectly to that happy little Gershwin tune. (la tah-tah, la tah-tah!)

I just about fell out of my chair laughing.

Ha, ha, Harlan a victim. That's a good one, my leige.

You invented centerpunching the awful eye. Keep clawing at the batskies, keep hitting them out of the park.

Love ya, ya old coot.

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

Frank, the name is now published under the auspices of the medellion drug cartel. Any messing with that name will involve a late night knock on the door and a rat on a stick. Don't ask what the rat is going to eat.

Frank Chambers, don't cut in line, there is enough soup kitchen chili for all. That cough, you need to get that looked after. Pookie needs his shot, eh?

-----------

Fucking Democrats have a debate where every elite hollyweird fuck is in the front row. Imagine how that looks in the living rooms of middle America.

I sound like Fox News, but surface is all that campaigns these days are about.

Movie edits for tv, again
Jack,
In Jaws, "Smile, you son of a bitch" is still there. But they've put "Come on, show me the tank" etc. before it. Those lines tell the viewer that Scheider's aiming for the air tank, which would be one nifty piece of marksmanship considering the speed of his target and the fact that it's submerged and invisible to him. The look on Scheider's face when the tank blows says to me that Scheider was shooting at the shark, that he himself had forgotten the tank's bomb potential until his lucky shot hit it. I could be reading it wrong, but I don't think so.

David,
Network showings of Blazing Saddles are always hilarious for what they have to do to the dialog in order to air the thing at all. What I've always found amusing, though, besides the examples you mentioned, is that
"Bart, they said you was hung."
"And they was right."
always seems to be included when I've seen the movie on broadcast. (And if memory serves, that exchange made it into the Family Channel showing too.) Weird.

Bests,

--tr

DO NOT CONDEMN ME

JAN:

Hell, kiddo, you may well be right -- that I'm using "thread-drift" incorrectly. There is likely no dumber internet-jargon user than I. You KNOW I just stumble around this web, bumping into the potted plants; so I kinda shrug and look dopey, and say in all sinceity ... uh, you could be right, and I am wronger than usual. I picked it up from YOU FOLKS, though, so (as the guy in the psychiatrist's office who responds to each Rohrshach with some sexual description says to the shrink, "It's not my fault, YOU'RE the one showing me the dirty pictures,") I am blameless here. Wrong, yes, maybe; improperly speaking, well, maybe. But it's YOU GUYS showing me the dirty pictures, Jan. I am a victim, jus' a victim.

Weepishly sorrowful, Yr. Pal, Harlan

Tony Rabig
My recollection is that he says: "Smile, you son of a bitch!"

dub da-dub dub . . . dub da-dub dub DUH!!!


On the other hand, with just the right movie, censorious dubbing can ADD to the fun.

I will never forget an airing of "Blazing Saddles" I saw on network TV in the early 1980s when I was living in Boston.

The odd thing was, despite all the other things that got changed, every single "nigger" stayed in (see below).

You will recall when Bart first meets the Cisco Kid, drying out in a jail cell, the new sheriff asks "What's there to do in this town?" The Kid says, "Play chess . . . screw . . . " and Bart says, rather hastily, "Let's play chess." In this version, the Kid said, "Play chess . . . saloon . . . "

Shortly after, when Bart goes for his first stroll down the sidewalk, he says to the first old lady he meets, "Good mornin', ma'am, and isn't it a LOVELY mornin'?" Her response in the original version is "Up yers, nigger." In this airing, it became "Outta mah way, nigger."

Madeleine Kahn's character was always referred to as "Miss Lily von Ssshhhh" -- despite the fact that her full surname appears on a poster outside the place, and I doubt the average American even knows what "shtup" means, let alone would take any offense at it.

These and other bowdlerizations ended up making an old and familiar movie even funnier, in a way.

Edit in JAWS, and misc
Couple of things:

Harlan, thanks for the pointer toward The Rose, by Harness. Had never gotten around to that one.

Whoever had asked about Sarban's The Sound of His Horn a while back -- Munsey's has posted another Sarban novel called Ringstones.

And for my money one of the more annoying changes I've seen in a television broadcast of a movie is what's been done with Jaws. At the end of the picture, when Roy Scheider's shooting at the shark, there's now a voice-over dubbed in which I'm certain was not in the original theatrical release or in televised showings until a couple of years ago. Now, they have Scheider saying "Come on, show me the tank," and "Blow up!" Which I guess means that the viewer is now regarded as too stupid to understand where that explosion comes from. I first noticed this on, I think, an A&E showing; it also showed up on TNT, and Turner Classic Movies has just shown the picture and damned if it isn't in there too. My memory ain't what it used to be, but I'd swear those lines weren't in the theatrical release -- anybody out there remember for sure?

And bests to all,

--tr

re: RKO/Lewton Remakes
I'd like to see them try the "Blair Witch" handheld gimmick on the Lewton remakes. It seems to have worked for It Came from Beneath the Sea (as Cloverfield) and even George Romero uses the pseudodocumentary approach on his latest, not yet in general release.

What is it with the Frank's?
First we have own beloved Frank Church.

Then we get Franky4Posts.

Now we get Frank Chambers, who seems to think sniping from cover makes one ballsy.

I know, I know: Don'r Feed The Troll.

Sorry, but: Frank Chambers, I am calling you out on this one.

Yo're a coward.

If I grovel or crawl, I'm fine with being called on it. When I have done neither and am falsely accused of it by a ballless wonder, my gorge rises.

You're a coward, Frank Chambers. Show me where I have groveled or crawled. Come on, prove you are more than a pimple on the underside of a cancerous "growth".

Chew on that. Troll.

So to speak.

KOS

A Boy Named Bradbury

Recently, I was looking at a lot of stuff by Bradbury. Several episodes he did on Hitchcock, and a good number of his short stories.

I was comparing notes to those in his run with Rod Serling, reading about how Bradbury disapproved of Serling's treatment of his Twilight Zone 'I Sing The Body Electric'.

Now, there was a time when that TZ episode was the only way I knew Bradbury. And it made me dislike Bradbury, feeling this was WAY too much saccharine.

But it was SERLING who played up the sugar. Bradbury was actually very dark, with a biting sense of humor - as evident in his Hitchcock shows (The Jar, The Life Work of Juan Diaz). Serling took that out of ISTBE, and made all into flowers and sunshine. I suspect that was the source - at least in part - of Bradbury's objection.

Harlan:

Snow White aside, what were the highest points for you in Walt Disney's output? (In both animation and live action)

A Boy and His Dog
So I'm driving past the Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles (corner of Santa Monica Blvd. and Sawtelle near the 405) when my eyes wander over to the outside wall where various movie posters are displayed.

And what do I see?

Why, a poster for the great 1975 movie "A Boy And His Dog," of course!

A quick check of their website (http://www.landmarktheatres.com/Films/films_frameset.asp?id=8596) shows that, indeed, the movie is coming "soon."

I've never seen it before. Looking forward to it.

Harlan Ellison mentioned in Paolo Bagigalupi interview
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/wiredscience/blogs/2008/01/science-fiction-friday-paolo-b.html

Paolo: "Harlan Ellison called me up out of the blue. It was soon after the short story had come out and I was in my house mopping the floor and I get this phone call and this man on the other end was like 'This is Harlan Ellison, do you know who I am?' and I was like 'Yeah, yeah, um yeah.' So he says, 'Go get your story.' So I do. He then proceeds to basically critique every single aspect of my entire story.

He starts out by saying 'At first I thought that you were some sort of professional writing under a pseudonym because, you know, nobody has a name like Bacigalupi, I know the Abbot and Costello routine blah blah blah...' He goes off about how Paolo Bacigalupi is obviously a pseudonym or a joke name of some sort. Now he's getting a bit worked up. He says, 'You know, I thought you were a professional, and then I got to page 5 and right down there at the bottom you used the word jerked... and then 2 sentences later you used the word jerky--you took all of the power out of the fucking word!'

I'm sitting there on the line sort of terrified of this man just haranguing me. At the end of that whole conversation - a conversation in which he critiques, line by line, my entire story - he finishes up by saying, 'Well you got some potential, but don't write in genre, it's a waste of time. Don't get stuck in it like I got stuck in it.' And then he hangs up."

RKO Films
For all you Lewton Fans:

Today RKO announced plans to remake a bunch of films in their library, including SEVENTH VICTIM, BEDLAM, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and BODY SNATCHER.
So how bad do you think these remakes will be?
They're calling the company Roseblood. Ha ha. ugh.

Frank Chambers:

Your meter, frankly, sucks. Try, "That is the tenor of you all."

You're welcome.

D.

correction
the expression "thread drift"

Possible misuse of the expression
Let me know if I'm wrong, everybody, but has Harlan been (innocently) misusing the expression? I would think that, by definition, thread drifts can not occur on unthreaded, topic-free boards such as this, as opposed to the Webderland Forums, which do have specific and specified topics you can drift away from. The difference is that in a threaded forum when someone opens a new thread, he or she also gives that thread its unalterable subject line. If something doesnt fit in, you have to open a new thread to accomodate it.

I think in a public meeting place like the Pavilion there is simply digression or whatever you would call such a thing in a conversation. Any of the more focussed discussion here might conceivably be called a thread, but it's not technically a thread, it's just a topic/discussion (interrupted by unrelated posts). On a threaded forum, a thread drift is usually a negative thing, while on a guestbook-like board its equivalent is part of what's expected.

Let me know if I'm wrong, and greetings to Harlan. (By the way, Harlan, I was wrong, the Italian book is not *officially* available at half price, it's just been discounted few stores. I wouldn't want to give you any wrong ideas about the business practices of European publishers. Your copies are secure.)

Jan

P.S. Harlan's youtube message is being linked to from more blogs every day with recommendations such as: "I have no idea who this guy is, but I love him." (Only the five most important websites with links to the video can be seen below the video.) In addition to the 280 comments posted on youtube, a lot of the blogs have user comments of their own about the clip. The video is also being referenced in discussion threads of various kinds. Official access counter is at 107,407. As far as I know, every viewer is counted only once or once a day or week, so that number is pretty solid and hard to manipulate in even the smallest of ways. (As Harlan can no doubt attest.) ;-)

Oops HARLAN: Possible lawyer alert - Harlan's full IHNM&IMS game intro is now also on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZrHBqVtzg

Character reference
Just wanted to go on record and say two things.

I've never had any problems with any of my dealings with Stealth, Cemetery Dance, Subterranean Press or Pulphouse. I say that both in my capacity as a private collector and as a professional full time book dealer. I ship between fifty and sixty books every couple of days, so I'm no dabbler.

And, IN PARTICULAR - I have never EVER had any problems with Dean Wesley Smith. Not when I was buying leather limiteds and they were a going concern as PULPHOUSE and not when I was buying remaindered overstock on eBay ten years after the fact. I know, "your mileage may vary" and all that and it's entirely possible that someone had a bad day or a bad experience - but I've dealt with a decent percentage of these ventures and feel I've seen the spectrum and I think Dean is, Very Much, a stand up guy.

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

If Dean ever sees this - Dean, please don't get caught doing anything stupid or sordid in the next 30 days, or if you must, call Harlan for bail and not me. - B ;-)

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

Disclaimer - I have ***NO IDEA*** if every Pulphouse contributor got paid, or if they did, if everyone got their fair share or whatever was promised but I was (and remain) amazed that that thing functioned at all - and managed to put out as much quality material as it did. Was it the Arkham House of it's decade? I don't know. But they're wonderful publishing artifacts and until someone shows me photos or youtubage of Dean doing something unspeakable with Joe Lansdale and a mallard, well, until that day, Dean's OK by me.

- Barney Dannelke

Frank Chambers
FRANK (Chambers): As my brother once said, when still in adolescence, eat my crusty shorts.
-DTS (who is absenting himself for the weekend)

Crawl and grovel...grovel and crawl. That's the tenor of y'all.

Bowdlerized movies
Adam - the 48HRS guy you're thinking of is Frank MacRae. Good actor, been in a lot of schlock but that happens. Among others, he was also in Licence to Kill, aka the closest thing to a decent Bond film that Timothy Dalton was allowed to do before he and 007 went their separate ways.

(As for 48HRS, it's yet another that I can add to the lengthy list of movies that are simply flat out unwatchable on basic cable. Luckily I've still got it on video, along with both old and new DVDs of The Warriors.)

Harlan, ATC, and Those Much Farther Along This Path Than I...

The comments and remarks about small press are very interesting and I've back-brained them in that "oh, yeah, I remember so-and-so on the board saying something about that..." so I have a hope of bringing it to mind when it matters most. What I would like to know, if there is an answer to be had, is what can a writer do to best manage any submitted works to small press?

I have only recently (within the past 12 months) returned to the fiction arena; my non-fiction has been well received in a number of parenting and special education magazines (as have the checks for said works). The SFWA website is my submission bible for fiction, both for those markets considered valid for application and those that are not. Other than submitting to SFWA approved markets, and researching and and all available markets no matter the recommendation, how can writers gauge the merit of a market (other than steering clear of "paid in copy and our heartfelt thanks" operations)?

***

Caution: Poster under the influence of loud pre-teen boys screaming "chicks with guns" while watching DVD previews.


shagin

A by the way, for HARLAN
HARLAN: By the way, now that we _have_ become friends, I want to offer a belated apology for being one of those knuckleheaded/starry-eyed fans who no doubt bugged the shit out of you (and Susan and all the other folks who assisted with HERC), more than a few times. I was, for a time, obviously giving Barney a run for his money in collecting all things Ellison as regards books and such. Then fatherhood -- and bit of perspective, with age -- changed my ways (I've still got as complete a section on "H.E." in my library as is possible -- just no more duplicates (and triplicates) in paperback and hardback and manuscript form.

And as for bugging the shit out of someone, I STILL have the short note you sent to me (when I first started the nonfiction, gig, parttime, while working for the man, chiding me about asking for interviews after a Cleveland editor requested one to go along with a review), typed on the back of a note that had Judge Dredd illlustrations (with DREDD in BIG, RED letters) telling me to please go the fuck away (okay, it was a bit nicer than that). Used to make me cringe; now it makes me laugh. Especially after our phone calls that resulted in a damn good profile for "Pages" (and the editors of "Publishers Weekly" are _still_ a bunch of boneheads).

Now, it's back to work for me -- and you, too, I hope!
Cheers,
Dorman

Cupidity and complaints
Hey HARLAN: I'll have to take the blame for the cupidity -- and not coming out and naming Pulphouse as the publisher in the first example I gave, and Cemetary Dance as the publisher in the second example. That's done now, of course. As for the dealings with Dean, I may not remember every detail of every contact (or lack thereof) as regards Pulphouse -- I think I might've contacted you/and or Susan, via HERC -- but I _do_ remember calling the local operator in Washington to track down his number because even AFTER I had contacted them about getting money back, I still didn't get my money back.

My last resort was to contact his wife via email -- who had helped edited the main series -- and ask her to convey a message of disatisfaction from me (because I ran into him at a Nebula Awards convention in Kansas City, him still owing me the refund). It was an ill-advised thing to do (sending the email to his wife), and I regret it, but it underlines my frustration by then (I had left many -- MANY -- phone messages with my name, phone number and post office box, change of address, email address, etc., etc., but never once got a return call, return letter, or return post card).

As for Cemetary Dance, I got yet another email response saying the "Richard," the guy who apparently writes the checks, is in the office again and will actually send my refund. We'll see. gotta admit, what frustrated me the most about _that_ situation was that the book will eventually be returned to them via UPS; but neither Cemetary Dance nor the new publisher (LONELY ROADS, who picked up the publishing of the book from CEMETARY DANCE -- I forget the reason and it's not relevant), offered to just mail me a copy of the book at their expense. Now, I know I'm in Timbuktu, but when this much hassle has been experienced by a customer, one usually tries to show them extra courtesy (and I also know that publishers have PC copies of books lying around). When told of a move to Australia, Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press told me not to pay the extra shipping costs on an outstanding order from him, due out in August this year --he's going to pay the costs. THAT'S professionalism.

As for the other small press dealers, Harlan, other than Ursus, which apparently went out of business, and which I couldn't track down, despite being in KC with whomever it was who was gonna produce the limited of PHOENIX, I honestly can't remember their names. So it wasn't an entire round of cupidity on my part -- just in my not coming out and naming Dean at PULPHOUSE (who, even if he said the problem was with me due to address changes was either hitting early senility or bullshitting to cover his butt) and Richard at Cemetary Dance.

I wasn't mentioning names because one of the publishers is out of the biz (and a friend of yours) and I didn't want to make the other seem like the only fuck-up in the business. But you're right, doesn't do much good to be coy.

(Sheesh, the crap a guy has to take for failing to deliver one last order of crackle).
Love and kisses,
Dorman

Sorry for second post, but...

Harlan,

Regarding the link I sent earlier to the website on "Land of the Lost," I wasn't certain if it was an egregious usage of your material or not. It wasn't clear to me how exactly the "writer" was using your material. I sent along the link so you could ascertain its merit. If I had known for sure it was offensive to you, I would've been much less subtle in my approach.

(I was) Your Pal (first),

Tim

Of Naming Names
Harlan,

I agree one hundred percent with everything you just said, which is why (for instance, entirely leaving out the very real tragedy of his demise), I was vocal among my fellow writers about how my experience producing a trilogy for Byron Preiss was a little like having my johnson stuck in a pencil sharpener and watching somebody slowly turn the handle. (The aftermath continues even now. Will go on for years, I'm told.)

However, there is a corollary, that you would have mentioned yourself had you thought of it.

That is, when you deal with small-press folk, especially small-press folk, mom and pop outfits included, you should also mention when they have been professional and responsible and menschen.

I had a novella at a very low-end, now defunct, mag called MIDNIGHT ZOO, near the start of my career, and when they were slow to publish it I found out that another, higher-end market had opened up. So I withdrew it from them by e-mail and THEN found out that my own copy of the story no longer existed. I begged MIDNIGHT ZOO to send me the MS. They overnighted it. They didn't have to do that. It was a small courtesy, from small-timers, and when the story sold for maybe ten times the money I would have gotten from them I credited their sense of responsibility for the boost that provided. There are many larger publishers who would not have done that. So I was public with my appreciation, just as I hope to be with two other small press publishers previously untested by me who currently have stories of mine.

The same should be so of all your business dealings.

So, yeah, there's no reason to be polite and refrain from naming kind about naming gonifs, but (as I know you do), you should be just as vocal when your experience has been a happier one.

Just an addendum to your manifesto.

A-TC

publishers and the 2nd biggest troublemaker cum writer
http://www.hipiers.com/publishing.html

from the Piers Anthony (Jacob) web site. if you're going to out them, do it full measure and for the right reasons. if you wish to praise any, ditto. regardless of the medium in which they publish.

side note: Harlan probably has mixed relations with Piers, as any 2 adults would, but that's probably a tale for another day. They are also probably the 2 biggest troublemakers writing today, if the rumors be more than just premature facts.

TO TIM LOWE :
TIM LOWE:

Thanks for the heads-up. An unauthorized use of my material. I've asked David Gerrold (who was story editor on that series, and for whom I wrote the outline) to contact the site-owner, who in turn will (one hopes, he said, with a wry smile) get in touch with me so I can handle this latest Arrogance Of The Internet time/patience waste. Oddly enough, for Collectors of Ellisonia, this is a "first publication" of the material. Oh me oh my. Thanks again.

Yr, Pal, Harlan

Y

CHIDING DORMAN

Our friendship is solid enough that I can speak candidly to you.

Your fulmination anent small press semi-pro publishers who ACT EXACTLY like WHAT THEY ARE ... small press semi-amateur wannabe dabblers-in-the-arts walking into walls and stumbling over their own feet -- who cannot grasp the concept of RESPONSIBLE and PUNCTILIOUS business behavior -- exactly like 90% of the amateur wannabe "anthology editors" who think it'd be so kewwwwl to edit an anthology, though they have nary a clue about the serious concept of CARETAKERSHIP that goes along with the gig, and thus get their writers screwed out of royalties and payment for foreign editions and undifferentiated endless SFBC reprints and resales under other titles in foreign lands, and on and on and on ... who consider me a "pain in the ass" and More Trouble Than I'm Worth (so they exclude me from their moron anthologies, thus accepting Given Knowledge about "how hard it is, how risky it is" dealing with Ellison ...

Your screed falls on deaf ears, my old friend. At least, MY EARS are deaf to your bleats.

Y'know why?

Because YOU ARE COMPLICIT in their ineptitude.

For example: just who the fuck are you protecting by NOT naming the publishing entity and the mom'n'pop creator of same who wants to be a player, but has neither the business-model nor the minimal organizational skills to keep the clientele advised?
Why the cupidity? Are you afraid that you'll ... no, scrap thet. Don't even BOTHER to advance whatever bullshit amateur rationalization you'd like to toss back at me in an attempt to explain why you name the good guys but continue to coddle the tyro diphthongs who seek face-time approbation as hotshot publishers, but wind up essentially behaving in slovenly and fraudulent manner!

And you can eliminate Pulphouse, because they shut down at least a decade ago; and in the three or four instances where Dean Wesley Smith as publisher had accepted payments up-front on projects that involved me, which never came to fruition, and the people who were out money WROTE TO MMMM**eeee -- as if IIII had their fuckin' pennies -- and I contacted Dean, in each case he took care of the problem which ...

Just like YOU, with a new address ...

Turned out to be some rigamarole on the part of the client.

Anyhow. I'm starting to thread-drift. The point is, DT my chum, is that if you have some twaddle in your brain-pan that prevents you from using the name of the wayward douche-bag, thus abetting the acts of ineptitude, well, you're as one with all the writers I know who play dumb or disinterested until the book comes out with a ghastly cover, and who then bleat ceaselessly about how they were fucked-over by an insensitive publisher (which may be absolutely true, but nonetheless). If you aren't in caretakership cradle-to-grave of your work, then go find some less taxing trade. Like bee-keeping or sandpaper manufacture.

Exposure is the only hope of weeding out all these johnny&jenny come latelies. Small-press publishing is an exacting, usually low-remuneration (if you escape bankruptcy) labor of love and/or labor of self-esteem. There is no room for duffers.

Out them, Dorman. Do not protect them.

Small-press need not be synonymous with flagrantly amateurish.

Sternly, Yr. Pal, Harlan

Guardians of the Pit (Land of the Lost)

I just thought Harlan might like to see this:


http://personal.linkline.com/enik1138/html/gotp.html

thanks,

Tim

I don't have cable, so I can only imagine that A&E's reruns of The Sopranos are an incomprehensible mess, not to mention unintentionally hilarious. They must be similar to MadTV's "Sopranos on PAX" parody from a few years back.

Perhaps W. C. Fields said it best...
"Godfrey Daniels! Mother of pearl!"

Bowdlerized Movies Addendum
On the other hand, on the subject of imaginative alternatives to cuss words, my Father was always of the opinion that Spock's race was "Vulcan" so that McCoy could shout things like "Are you out of your Vulcan mind?" and get away with it.

Bowdlerized Movies
There was one that made me giggle for long minutes on end; alas, I cannot remember what it was.

The few others I remember, like "messed on" for "pissed on," did not quite bother me so much.

I can, however, remember one that pissed me off royally.

The movie was 48 HOURS, the buddy movie with Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte. Murphy, if you recall, played a convict sprung for the titular period to help cop Nolte track down his old gang.

At one point in the film Murphy's character gets separated from Nolte, forcing the cop to return to his station house admitting that he let his prisoner escape. It's a low point for Nolte's character, especially when his commanding officer, played by a black actor whose name currently escapes me, shouts at him: "You trusted that nigger!...That's right! I said Nigger! That's all he is and all he ever will be!"

I can't write too much into a throwaway action comedy with little in the way of intentional sociological import, but the use of the racist term in that scene was very much deliberate, and its use by a black cop with nothing but revulsion for a black criminal very much a fine character moment. It's ugly, but realistically ugly, and you know exactly why the officer in question would say that.

Then one day I saw that movie on commercial television, which replaced the word "Nigger" with the word "Convict." As in "You trusted that convict!...That's right! I said Convict! That's all he is and all he ever will be!"

Head-scratcher. Why Nolte's boss would be so confrontational about his own use of the word convict, when Murphy's character WAS a convict and the term was no more than an accurate description, is a mystery. The line SORT of works, but the angry, defiant, "That's right! I said convict!" makes no sense. There was nothing shocking about the word, no reason anybody would dispute it.

Anybody who only saw the movie in that version missed what was REALLY going on in that moment.

Bowdlerized movies
Regarding the replacement of "offensive" words in films with words deemed more acceptable, I remember that one of the major networks -- I think it was NBC -- adopted the practice for a short time in the 1980s of using nonsensical homonyms in place of the excised words. Two specific examples have endured in my memory. One was the scene in "The Godfather" in which Sonny Corleone is discussing the family's plan to plant a gun in a restaurant bathroom so that Michael can come out armed after having been patted down. In the original, Sonny said "I don't want my brother coming out of that bathroom with just his dick in his hand." In the network version, he said "with just a stick in his hand." And in a network version of Hitchcock's "Family Plot," the phrase "for Christ's sake" was replaced with "for rice cake." This strikes me as an ingenious workaround, in its way. It conveys quite clearly what the original line was and yet it complies with the dictates of those who are in a position to impose their version of what is acceptable content. It follows the letter of the censorship "law," as it were, while effectively violating its spirit. I like to think that this was the work of one resourceful Harlequin-like jackanapes at the network who was in a position to implement these subversive non-bowdlerizations until caught by one of the network Ticktockmen, but I suppose I'll never really know.

Steve J.

Keith

The phrase might simply mean "make mine Irish whiskey". Just a guess

Dorman. Yes, though it was maybe 7-8 years ago. It was a publisher at the level of a Cemetery Dance, though it wasn't CD. I'm sure you'd know the name. Anyway, I ordered a back issue of a magazine and after at least 2 months and several phone messages left on their answering machine, I finally faxed them a threatening legal letter. That got their attention as the "very busy" publisher called me immediately and a couple days thereafter I received the magazine. Oh, and I was rudely told never to order from them again. So much for customer service.

Tip o' the hat and a question...
HARLAN: For my part, it was my pleasure -- as will be reading the story -- and a tip o' the hat as you head off to finish it.

ROB: Actually it's been well-documented that Cpt. Smith of the good ship Titantic actually called out the name Wierf Ucht, which is commonly mistaken for that more common phrase. The Capt. was obvously pissed off at Seaman Ucht, because it was he that was supposed to be on duty with the binoculars that night (instead, it was later learned at the trial, he was busily getting it on with a young, underage thing in her parent's cabin - apprently she was also wearing red and white striped winter clothing and a red knit cap -- and I've read that they also "did it" on a bed sheet that looked alarmingly like a target). Seaman Ucht (of Eskimo and Swedish heritage) went down with the ship...just after going down on the first class jail bait (true story).

ALL: Has ANYone else had as much bad luck/bad service when signing up to order books from small press publishers? I should say that publishers like Subterranean Press and Arkham and Golden Gryphon and Nightshade and Hardcase Crime and PS Publishing (as well as a handful of others) have all been absolutely great at getting out books on the schedule they advertised or, if there is a holdup, letting folks know about the new publication date, and keeping in touch with the customer. But my experience with other small press publishers -- from Pulphouse to (very recently) Cemetary Dance -- has been frustrating, time-consuming and a waste of my own money. With naming names (or particular publishers) in one case, I had to make several long distance phone calls (even calling operators longdistance just to get the new phone number when the Publisher changed his number), shelling out extra money and my own personal time in order to retrieve seventy-five bucks that the guy owned me for a book that had to be cancelled. I didn't mind that the book wasn't produced; what pissed me off was that I had to go through all this trouble to get my money back, to find out what the status of the book was and to track the guy down (and he was -- and supposedly is -- one of the nicer guys in the genre publishing and writing biz)! And all the guy had to do was keep in touch with his _customers_ (I think that's the problem -- some small press publishers forget those dolilng out cash are customers). Especially when those self-same customers were on the bandwagon, supporting his press, from the get-go. The latest -- and, in my case, last debacle -- involved the buying of a limited reissue of a ground-breaking horror anthology. NOt onlyl didn't the publishers let those who ordered the anthology know that it had been delayed, they didn't bother (in my case) to try and make up for the oversight of NOT letting me know and of the fact that their delay resulted in my not getting the book (because it was shipped to my old address -- even after I had warned them I'd be moving, etc., etc). Now, I'm waiting for refund check that is a week or more overdue (as of my last communication with them).

Operations like that give small press publishers a bad name. ANd they've left a bad enought taste in my figurative mouth, that I'll only do business (in the future) with Subterranean, Golden Gryphon, Nightshade, Hardcase, PS and maybe one or two others (which have such a great track record and tremendous output, that I don't consider them small press so much as medium press publishers). Okay, that's the end of my old-guy, honary Jew rant (someone wipe the lox off the corner of my mouth; and sorry for spraying food and spittle all over Frank).

Oiy vey!
-DTS

This one is for Barney and his book finding skills.

HE needs first editions of:
James Thurber's

FABLES FOR OUR TIMES
and
MY WORLD-AND WELCOME TO IT!

HC with DJ in better than good. At a reasonable price.

Any help would be appreciated. With thanks. Susan.

If you choose to accept this mission...this message will self destruct in 5...4...3...

Back To The Elephant Side
Edwards was the one Democrat candidate that this Republican would have voted for over any of the current Republican candidates.

Oh well, at least Hell no longer needs to freeze over.

-TODD

hootch
i think the "irish" simply refers to irish whiskey-jamison's or bushmills, for example as opposed to scotch or canadian club. i think.

Make mine Irish

Anyone know what that phrase means? I'm home sick today and I'm watching a Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie, and he ordered the Inspector a double-drink at a bar, and the inspector tells the bartender, "Make mine Irish." I would hate to go with the stereotype and assume it means "make it more alcoholic." But the Internet isn't working that great for me today, and I haven't come across the expression in all of my reading. And Google's got nothing. So much for the great stores of information on the Internet.

And I must say that I have never met a porn star.

I also must say that Edwards never had a chance, and his votes will now go primarily to Clinton. Suck it up, Rob.

I really would love to see Obama in the White House, though.

-Keith

Weighing In and Bellying Up
re John Edwards: Damn shame, as he had my vote. But I can be very enthusiastic about Barack Obama for lots of reasons. And one the most important is this: I was born about a year before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It seems wonderful that this country might go from Jim Crow laws to a black President _within my lifetime_.

Re porn stars: Never met any. I did know some girls working in the "sex industry" in my twenties, and I was pleased to find that it never rattled me. _OTHER_ guys would hear this with astounded, tantalized grins, as though knowing someone in the trades was a magic road to sexual delights unknown to mortals (and one can't help but think of those Victorian era wack-books about the hareems of the Orient). But if the subject ever came up, I found I could listen politely about their _job_ without asking stupid questions, sending disapproving signals, or trying to flirt.

To Mark Goldberg: Congratulations. You life moves onward!

I never thought I'd be writing a letter to you guys, but...
For CleanFlix-style censorship, I like to point out TBS' version of "Smokey and the Bandit" (partially shot in McDonough) which found the actor that re-dubbed Jackie Gleason (I guess Gleason was ill, not available or refused) saying, "There is no way that you could have been pulled from my GENES." The horrible word that needed to be dubbed over with the nonsensical "genes" ?

"Loins."

Note to KOS: I met Kim Kummings, at a job (non-porn) that I had once. Sadly, her past caught up with her via the office gossip mill. She wasn't fired for it (some have been), but one of the women there made no secret of her knowledge, asking a co-worker, "So, what does the porn star want now?", possibly disproving the line in "Chinatown" about politicians and whores gaining respect with age.

Cues up Leadbelly's version of "House of the Rising Sun and the Blue Things' "Doll house",
Brian Phillips

Free at last!
You know, there is so much I could comment upon, from Edwards leaving the Presidential race to KOS' experiences on the porn shoot but ya know what? Ain't nothing on my mind except these three little words:

I AM DIVORCED!

My lawyer sent me a message that I was officially divorced as of 1/28. And here I did not even take the opportunity to sin at all the past two days.....

To all of my friends who have been so supportive throughout this entire year-long process, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Mark

MANY MANY THANKYOUS

Midst the sturm und drang of yesterday--in the first percentile of dementing, unpleasant days of my entire life--I never got to let y'all know I GOT EXACTLY AND FULLY WHAT I NEEDED ANENT FURNACES. I am enormously grateful to ALL of you, Kos Dorman Keith Kevin and and and and...every one of you.

The story is, of course, "Sticks and Stones May Break Your Bones," mentioned here previously; and now, with a little luck and an interlude sans bullshit aggravation, internet piracy, the hysterical spouses of people I know only en passant...

I may actually get it finished, and out to market.

I shall keep you informed, and until that time, again...

My gratitude to the nth degree.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

John Edwards pulled out.

In the words of Captain Edward John Smith of the Titanic:

We're fucked!

Addendum
Need to specify in light of the last post (WHEN WILL WE BE ABLE TO EDIT?) that, no, I do not find porn and sex with underage girls equal on the scale of maggoty porkdom. I mention the porn only to point out the hypocrisy. You know what I mean.

They Were the Very Maggoty Pork They Decried
In yet another manifestation of the dictum that the folks who scream the loudest about the indecency of our society and the compensating need to protect our "family values" are all too often prime specimens of the kind of soiled meat they pretend to decry, we now have Daniel Thomas, President of the now-defunct CleanFlix, Inc., the Utah concern that was taken to court by Stephen Spielberg and others because he edited their productions for language and subject matter and sold them to terrified people as family-safe.

I won't get into the idiocy of CleanFlix again. Suffice it to say that their editing went beyond the mere bleeping of dirty words and skin scenes. For several movies they actually changed the endings and in some cases removed entire subplots and characters that they found objectionable, often changing the entire meaning of the films. They were editing for content and theme, not just their own vision of family-appropriate. For instance, if a gentleman thief protagonist was captured by the cops at the end, but escaped in the last minute or so, cementing a happy ending, you would not see the escape. I have also heard (unconfirmed) reports of political opinions (by liberal-leaning characters) being suppressed, leaving me to wonder about CleanFlix's thirty-second version of REDS. That sort of thing.

Pundits on Fox News and other places actually sneered at the Hollywood Mafia for protecting their work, praising Thompson as a good man doing work that needed to be done. I myself had a number of arguments on line with folks who said, well, why SHOULDN'T he be able to do that? Those Hollywood perverts are out of control! The children need to be protected!

Well, guess what.

Thompson's been busted for sex with underage girls, AND the entire CleanFlix operation was a cover for a pornography operation.

You won't see those self-righteous pundits mentioning this, will you?

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/30/dvd-sanitizer-founder-arr_n_83987.html

Man, I gotta get out of the provinces.

Me And Porn
Ah, David I think it was , forgive me if I misremember, asked about my porn experience. it was trifling in compatison to yours, so I doubt we know anyone in common.

It was 1996, when a pair of my old film school friends were trying to break into porn. They had some money, and thought to make a lot more by doing porn. So they hired a girl and her boyfriend, got their camera and lights, and did a video shoot. I saw the raw footage

It was not very good, though it had what I learened are some common for the bux funny moments in it. ("Okay, now! No, over here...wait...wait.. No, stop...wait...You can't? Okay, okay, excuse me!")

They decided, after this dicovery that porn was harder than it looked (obvious pun intended), to go find some expert producer, and pay him to let them learn at his feet. Such a fellow was swiftly found: fiftyish, graying and avuncular, with a taste for young women and a lot of experiecne in porn. He was direct from Central Casting.

So about the second of third porn video they got to hang out and help at (they were officilly some half-assed sort of hemi-demi-Producers on the videos) the boom operator did not show up for work. They assured the Producer guy they knew JUST the man for the job.

Yup. I got a call late on Friday night.

"Want to see some naked women?"

"Sam. It's late, and we got thrown out of the Jet Strip last time and I am not going again with you two because you guys act like animals and-"

"It pays a hundred bucks. Cash."

Do I have to get naked or do anything obscene?"

"We can arrange it if you wanna..."

"A hundred bucks and I keep my clothes on."

Done deal.

Thing was, while I did go to USC Cinema, and DID know what a boom mike was, I had never actually operated ne. Never worked as a sound tech of any sort. I was assured by The Brothers Porn that this fact this was no barrier to my soon becoming a member of what was doubtless a seasoned crew of grizzled sex film veterans.

What the heck: it was a chance to make a hundred bucks, and see naked women. Since I did not then have a girl friend, I was getting sentimental about that sort of thing. It was purely nostalgia.

A chance to see naked women up close and get paid for it. They say in the heart of every man lives a twelve year old boy, and we all know what twelve-uear old boys daydream about.

Naked women.

To ne paid to ogle naked women; can it possibly get more twelve-year old Dream-Come-True than that?

So I called in sick to my day job (which was with Disney, I was the guy who had to work Saturdays and answer phones), and showed up at this suburban home in North Hollywood. At least I think it was NoHo?

As I waited for the scene being shot upstairs to finish, so hte Producer could give me the low down, this incredible loking woman enters the dining room where I wait. She's in a cat suit of sheeer black nylon, which she removes A perfect figure. She changes to an Au Pair outgit and walks up the stairs. Never looked at me, Never spoke. I was the wallpaper.

Me? ,I'm like, "Okay!"

The rest of the day and night (it was a20 hour gig, 10 am Sautray to 6 AM sunday) was the surreal and the banal, and you never knew which was next.

Favorite line of the whole thing: "Don't worry, we can stuntcock it!"

Kim Cummings (Kym?) was the nicest of the girls and the only one I recall the name of. She was the only actress who had not had breast implants, and was a little self-conscious of her body. She would have been the most beautiful woman in any average crowd in LA, but in the land of the balloon breasted, the normally endowed are at a major disadvantage. She was sweet.

It was a fun and bizarre thing to have done.

I've never seen the video. It was "Dial P For Pink", and was a "Pink Panther" send up. Kind of cute, but totally raunchy.

Oh, and I even got to rewrite a scene: an actor failed to show and his scene needed a rewrite to get rid of his character.

If I got credit, it wa my first professional one.

I actually made more money in "sick pay" from Disney than I did working for The North Hollywood Porn Kings. In a very real sense, Disney paid me to watch people screw.

Disney and Porn. Got to love it, right?

KOS

Harlan: Two copies, okay. They're 9.25 EUR, used to be 18.50.

I think it's a shame how you're treating Erik. I mean, I can see his pattern (he only works with the best so "his" work looks good) but he probably worked his ass off to get enough footage of you for the non-monster part of the film. Just my five cents.

REPLY TO MR, NELSON

Pursuant to your post of 29 January instant:

Two learned responses.

1) Akim Tamiroff: "I do not prowoke."

2) William Blake from PROVERBS OF HELL: "Listen to the fool's reproach! It is a kingly title!"

Ever so above-it-all, Yr. Pal, Harlan

HARLAN-

Thanks for the update. I'll go crawl back under my lurker rock for a few months... :)

--
Ryan

"...a jackanapes moment"

Sandra and Ian-

Let me belatedly pile on to the group love hug. I have so hugely enjoyed reading this saga (as has my wife - I've been reading the installments aloud to her) (she's a teacher, by the way).

Tonight's punch line: "This is a jackanapes moment," had me laughing very hard.

But one question: What did the inscriptions say?

You folks are terrific.

MM

Low blow....
"We chatted for about twenty minutes or so. I advised her the film's excellence was all of my doing, that you wandered around the studio and editing bays like a blind sufi master seeking alms from his betters. She swore to be faithful to my revelations, and to print every word as tape-recorded."

Well, Ellison, in words taken from YOUR last cinematic masterpiece:

"I've had it up to HERE with this bring down stuff"

Sniff.

Yr Loyal (but BOY, are you are pushing it) Pal,
Erik

...Add Inscriptions, Stir Briskly
The world is now a happier place. Okay, so I'm exaggerating a tad. Yesterday, the world is a happier place because we received a very thoughtful gift by way of the talented Ellison/Barber team-up. It went something like this...(forgive any typos, my fingers have a sinus headache)

The package passed from the postal worker's hands to mine, sans high power rifle either way. I opened it and, much to my delight, held in my hands three copies of "REPENT, HARLEQUIN," SAID THE TICKTOCKMAN written, of course, by our esteemed host and illustrated by Rick Berry. Each book was inscribed very personally and pointedly to one of the Ticktockmen demanding a piece of my son's soul the day he reminded his classmates what jellybeans were for. I was floored; these are truly beautiful books and Mr. Berry's artwork serves as an amazing counterpoint to Harlan's words.

I show them to hubby. Says hubby, "These are incredible!", and he proceeds to grab his jacket and car keys.

"Where are you going?" says I.

"We need to get these to the school," says he.

"But we need to be here for Jaaaaaaaaames." And with those final words trailing behind me, he whisks me out the door and into the van before I can do more than slip my shoes on and wish frostily for my own coat.

We make to the the school to find my oldest son walking back to class to get his homework (yeah, even after fifteen minutes of fame he has homework), and drag him behind us as we head to the office. No sooner do we step inside, where I am indeed warmer and somewhat less conspicuous in my tanktop and shorts, than we see my son's teacher heading our way from the left and the principle chatting with the staff on our right. Perfect timing.

We presented the proper book to the both of them (the Behavioral Specialist being out yesterday, we had to leave her book with the front office). The teacher was very flattered, both with the inscription and my son's enthusiastic presentation with his father's equally enthusiastic support. It thrus out he's read the story before, but it took seeing the words on the page to realize that my son was reporting on the same work (or, as he said, "Wait a minute. This is THAT Ticktockman story? Oh, wow! I know this story.").

I presented the book to the principal who received it with a pleasant, if perplexed, smile. Then she read the inscription. Her smile...changed. Inverted while remaining a smile. Dipped itself in plastic to better maintain administrator/parent relations. "Well, thank you," says she without moving her plastic dipped lips.

"You're most welcome," says I.

"This is a jackanapes moment," says my son. It's to make a momma proud...*sniff*

We talked about Harlan, the board, the reception of Ian's report. The teacher was amazed and, while still a mite uncertain as to the hubbub, appeared pleased that my son was able to make such a presentation. The principal's gaze skipped back and forth between our tidy threesome and the Ticktockman reference on the front page. "I think I've just been zinged," says she.

I smiled like a shark. Nice shark, pretty shark... "You certainly have, lady," says I. The look she gave me said less about detention for my son and more about kicking me out of the office.

When I called Harlan last night to tell him about the presentation, he said, "Did she really say that?" I assured him she had. His response was even more fitting than his inscription.

My son was amazed. "I have an admirer," was all he could manage on the way home. He's long had admirers; now he has a crazy uncle in California.

Thank you, Harlan and Steve. Thank you to everyone who said kind and supportive words. After getting our youngest son from the bus, we ran to the store last night and bought a bag of jellybeans to celebrate.

***

Why isn't the world a happier place today? It's snowing....bleh...



shagin

Drat. Succinct.

Brilliant post, Frank.

Succint, too.

Hmmmm.

Harlan Ellison's Watching
The M Press web site says Mar. 12 on HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING.

JAN:

If Mondadori is selling them at half-price, can you get me a couple of copies? Or get someone you know in Italy to get them, and I''ll recompense them or you, or both?

Concerned, Yr. Pal, Harlan

ERIK:

Just got off the horn with a charming woman from The Hollywood Reporter who is writing a piece on the South-by-Southwest Film Festival. We chatted for about twenty minutes or so. I advised her the film's excellence was all of my doing, that you wandered around the studio and editing bays like a blind sufi master seeking alms from his betters. She swore to be faithful to my revelations, and to print every word as tape-recorded.

Have a nice day. Yr. Pal, Harlan

REPLY TO RYAN LEASHER

The new edition of HARLAN ELLISON'S WATCHING is imminent from M Press (the book div. of Dark Horse Entertainment, as in Dark Horse Comics) in conjunction with Edgeworks Abbey. By "imminent" I mean any minute now. You can always go to their site(s) and narrow the ETA info, I presume.

As for the next VOICE FROM THE EDGE, Blackstone has had the finished DAT for some while, but I'm a bit tardy in getting some apparently needed indicia material to them and, well, as soon as there's something substantive to report, I shall fly the advisement to your shell-like ear.

Nag, nag, nag...

Yr. Pal, dancing as fast as he can, Harlan

The only indecency is inaction.

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

The FCC
"11. Indecency Analysis. As an initial matter, we find that the programming at issue is within the scope of our indecency definition because it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs–specifically an adult woman’s buttocks. Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense." - The FCC's Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) to ABC

Well now, I can also excrete from my mouth, my nose and (on occassion) my ears. Does that make them excretory organs? I could certainly argue that the mouth could be used as a sexual organ just as readily as the buttocks can (if not more so). Does that mean that the networks need to start blurring out actors' faces?

Yo Harlan! Like Stephen says, published by Mondadori in 2004, Italian version of the McSweeney's tome (perhaps that rings a bell and you do have it), your story was translated by Anna Mioni (her bilingual web page, if you want to say hi, http://www.annamioni.it/ - she also collected Italia reviews which don't go into detail about single stories.) I vaguely remember the book and being surprised to see it. The publisher is now selling the remainders at half price (it was really expensive).
http://web.liberonweb.it/asp/libro.asp?ISBN=8804530146

Double standard?

All I can say is that Dennis Franz must have some very big fans. I know at the time it was a Big Media Event, but hell, even I thought it was unnecessary.
Be careful with the tongue-in-cheek jokes.
___________________________
http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/01/29/nypd-blue-spanked-dennis-franz-reacts/
___________________________

If this can set a precedent for the buttocks as 'sexual organs', maybe there's finally a case for gay, if not especially lesbian, marriage and civil rights advancement.

I'm obviously still suffering fever delirium from the pneumonia. Back to bed now...

Italian Harlan
http://www.sira.it/darklava/main.asp?page=2004/var200406.htm&Anno=2004 has an entry about 3/4 of the way down the page showing this item:
- la Super raccolta di storie d'avventura a cura di Michael Chabon: (the Super history collection of adventure edited by Michael Chabon)
There is a review here:
http://www.arcire.it/pagine20458/00321Rec%20Chabon.pdf (I don't have a way to translate the Italian PDF file, sorry.)

You can use the babel fish translator from alta vista located at
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish
for the pages you don't understand. I'll look when I get home to see if I have a copy of this tome, but I don't think I do.

Harlan: any word on the writer's strike you can share?

YO!!! JAN!!!!

Italian version of "Goodbye to All That" --- ?????

First I'm hearing of this (I think). Can you convey whereat, wherein, what-if it appears? Tell all, in detail! Thanks.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Correction, this is the link to the SF Signal best reads. http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006068.html

Pervs!
Listen unto Harlan. He is, after all, a man who once tied up a woman on her mama's spotless carpet and considered forcing her to "make an angel." Now THAT's kinky!

callipygian calumny


"Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense."


Hmmm. The government apparently has a more sophisticated grasp of sensuality than I have hitherto believed.

Hey everyone.
I was almost without internet for a month and I've been back to check what happened. I don't get the American stuff most of you are on about, so here's a simple round of links (though there have been plenty of links these past days.) Sorry if any of this has been mentioned while I was gone.

From a German review of HOT BLOOD by Dieter Mort (rough translation): "Footsteps by Harlan Ellison is a prime example of this writer's work, who has been sadly forgotten in this country. In this story two hunters encounter one another. A vamire and... well, what indeed? The terror of the green lagoon? No matter. Ellison can write like only a few. Regardless of subject matter." (He didn't like all the stories.)
http://www.phantastik-couch.de/jeff-gelb-lonn-friend-hot-blood-bis-dass-der-tod-euch-vereint.html

Bit of trivia, new to me: The Italian version of GOODBYE TO ALL THAT was called "Acqua passata" (Water under the bridge).

"The Oscar" (1966) - Harlan Ellison Responds! (scroll down)
http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/screengrab/archive/2008/01/25/forgotten-films-quot-the-oscar-quot-1966.aspx

The pilot episode of the new Terminator tv show had an FBI Agent named James Ellison, and an episode is called "The Demon Hand". (Harlan no doubt knows this, but not sure if it was mentioned here.)

The Harlan Ellison & Rick Berry REPENT edition of 1997 was one of the "Best Reads of 2007" (of John at SF Signal, click on title for review):
http://www.locusmag.com/2008/VanderMeer_BestOf2007.html

On a related note, out yesterday: James VanDer Meer's 2007: The Best of the Year article (for LOCUS):
http://www.locusmag.com/2008/VanderMeer_BestOf2007.html

Chris Ryall from IdW about future Harlan projects: "Possibly, but nothing scheduled."

The whole spoken introduction to the IHNMAIMS computer game is online at geemag.tv (unauthorized, I presume):
http://www.geemag.tv/viewVideo.php?video_id=1304&title=I_Have_No_Mouth_and_I_Must_Scream___Intro&lang=en_us

The new version of ScummVM (scummvm.org) now supports the game so it can be played on pretty much any modern computer/operating system it wouldn't normally run on.

German pulp writer Frank Rehfeld (who mostly writes under pseudonyms) says he's influenced by King, Barker and (subversive and bizarre) Ellison. Comic writer Barbara Randall Kesel also mentions him (http://scifichick.com/?p=492)

A French review of Andreas Eschbach's "The Carpet Makers" points out homage-type similarities between his chapter 14 and Harlan's IHNMAIMS.
http://generationscience-fiction.hautetfort.com/archive/2008/01/14/des-milliards-de-tapis-de-cheveux.html

The Region 2 DVD of MASTERS OF SF to appear 2/25. No Region 1.
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=66796

"(Dean Wesley) Smith sees conferences as an obligation after all the help he got early on from well-known writers such as Jack Williamson and Harlan Ellison. 'I can't pay them anything . . . so the only thing I can do is turn around and pay it in the other direction, the new writers,' Smith says." (Brevard writers' conference)
http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080122/LIFE/801220312/1005

Cody Goodfellow mentions "Gentleman Junkie" in an article about writing styles: "Harlan Ellison is a past master at evoking vivid settings while leaving the darkest conclusions to bloom in the sleepless reader’s mind. (...)"
http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/?p=913

Star Trek: The Tour (Long Beach) apparently has a mock-up of the Guardian of Eterny-ness. Also: One of the movie writers was asked again about the use of the Guardian: "I love "City on the Edge of Forever" said (Robert) Orci when asked if the rumor is bullshit "You mean if it is part of (the movie)....no." (IESB video interview)

Dept. of Believing Makes It So: The FCC Considers Buttocks ...
To Be a Sexual Organ

On January 25th, the FCC decided that ABC stations and affiliates that aired a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue that featured female nudity--specifically, a woman's backside--were liable for fines of $27,500 each for broadcasting indecent material. A link to its Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL) can be found on the following page:

http://www.fcc.gov/

Not content to burden society with its inability to consider nudity in context, the FCC apparently has decided that words can mean what it pretends they mean, the better for it to distort its own rules. Please allow me to quote the NAL:

"11. Indecency Analysis. As an initial matter, we find that the programming at issue is within the scope of our indecency definition because it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs–specifically an adult woman’s buttocks. Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense."

Well, MY common sense tells me that the FCC should have considered its wording more carefully when it wrote up its rules. If one means the buttocks, one should say just that--instead of talking out of one's ass.

D.

durdy feelthy peek chures


Yeah, Steve!

I've sung "Smut" at a coffeehouse cabaret. Lehrer's introductory remark on the LP is ""I do have a cause, though; it is obscenity. . . . I'm for it!"

I sang it many years later, in the late 1980s, so my introductory remarks referenced Serrano's "Piss Christ" and similar material from the NEA flap, and I concluded, "...and I am OUTRAGED that my tax dollars are going to the creation of such FILTH and I NEVER GET TO SEE IT!"

Of course, I understand one or two Webderlanders are among the extremely select few who read my book, _Watching Sex: How Men Really Respond to Pornography_, endorsed by Tom Robbins, former LA Times film critic Charles Champlin, and ACLU President Nadine Strossen; agented by Richard Curtis (Harlan and I have the same literary agent!); and published by Thunder's Mouth Press (the publisher of Gore Vidal's recent inflammatory essays).

This book had a lot going for it . . . and it sank like a stone.

I blame Al-Qaida and George W. Bush.

Really!

L'affaire Target
It seems to me that obscenity is largely in the eye of the beholder. Pornography is as much a mode of reading as it is a mode of writing. Satirist Tom Lehrer captured this truism cleverly in his song "Smut," in which he adopts the pose of a pro-obscenity activist promoting his cause. "All books can be indecent books" when deliberately read with an eye for indecency, he argues. The song continues, "When correctly viewed / Everything is lewd. / I could tell you things about Peter Pan / And the Wizard of Oz -- there's a dirty old man!" Bullseye.

Steve J.

Parental Guidance suggested

KOS: Email me. I've spent eight years working and living in the trenches of the porn industry...AVN award winner Felicia Fox is my siginificant other for 13 years now. Dozens of my friends are in and of that biz, and I've done time as industry journalist, on-camera talent, videographer, talk show host, suitcase pimp, PA, and on and on and on. Currently I'm just a blogger, GM of a strip club, and occasional cameraman. I even had Ms. Tristan Taormino (porn director and Thomas Pynchon's very own niece) profile me and my lady in the Village Voice.

I'm sure we know some of the same people. (Yes, all this will be fodder for a novel someday, I'm sure.)

ancient french and life immitating art
Thanks for the trip down amnesia lane Harlan with the french lesson. Apt, but still. Tar-zhay did no wrong here.

And I couldn't help but think of an essay, oh so many years ago. About a beautiful white rug. And a date with a beautiful woman. With overly uptight parents, who owned a pristine house. And tying her up, naked and spread eagled. And how you oh so carefully wrote in the carpet with your shoes, for the parents to find later when they came home. Little stinker indeed. Life. Art. heh.

Pride And Prudeness

Adam-Troy,

C'mere.

Yeah. C'mon over here in da corner. I wanna share sumpin' wit' ya...

Don't tell no one I admitted dis to ya...

But when ya said, "She's making a snow angel"...

I mean...unnerstand...where I come from...ya wanna an angel drawn in yer snow...well...ders only way ta DO dis ting...

So - somehow - when ya wuz describin' dis descratin' doinz - I wuz thinkin' "Whatya mean? Golden showers on the Target logo?"

Maybe I've spent too much time measuring my manhood on porno sites, but for that precious second, that's what I imagined!

...now THAT would have been a calaminatin' caliginous catastrophy of a riot in the Supreme Court!

At any rate, that's how low we are here on the prevoision meter! Puttin' anutter way...yer 'mong PAAAAALZ here!

Had you not brought it up at ALL, I mean when ya consider the number o'broads I hit on in dat joint, I'd have walked passed that cutie wit' little more dan a wink n' a begotten strut.

Target!
AT-C, I have worked on a pornographic video: I knew porn stars; One porn star was a friend of mine.

AT-C, that Target girl is no porn star.

She is hot though!

(Did I just negate my argument there?! Honi soi mal indeed...)

KOS

Rememb'ring Doe-Wah-Jack
Here's some background info on that furnace company from Dowajiac, Michigan, with an antique photo of a larger model --

http://www.goodtimestove.com/special_sections/3.html

I know this is not what Harlan wants, but take a look at this beast:

http://photoswest.org/cgi-bin/imager?10061391+X-61391

Looks like some burial mound for a real evil person.


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

See Harlan, the internet aint so bad.

Snuggles.

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

Goldberg was made to look foolish on Hannity and Colmes, and by Colmes of all people. He kept saying that he didn't compare liberals to Nazis, but why the hitler mustache on the happy face for the cover? He made some lame excuse about a George Carlin comment, but the idea that it is the book cover tells you the books intent, or it's how books are supposed to work.

He keeps saying that Hitler was a socialist, but Hitler didn't care about social needs, he used those needs as a way to buy off the German people, that's all. Real socialism is about the people working in solidarity, from the bottom up and Goldberg should know this. Lenin called himself a Marxist, but he wasn't one either.

Goldberg needs his mommys tit.

JOSH OLSON AND KEITH CRAMER AND ANYONE ELSE

The Target ad and the "controversy":

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

I'm with Adam-Troy.

Shaking his head wearily, he remains, Yr. Pal, Harlan

On Target
ADAM: You don't have to be obsessed. Just brainwashed by the conservative/rightwing religious movement that began (albeit slowly) back in 1950s. (Bunch of uptight, sexually repressed, violence-obsessed muthafuckers).

JOSH: From one pervert to another, scoot over (y'know, so I can get a better look with you while lying down on the sidewalk, looking up at the billboard -- I, too, see sexy people -- or sexual objects, take yer pick). Over here in Oz, they refer to staring at someone as "perving." Considering that the city I moved to has _many_ more curvaceous women than did KC, because of all the walking people do (hell, all three of _us_ have lost weight), the perving term seems dead on, 'cause my neck developed wrinkles -- from all the twisting -- that spell out "Rubbermaid." And I am _not_ gonna go into my schtick about all the schoolgirls walking around in uniform again.

Yours in hypersexuality,
DTS

Mr. Ellison

Here is a photo of one furnace with the interesting name
Indestruto:

http://www.dreamstime.com/old-coal-furnace-image1217562

Target: Vagina
Harlan,

I have asked a few of my steamfitter friends if they have any pics of antique boilers, etc. Am waiting.


Adam-Troy,

Yes, it's stupid that people would try to pull that ad. But I think I speak for most healthy males (not the pervert kind: Josh can speak for them), and say the ad makes me want to jump her mons. She doesn't even need a target for that. But I understand that you are married, and that could affect your position: especially if Judy comes here from time to time. Wink.

-Keith

Harlan - One more door, a day late, a dollar short, and manufactured a little ahead of your time-frame, but it's an asses/alligators thing here just below the 39th parallel, and this is the best I had after what has already been offered:

http://tinyurl.com/2scm3g

This URL goes to an ebay auction for a furnace facade, circa 1895; provides pictures, along with the text of what's written on the facade (which the seller says came from an old school building), as follows:

====
Isaac D. Smead & Co., Toledo, O.

The long low extended surface air warmer

MANHOLE DOOR
KEEP CLOSED

Manufactured & patented by Isaac D. Smead, Toledo, Ohio
Sept 22 1885- Oct 4 1887
July 11 1883- May 22 1884
1895 PATTERN

====

Smead was apparently a big shot in hot air heating once upon a time, and patented a number of heating systems, installed in a number of large buildings; however, I can't swear this facade was on a coal-burner, either.

I don't see any rhyme or reason to the methodology for unit marking by manufacturers in general - dates, model numbers, company names, patent numbers all seem to be on a whim; and we never had one in the house - Edison had assimilated the manse's HVAC equipment by the time I rumbled into the world. So it is what it is.

Dropping back into long orbit; catch you on the next go-round.

Next Voice From the Edge?


HARLAN-

Any news on the release date for the next Voice From the Edge recording? Also, do you know the projected publication date for the new edition of Harlan Ellison's Watching?

Thanks. Hope all is well.

--
Ryan

Adam,

"I look at the ad and see nothing particularly sexual about it. It's G-rated. Sure, the girl's pretty, but she would be in anything but a burkha, and there's nothing suggestive about her pose or her expression. "

Um.....

I'm with you on most of this. I really am. But I have to wonder if something's wrong with one of us, because I see a cute girl lying on a target with her legs wide open, a huge smile on her face, and her pudenda right on top of the bullseye....

Okay. I admit it. I'm not thinking "snow angels."

Keep in mind, Harlan is convinced I'm a pervert, so what do I know?

Off-Target Criticism
In which I find myself in the unusual position of vociferously defending a huge corporation against idealists who think it has done something wrong.

It reminds me, in fact, of words Harlan wrote in his GLASS TEAT columns, about a magazine ad modeled on CASABLANCA, that was similarly attacked because the Bogart lookalike complained about "dames."

To wit: evidently there are so many people looking for a chance to take offense AT ANYTHING that the retail giant Target has had to answer allegations of misogyny with an ad that depicts a smiling model, fully clad in winter gear, making a snow angel on the Target bullseye.

As she is centered on the bullseye, her midsection lies on the central circle, and some bloggers and consumer advocacy groups have complained about the propriety of making a public ad that "targets a woman's genitals."

She is, again, entirely dressed, and Target has had to explain, she's in winter gear. She's making a snow angel.

I look at the ad and see nothing particularly sexual about it. It's G-rated. Sure, the girl's pretty, but she would be in anything but a burkha, and there's nothing suggestive about her pose or her expression.

Still, the controversy has been so public that it's been covered in THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Here's the image, which is a billboard on Times Square.

http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/silenced_majority_portal/2008/01/is-targets-bill.html

Just how crazy, obsessed and eager to take offense do you have to be to think that this ad is any more sexist and offensive than ANY OTHER ad showing a reasonably attractive woman in the clothing the store wants to sell? How crazy, obsessed, and eager to take offense do you have to be to think the ad was made with genuinely pornographic intent?

Ultimate Furnace Site Located
This is incredible, I cannot believe what I found:

www.heatinghelp.com

This site ha a history section. Drop your socks and grab on to your petcocks: They have SCANS in Adobe PDF of actual sales bochures for furnaces from like 1916 and the 1920s. They even have a complete scan of a War Department Field Manual from 1943 detailing how to start and run one of these coal fired monstrosities.

I just looked at a Honeywell "History of Heating" brochure from the sixties that shows the front of an old coal fired furnace . Just above the door is cast "Hot Blast" with a numeral s6x in a citcle (similar to a copyright mark, but a 6 instead of a C) located between "Hot" and "Blast". On the door itself is cast "GRAFF & COMPANY", then below that on the door is the little grated window you could watch the fire through, and below that on the door is cast "NEW YORK".

The website is full of similar scans of old pictures and magazines, even brochures from 1916 for furnace manufacturers. The bad news, alas, is that they are megabyte size files, which means that your dial-up connectoin would take about a week to download the pictures. I could print them out and mail them to you. I would email them, but I cannot figure out how to cut and paste from the PDF so I can reduce them in size and email them as a downloadable file. Perhaps some other wizard here can do this, because this is THE mother lode of info for one of these coal fired behemoths. They weighed in at about 1200 pounds, according to the brochure, for a smallish one.

Brochure scan is at:

http://www.heatinghelp.com/pdfs/37.pdf

This is fascinating.

They used asbestos! Like it was going out of style. Which it was!

KOS

What is this, post #3?
Umm...

The grate from

http://tinyurl.com/2kjgz8

if you got it, says:

Luxaire (in script)
THE C. A. OLSEN MFG.CO
ELYRIA OHIO

There is a number over the grate that says either:

G24-3

or

624-3

I can't make much out of any of the other pics I've seen. A lot of them don't even have grates.

It looks like this furnace had to have been built no earlier than 1939, which puts it a little after the target time:

http://www.luxaire.com/aboutus.asp

Other than that...does anyone know where one of these old furnaces can be found near where you live? If somebody could put in some footwork they might be able to find what none of us were able to.

Heh, just saw that KOS hit the Furnace Motherload. How does one express a hearty thumbs-up in type?

Nevermind all the previous. You got it, Harlan.

Zack M.

Furnace Doors, Ultimate Version
Antique coal-fired furnace door pic's:

This one was manufactured in Cleveland!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ickypic/43798694

http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dcoal%2Bfurnace%2Bdoor%2B%2Bimages%26y%3DSearch%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dytff1-msgff%26x%3Dwrt%26js%3D1%26ni%3D20&w=250&h=333&imgurl=www.fenderforum.com%2Fuserphotos%2Fphoto.php%3Fid%3D13432&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fenderforum.com%2Fuserphotos%3Frecid%3D13432&size=122.7kB&name=photo.php&p=coal+furnace+door++images&type=jpeg&no=14&tt=26&oid=91a5aa191b190d0a&ei=UTF-8

This one has a pentagram on the door!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lissame/39937351/

Very large one:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hollowhorn/45062716/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alita_anime/151884869/

lots of writing on this one:

http://adjectivenoun.org/gallery2/d/2622-2/IMG_2441.jpg

"Risdon Stoker Furnace"

http://www.flickr.com/photos/doublegrande/52354605/

Hart & Crouse Company "ROYAL" Utica, New York

http://adjectivenoun.org/gallery2/d/2619-2/IMG_2440.jpg

Dang. The internet is weird. Who would have thought this many pictures of old furnace doors?

Try 2 (with apologies to Rick for the double post)
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6973/1297/1600/Grendil%20Front.jpg

?

Incidentally, these are pictures from this blog post:

http://stuccohouse.blogspot.com/2005/10/meet-grendil.html

Julian

FURNACES.

Yeah, those are certainly what I'm looking for; and any one of the dozen or so you"ve linked me to would be perfect for my use ... IF ...

If I could read the words and numbers on the doors and body. But they're all too small or blurred or worn away. And it's the WORDS I need, the "provenance" of the great beast. Can any of you decipher with better clarity than my poor dial-up?

I think what I need is here, but I'm just t-h-i-s far away from it. Unpeel your eyes and see if you see what I don't see.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Furnace Pics
How about..

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6973/1297/1600/Grendil1.jpg

Julian

These "octopus" furnaces are called gravity furnaces.

http://tinyurl.com/2kjgz8

This may be hard to view, I had to save the file of the picture before it would pop up. Other pictures:

http://www.askthebuilder.com/689_Gravity_Furnaces.shtml

http://www.qsl.net/wd8cxb/house/furnace.html

Harlan, I've no idea if this is what you're looking for or not.

Dang
Sorry for the long screed on hitler and such.

Also sorry for the MANY typos. I try to proofread, but I am (close to) legally blind. So it goes!

KOS

Fascism and Communism a la Goldberg

I sent Rick some pics of coal-fired furnace doors, and a list of several hundred coal-fired furnace names and manufacturers.

Cannot wait for the story!

I don't read National Review (it's paleoconservative now anyway), and I don't have any desire to read Goldberg's book, but the idea of links between Fascism and Communism is hardly new or laughable. I don't accept Goldberg's apparent thesis that modern liberal/progressive American politics is "fascist", but that has more to do with what Fascism is than what those liberal/progressives are. Besides, Nazism was not the same thing as Fascism and vice versa. They've become conflated from the wartime alliance between Mussolini and Hitler. As the Italians of the time put it, translating roughly, "Mussolini is a thug, but Hitler is a bloodthirsty maniac."

Anyway, if you want to read an interesting explication of the connections, try:

http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id9.html

I don't buy everything in that article, but it is a more or less rational examination of the relationship between Nazism and socialism/communism. It is useful to know that Hitler discovered the Nazi party becauase between 1919 and 1922 (roughly, going by memory) he workes as an undercover agent for German Military Intelligence. His job was to go to meetings of various radical groups (both left and right) and report on how much of a threat they were to the German State. This is probably why thee is a little-known photograph showing Hitler wearing a Communist Party armband attending the funeral procession of a murdered Communist Party leader around this time. He wsa likely there undercover. He not only attended left wing meetings as part of his job but was privy to the reports of other agents on groups left and right he did not have personal experience with. It was a crash course in how to organize a revolutionary political movement Hardly surprising that once he found a group in line with his personal agenda he took it over with some of the effective methods pioneered by other revolutionary leader, regardless of their being left or right. Hitler was a pragmatic maniac: he wanted power and was willing to use whatever worked to get him power. He wasn't very ideological; he just wanted to destroy the Jewish people and expand German power, and be top dog. The rest he considered, by most accounts, as details that he did not care about. You ought to read how he made fun of those Nazi's who actually tried to develop a "Nazi" ideology. He had little patience for them, other than as useful tools for controlling the German state.

Ah well, it doesn't matter. Human nature being what it is, politics is largely driven by personalities rather than ideology. That system is best which governs best. The rest is window dressing. Now someone will call me a fascist, I can practically guarantee. The word is increasingly meaningless, but there you are."

Tony: the Christian view of human nature is hardly "Hobbesian" (nasty, brutish ansd short, the war of all against all, etc.), it is more based on the idea that human nature is flawed. They call it "original sin", of course. Hhuman nature is not perfect, ask anyone that has raised a child. They're pretty much tabula rasa, human nature will lead them anywhere, within very broad parameters set by the genetic roulette wheel. I don't have a fight in the nature/nurture debate, as it is to me obvious both play major roles.

You can get either a Hitler or a Schweitzer (Mother Teresa for those not old enough to remember Albert Schweitzer), depending on where you start and what you teach the child. It's sadly the case that the most effective lessons are those taught when you are not actually trying to teach but just doing what comes naturally.

I tend to not think ideologically anyway. I prefer to think in terms of what works, and good vd. evil. Of course, that upsets those who think there is no evil.


KOS

Those searching for furnace pictures might use 'tenement' in their search.

furnaces -- one more
EVERYONE ELSE: One more link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ticonderoga/3001381/

Another photo of residential octopus furnace.. But this one is listed as 60 years OLD!! And surely the manufacturer of THIS furnace made some industrial/aparment complex-sized beasts. So perhaps contacting the photo taker might turn up useful info!
-DTS

furnaces
EVERYONE ELSE:
Two more photos of octopus-style furnaces.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tedchang/2089743314/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anikarenina/497803694/

And since the brand names/dates/etc aren't quite visible, not useful at all by Harlan. But perhaps one of the Blue Monkeys could contact one (or both) of the people who TOOK the photos (as recently as mid to late 2007) and ask 'em if they'd be willing to go back to the house/building and get some info.
Just a thought.


HARLAN: I'll be back later, after a walk, and I'll let you know if the local library was any help.
--Dorman

furnishing furnaces
Here is a nice hellish beast. I want to say it's a Gilman but "Gilman" is simply the town in Arizona it was abandoned in;

http://www.dustylens.com/Gilman-furnace.jpg

It would be boring as hell but the "General Furnace Co." made these sorts of furnaces and other coal and wood burning models in the mid-1920's.

"clean often, save fuel" stamped on to the face plate;

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2129705/2/istockphoto_2129705_old_coal_furnace.jpg

Here's a very pretty, yet creepy coal furnace;

http://www.larusse.com/images/items/large/194824024.jpg

As for exact brand names and their cities/states of origin and dates of manufacture I have not found a good site for that. I might have some Home Builder trade magazines from the 1920's and 30's in the bottomless basement - but right now I have to pick someone up at the airport.

- Barney

Coal-burning furnaces -- and "Sticks and Stones..."
HARLAN: Hey Harlan, AaaahObviouisly, that photo from the Elms (sent waaaaay back when) didn't help at all (guess it was something from a water boiler, rather than a coal furnace).
Altrusitic, and selfless soul that I am, I logged onto the internet (once more into the breach -- yeeech), and used my limited skills for to try and search out more info. To begin with, I found an article about furnances that mention the octopus type used for homes: there are even two photos of such (5 or 6 arms snaking out from each). No close-up shots, damnit. Here's the link:

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:wolBQh8kW9cJ:www.descoenergy.com/duct_system-02.htm+coal-burning+octopus+furnace%2Bhistory+of&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=au

Unfortunately, that STIll isn't the industrial type furnace you're searching out. (And definitely isn't the extra-large type of octopus furnace I remember running into in the basement of the family housing units on an American base in Germany). And, I imagine, wont be much more useful than photos (of damper plates, andindustrial cold-coal furnaces) already received.

ANother link I found,

http://www.chancellor.wisc.edu/nuclearenergy.html

a copy of a speech by John Wiley, Chancellor at Wisconsin U., mentions, in detail, his dealings with an octopus furnace while he was kid. Don't know if he's still working at the University (the essay was dated 2003), but this link provides a phone number:

http://www.chancellor.wisc.edu/contact.html

You could cold call him (if he's still there) and see if his memories help out.

All of my other efforts to seek out info, or photos, of the furnaces here on the internet came up snake-eyes. There's a library nearby that might have something (since Australia's a coal-buring nation); I'll check with them later today. I wont hold my breath, though, since my library searches in KC didn't produce squat.

Cheers, mate,

Dorman
P.S. If my any of my info above -- especially the phone number of the Chancellor) pans out, or if I find something for you at the library today, I get a photo copy of "Sticks and Stones..." as soon as it's finished...right? (Right?)

Picture of Furnace
http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulhitz/2152846087/

furnace pics
Sent on the furnace pics. HE/Susan - if you can't receive them, let me know and I'll post them up on the site somewhere for you.

- Rick

great-hearted beast provided heat for the tea factory
http://static.flickr.com/38/79795803_44d6784275_m.jpg

FURNACE DATA

No, not yet. We haven't got it yet.

ROB: We may have done this some time ago. I have no record of same. It doesn't matter, though. Old or new, gimme what you already sent, or what you can now get.

STEPHEN: Rick may or may not be around. When he checks out the site, he'll send whatever you sent to him, to me. But if you'vegot anything that can come direct ... send it, for the luvva gawd, send it!

KEV: Thanks, but not what I want. The provenance is absent, and a date, and the company. They didn't usually put that stuff on an upstairs damper cover, and with age and wear, well, it's helpful, but still not bullseye. Say hi to your old man for me.

CHUCK MESSER: Uh-uh. These images make no sense to me; but they are clearly not responsive to my need as I expressed it.

IRREGULAR 523: This one is a lot closer, but it's a boiler, not a furnace. I need FURNACES, my beloved seekers, old 1920s, '30s, '40s-era FURNACES.

I am truly grateful, and I hope others will keep looking, but we ain't there yet. Sigh.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

BOILERS
Google image searches related to old boilers, boiler preservation, and the like yielded this possibility:

http://www.scottandscottinc.com/homeinspection014.jpg

I've got a few links that might be a bit of a start on the Great Grate Hunt.

If Susan can't help you get to these sites, I've also e-mailed the links to Rick so he can maybe get the images to you. The first couple are kind of basic, but have interesting brand markings on them. The third just looks cool and might be of use to get the overall look, only not so clean. The fourth is a name plate with recognizable name on it. Hope it's at least a start.

http://blog.wired.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/16/wood_efp.jpg

http://www.oceanspringsarchives.com/vancleave-marks%20and%20brands_small.jpg

http://www.craphound.com/images/steampunkcasemodfdsdf.jpg

http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/transportation/images/Space%20Page/tiebar.JPG

Aside: during my search I got two links to articles about white supremacist groups, a bathing suit contest and a porn site. WTF???

Chuck

THANKS YOU SMART PEOPLE
Thanks for the education, you smart people. I once had an acting teacher (who worked with Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre) who would shout at us, "You people are so stupid, you don't even know what you don't know!" Well, I'm at least intelligent enough to admit ignorance or partial knowledge on an infinite number of subjects.

I read (from a reliable source) that 1% of the static on our tv's when tuned to a nonbroadcast station is from the background radiation of the Big Bang. So I guess until the writer's strike is settled I can flip the channel over and watch God create the universe.

Grate Fun
I was unable to find an actual grate, but here's a picture of somebody found on the upstairs control switch --

http://tinyurl.com/ywunn6

He could also appear on the grate itself, for all I know.

Harlan's furnace request
I have sent 3 images to Rick via email, hopefully of good size and clarity, of what I believe are the type of furnace door Harlan requires.

and for the records, the physics was easy, this is much harder.

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of reading _The Invention of Hugo Cabret_ by Brian Selznick, a wonderful story of a young boy, a mystery, and dreams in turn of the century Paris. Today I learned that the book one the Caldecott Medal for 2008. Three cheers!

If you have the opportunity to pick up the book, I highly recommend the read for both adults and children. Below is the link for the award announcement:

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/01/14/cald.html


shagin

Words Harlan taught me
Been cleaning up around the house, tossing out loads of junk in preparation for the big move out to Albuquerque (Michael D. Blum, we should be neighbors by summer's end!), and I just found a college notebook in which I took notes of words I didn't know from my reading of a few HE books, along with their definitions. It's massive! Thanks, Harlan, for making me smarter. Here's the list:

arcology, mien, meretricious, loupe, martinet, fatuous, invidious, nantch, obeisance, congeries, deponent, screed, canard, persiflage, cavil, insensate, cabal, parlous, defenestrate, hircine, effete, trope, picayune, idee fixe, egress, duplicity, variegate, contretemps, rodomontade, antimacassar, scut, auctorial, bruit, chivy, scrivener, anent, execrable, satori, rapacious, passim, ignominy, collude, perfidy, revenant, skein, ineluctable, flexuous, anfractuous, pedant, scansion, surfiet, mensch, vivisepulture, tevedore, pustule, condign, frippery, ne plus ultra, halation, callipygian, diaphanous, superannuated, concupiscence, dolorous, harridan, folie a deux, eclat, incunabula

SJPO

The "furnace"...

Is this not the same outing we did here a few years ago...when I contributed my shtick about the orphanage, where I did time at the age of 5?

Wanna make sure, before I dig into this one...because it's mighty similar.

Then, again, I know your imagery - and the elements its held from your beginnings.

BTW, I saw Champion with Kirk Douglas this weekend. Believe it or not, it's the first time I'd seen it. Because of its charcoal universe I thought it would relevant enough to mention. It's an awesome film - it really is. I viewed it in conjunction with Somebody Up There Likes Me with Paul Newman.

Meantime, let me mull over your story. I just want to make sure this is different from the one a few years ago.

Monochromatically Yours,
Rob

HARLAN ASKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION FOR A MOMENT

I need some research help. Seriously.

Encapsulated, here's what I need one or another of you website-savvy dudes, or FinderDoug, to locate for me:

I'm trying desperately to finish a new short story. I lack one single bit of data, the content of which I need to describe.

Here's the set-up.

We are inside an abandoned, long-deserted building in a huge weed-overgrown empty lot in Detroit. It could have been an apartment house built in the 1920s, three-storeys, big square building. Neighborhood went to ruin, everything torn down in the '60s, this building somehow was left standing, forgotten, unattended ... it's been looted down to the light-bulbs, squatters have lived in it, all the windows are shattered by kids with rocks, transients have caused fires, etc. It is a great empty shell, all alone in the immense acreage that never did get converted to mall or housing project. Abandoned.

Or...

Same scenario, except it wasn't an apartment house, it was a small manufacturing company. All the rest of the buildings are gone, but this one (a quarter the size of a city block) (it was a SMALL manufactory) is rack-empty and the first floor is empty, with standing pools of rainwater from the rotted roof. It may be a three-story apartment house or manufactory, with the first floor very high-ceilinged, like a storage area.

In fact, it may have been the basement, because...

A man is crouched in front of what was the huge coal-burning cast-iron furnace when this building was viable. Just like the one in your grandparent's house, that your father had to stoke when he was a kid. The crouching man is doing something I will not go into here. In the shadows and desolation he is doing it.

But I need to describe that long-ago furnace. And MOST OF ALL it is imperative that I identify what is embossed on the grated door. Remember back, if you will, any/all of you: the big cast-iron furnaces stoked by men with shovels and coal bins full of anthracite. Either in the basement of the house you were born in, or at a factory job you held back in the days when people actually held laboring employment. The slip-grate on the front of the rectangular, hinged door, so one could take a peek inside to see if the coke was embered or blazing. The name of the company, and usually a monicker--The Captain--Nanticoke--Gryphon--and the town or city where the furnace was cast, and a year. All of that was standard, legend of identity.

Can y'all look around the web and see if you can find me data, pictures, drawings, newspaper ads, ANYTHING that will give me a visual I can borrow to authenticate what the man crouching there sees on the front of that huge, soot-encrusted, abandoned furnace, a great-hearted beast that had heated an entire factory (or 3-storey apartment building) back in the 1920s, the '30s, '40s, '50s ... before time swept past and left this one rotted tooth of a building standing in the twilight, alone in a field that is so unimportant it isn't even a slum.

If at first no one can help me, Rick, will you undertake to repost this as current, oh maybe once a week till we strike paydirt? Thanks.

And thank you, in advance, everyone else. I really need this assist. And if you guys can casually debate the theoretic speed of light at the Big Bang, well, hell, this ought not be a toughie for you.

I am in your debt already. Yr. pal, Harlan

Dorman, I love you too.

I really don't like Hillary, but I loath the sexist stuff the media is throwing her way, like the stuff about her crying and whatever. The fact that she is controlling and the like. Subtle hate of women is obvious, nakedly so.

Then there's this stuff about black women in South Carolina being "confused" about who they should support, like they are too dumb to understand that it is not so easily explained as a fight about race and gender. Blacks are like anybody else, they want what they feel is the best person to run, be that person black or white or female. Blacks are sure as fuck more open minded about these things then right wing crackers.

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

Somebody should tell Romney that Howdy Doody wants his strings back.

DWST at ICON 27
I just read some news that I have been expecting (hoping!) to see: DWST will be shown at ICON 27, which is being held on Long Island at Stony Brook University on April 4-6.

Thanks very much to our esteemed host and to Mr. Nelson for making this happen. I am very eager and excited to see it.

Be well -- Lou V.

Ashwin: I'll keep a look out for McCaughrean. I don't know where I will be able to find her stuff, being in an ironically literary desert. I haven't read that many female English writers besides the Austen and Bronte that I had to read in school. One day I will fail to read everything, but I hope I have enough...

The Other Tony: After a conversation I had with some Right-leaning friends last night, I honestly don't know what's wrong with them. I don't remember all of what they were arguing, but they did defend the building of "the Tamales Wall and Moat" along a certain border to our south. After that the conversation boiled down to an inspection of the basic nature of human beings.

These two guys are Christian, I think some kind of protestant (I don't know which, they keep splitting off for no reason), and they hold to a pseudo-Hobbesian view that we are all just horrific monsters that cannot be redeemed through our own actions. When I argued with them, one of them called me a "Dirty Humanist."

You cannot argue with the Right, I think. They can be as wrong as possible, they can be so wrong that they flip across to the other side of wrong and flip again to being some sort of superwrong that I don't know the word for, you can be absolutely right in your idea, but it will not matter to them.

The Right is Pessimistic; The Left is Optimistic.

And on Synchronicity: Man, keep your eyes open. What's it called? Baader-Meinhof? Yep. Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, but I'm not sure if it's real. It might be imaginary.

Have a Happy Sunday,
Zack "The Dirty Humanist" Malatesta

OK, Harlan, what's with the death ray?
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/01/27/death-ray-machine-is-invented-by-cleveland-scientist/

That's right: exactly _four months_ after our host was born, a Cleveland inventor created a _death ray_.

And nobody's heard about it since.

What IS it with Cleveland?

Hillary is a few steps rightward of Bill. She's the shade of Barry Goldwater at best. She & McCain (the shade of Bob Dole) are slugging it out for an imaginary center.

Hell, I'm gonna meet Al Franken this Thursday evening, his second visit in 18 months to (huh?) Crookston, MN. It'll cheer me up.

Sam W: infant mortality accounts for some of it, but not all. Childbirth also took a big toll -- like, child-brides giving birth in the literal middle of Nowhere, & malnourished women popping 'em out every 12 months, though city hospitals killed plenty of new mothers with sepsis. Heck, a paper-cut could easily result in death, in the days before sulfa. But there were plenty of crotchety oldfarts around when the "average age" was under 40 years.

Erik: "Someone oughta do a documentary on you, and it."

Cool. Do ya know anyone?

;)

All: sometimes I wonder about Jungian cincidence. In the Forums, I've taken potshots at _Cloverfield_, & also pointed up that a nice young man named Jonah Goldberg has been touting his book (_Liberal Fascism_) wherein he proves that Nazism was a Pinko Jew conspiracy. Imagine my delight this morning when I open the newspaper & find Goldberg reviewing _Cloverfield_:

"In the wake of 9/11 and with the very real possibility that the first city to be nuked after Nagasaki and Hiroshima may well be New York...."

Are Rightists stupid, insane, or just incredibly high?

KOS/Tony, Yup, Tony's right. I pulled down my book of Ballard's, The Complete Short Stories (UK edition), and there it was on pp 298-304. Count Axel, his wife-the Countess, and the mob.

Hopefully the final word on a certain movie, etc.
I saw The Oscar some years ago when TNT aired it (in the wee hours of the ayem if I'm recalling right). Wasn't wild about it, but I'd already read at least one of our host's explanations of how it had been fubar'd long before it hit the screen, so I hadn't been expecting a whole lot.

As for Billary/Barack, I gave up prognostication a long time ago. That said, I don't think either gender or color automatically *guarantees that they'll both lose...but as my roommate's ex and I were speculating immediately after Iowa, if Barack does win and wants to go photo-opping down south any time soon, he'd damn well better remember not to stand up in the SUV.

First....
... allow me to quote a recent post across town (here, if anyone wants to go there:

http://tinyurl.com/yvheyj

“Oh ... yeah ... I forgot one interesting aspect of my wrist-slashingly depressive relationship to THE OSCAR:

I wrote the script for Steve McQueen and Peter Falk. Both were early in their blazing careers, I knew they were 100% dead-on perfect for Frankie and Hymie ...

And they gave me Stephen Boyd and Tony Bennett.

Now: try replaying my dialogue as coming out of the mouths of Real Thespic Talents, Steve and Peter, and it sorta derails your (and Erik Nelson's) locomotive chortling, don't it.

Just a humble thought from the Creator. Heaven knows he doesn't want to suggest that two MondayMorningQuarterbacks dropping into the pocket a mere forty-years-plus later are not the ne plus ultra of critical judgment. Go ahead, Nugent, and you, too, Nelson; kick the cripple as he's crawling away.

Sob.

Harlan (You don't have to call me "Mr. Ellison," Phil my tootsie. "Mr. Ellison" was my dad. He died in 1949.)

END of quote.

OK, “Harlan”, if that in fact is your REAL name, you are one dude who cannot take a bank shot insincerely sincere compliment.....

Understood, in this case. Lest I take one more Beckham like kick at the cripple....

... the great Clifford Odets served up dialog in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS and THE BIG KNIFE that many serious filmistas quote to this day. I seem to recall some of that dialog from SWEET SMELL being quoted as a runner through the equally great DINER. The, dare I say, greater Harlan Ellison served up the same rich portions of turigidossitude -- AND brilliance -- in “The Oscar”. Mr. Odets got lucky with his casting and directors.

You, and all agree, drew a different card, let alone a clumsy rewrite.

Mr. Odets, who, lest we forget, wound up begging to be allowed a rewrite on an Elvis movie (a good friend has the letter to Hal Wallis!), is now considered a screenwriting genius. You, on the other hand, have to bear mooks like Mr. Nugent and Mr. Nelson’s misguided devotion for your (admittedly) crippled offspring. In the words of fellow admirer Ronald Moore, "it's the words, stupid".

And they draw numchucks like us to its flame.

In this case, I am proud to be, in the words of Col. Bat Guano, a “prevert”. I grieve daily (OK, not daily, but on rare occasion) at the movies you COULD and SHOULD have written had THE OSCAR turned out differently, and closer to your original design.

But, you know, some of that stuff you wrote instead does have its merits.

Someone oughta do a documentary on you, and it.

But, in the words of another great American writer....

You don’t pull on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit on the wind...

AND, you do NOT get into a debate on the submerged merits of THE OSCAR, not with Superman hisself.

And not here, for chrissakes.

One from column “A”, one from column “B”.

You get eggroll either way.

Yr. Loyal Pal,
Erik

Make that...
FRANK: make that _are_ full of shit...

Everyone needs a good editor -- especially when typing to fast on these internet PostIt Note places. -- DTS

FRANK's Second to Last Post
FRANK: I actually think you're wrong: I think Hillary has a better chance at getting elected thand does Barrack (I said as much on another author's site -- and he owes me acopy of his novel if I'm correct) sometime last summer. Why? Because the majority of people holding a prejudice against blacks and/or those with even a hint of Arabian ethnicity far outnumber those who want to keep the glass ceiling low for women. Also, there are many who view Hillary as less than feminine (so they'll give her a pass on the chromosome thing), and many who feel that Bill will guide her (much as Cheney guided or steered Dubya -- and who DOESN'T want a return to a better economy?).

Yes, many things will remain status quo (as they would have under Barrack): the lobbyists will still have FAR too much power in America, guns will continue to be too readily available to anyone, drunk drivers and violent criminals wont be prosecuted the way they should be, global warming wont be seriously addressed (at least not in the first years of the administration) and the Christian church will still have far too much influence...that's just a few of the things that are wrong with our country...but changing the status quo has to begin with every Tom, Dick, Harry and Frank on the street. Most of whom -- as I've said before, ad nauseum -- are willfully ignorant: of science, of art, of the way their government and the media manipulates them and the laws and sacred documents carefully crafted by our founding fathers.

Hillary getting elected as President wont be The End of Times for liberals or the Democrats...but niether will it be the first wave in a Sea Change for America. For that to happen, folks have to disconnect from their TVs (something I've been without -- only use it to watch movies and classic TV shows -- for nigh on six months, and I don't miss it). The messages and media shat out by the boob tube is full of consumerism and banality and fear. And they need to rely less on their computers and the internet...begin to get out and circulate amongst each other -- and not inside their pseudo-house/tortise shell cars! -- so they remember what another person sounds and feels and smells like...so they remember what's at stake everytime they let a sanctimonious, proudly ignorant and unduly arrogant politician take the reigns in a place of power and play at being a leader.

'Nuff said.
--DTS

KOS:

I am wrong.

-he

the nature of the universe
The possibility of the speed of light changing over the history of the universe has been discussed for the past 64 months or so by physicists around the world. Where this stems from is observational evidence that the "fine structure constant" has changed. The fine structure constant determines the exact wavelength of fine structure lines in the spectra of atoms, and measurements of the spectra of quasars suggest that it many have decreased by 0.00072 +/- 0.00018 % over the past 6-10 billion years. A 2002 article in _Nature_ has this information in more detail.

The authors of that paper argue that since the fine structure constant is equal to the charge on an electron squared divided by Planck's constant times c (speed of light), then for the fine structure constant to change one of these must also change. They go on to provide an arguement as to why they think it must be the speed of light.

Of course, no one was around to measure these things back then so the point is mostly moot. Now as to how fast the expansion (or inflation if you prefer that term) was in the first 0.001 to 1 seconds of the universe, or even up to 380,000 years, there is evidence that it was faster and is still continuing and speeding up. They use the light from type 1a supernovae to measure this. Pretty heady stuff.

I also like fig newtons. maybe they'll make a cookie named after Prof Hawkings some day.

Speed of light at the Big Bang
Kind of a tricky thing: There was no light at the time of the Big Bang. It was too hot and dense for photon's to exist as single quanta. They kept getting bound up with matter.

About fout-hundred-thousand years on was the time when the universe cooled and thinned out enough that photon's decoupled from matter and light came into existence.

We can see that light. It's the Microwave Background Radiation that first provided evidence for the Big Bang being more than a neat idea. Brought to you by those bright people of AT&T at Bell Labs. Before the Federal Government destroyed Bell Labs in search of equality.

By the way, the term "Big Bang" was created by a science fiction writer. It was Sir Fred Hoyle, and he thought the idea was silly and deserving of a silly name. Oops.

At that time of decoupling light had the theoretical speed in a vacuum (just a smidgen under 300KM/Sec) it does now, near as can be told. If it hadn't, then the universe would have had different physical laws, and would not have become what it is now.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Sorry, best we can do.

Of course at the moment of decoupling there wasn't much vacuum. It was pretty dense, so who knows how fast it was actually moving. Light moves slower when it passes through matter. That's why it IS possible to travel faster than light.

This is why Harlan does not write science fiction. He already knew all this.

That's "Mister" Wizard to you, son.

AKA KOS The Double-Poster

50% ETC
So, Tony Ravenscroft, may I still assume that for instance if the life expectancy of someone born in the 18th or 19th century was significantly lower than it is today, that is due to the high infant mortality rates being factored into the equation? Most of the people on our money are old farts.

Thanks.

Also, to all you Mr. Wizards out there, can anyone tell me the speed of light at the Big Bang? Or guide me in the right direction?

Thanks again.

Sandra & Ian
The world is very much with me, of late. My mom was diagnosed last April with ALS; my father died the weekend before Xmas; a cousin died New Year's afternoon; one of Mom's dogs bolted on me a little over two weeks ago; we had to take her eldest dog to the vet, thinking she had pneumonia but she discovered to be more cancer than dog and so had to be put down, and in an especially cruel, ironic twist, we discovered that the Dog Who Bolted had been brought in the week before with broken leg and spine, and thus was put down; last night, sitting at a stop light, I was rear-ended, after which the dratted scoundrel drove into the night, at speeds one usually only sees on some sort of testing range.

Aside from my own woes, there is the tragic demise of Heath Ledger. Bad enough, but the Walking Talking Pustule, Fred Phelps and his collection of hate-zombies are planning on picketing Heath's funeral. Of all things to visit Australia for...

Everywhere I turn, more and more often, I see death, suffering, ignominy.

Then, Sandra and Ian, I catch up on doin's at Webderland...

I can't tell you how touched I was, how heartened and encouraged and touched I was by the story of your report on "Repent, Harlequin..." - to say nothing of how tickeled!

Ian - always, but ALWAYS be the person you really are. You make the world a somewhat more magical place than it has seemed for me to be, in quite some time. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Cheers,
Doc

KOS,

I think that story might be Ballard's "The Garden of Time."

Bests,

--tr

The Rose?
Harlan,

Since I have oodles of respect, both extant and immanent, for thee and thy knowledge of Lit'rature. I ask the following in guileless innocence and quavering voice: I looked up "The Rose" by Charles L. Harness (a writer whom I respect and also love: Read "The Ring Of Ritornel" years ago).

"Fictionwise" offers "The Rose" for sale as eBook, with a couple thousand words from the opening as preview. The story preview is of a ballerina, afflicted with a terribly disfiguring condition that ended her dance career. She has since devoted herself to writing a ballet score, "The Rose". A male friend persuades her to meet with a potential patron in an artists district, a sort of Rive Gauche, about placing her unfinished work in an upcoming festival.

This does not feel like the story I recall. Does it morph into the tale of the couple living in the mysterious "time out of joint" house in the wasteland?

Perhaps I had read only part of the story, in some horrid textbook that only excerpted the full tale, hence my confusion?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Anyone else with an answer can chime in. Please.

KOS

Erp! Thanks for catching my error, Harlan. Apologies for the Odell family for assuming the apostrophe.
___________________________________

Sandra, has Harlan taught you nothing? Packages sent under those circumstances do NOT have air holes, and are delivered book rate.

On a Saturday.

During a long weekend.
___________________________________

We're off to parts unknown. See y'all in a week or so.

Historical erotica: Abe Lincoln used to fuck Jacob Speed on a bearskin rug. He kept his boots on.

-----------

Hillary Clinton once told Bill to fuck off--he did.

----------

I once looked at the moon. It had its tongue stuck out.

-----------

I bought a hamburger from a sideshow performer. The bun had a beard.

-----------

One icicle fell down and almost got me. I built a snowman with its middle finger extended.

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

Islam is a good way to meet virgins.

-----------

I once worked in a factory that built chickens.

-----------

Polish vampires love to sunbathe.

----------

I once ate a banana in front of a chimp just to piss him off.

---------

The Space Shuttle needs mud flaps.

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

I want to see linoleum in the Sistine Chapel

--------

The Pope wears cha cha heels in the loo.

My earlier snarkiness brought to you by a sincere desire to box up both of my children and send them to Abu Dahbi, or the Ellisons, whichever does not require return postage. My apologies.

***

Tony,

Love the Burgess Meredith episodes. Even the Lee & Lee episode (the name of which escapes me at this blurry hour) is good for a tense moment or three.

***

Peter,

Will check it out.

***

Okay, going back to my quietly snarky corner.


shagin

I was hesitant to post this here, because I've always considered this Harlan-Space, and to me this tastes slightly (just slightly, and that's a personal issue) of being invited over for dinner and good conversation, only to slip in an Amway sale. But Harlan had tossed me some encouragement during my seedtime when he first settled in the Ol' Yeller and Black, encouragement I chased like a puppy bounding after a ball across rush hour traffic. I got through okay, except for some missing hair, a bent ear, and the permanent head tilt of Nipper the RCA dog. I count myself lucky.

Anyway, my first novel is a semifinalist for the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award, and like the Girl Scout pushing her delectably evil Thin Mint cookies, I'm going door to door soliciting reviews of the 5000 word excerpt posted on Amazon. Publishers Weekly posted a generally positive review of my novel (or from what others have said, is positive for Publishers Weekly), and right now there's an almost American Idol-esque popularity aspect to the contest (although the quality of reviews does count for something).

The excerpt can be read and reviewed by Amazon customers here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00121WDEW

This ain't spam. I ain't some stranger off the street peddling cans of processed pork product. I'm just an old regular and now lurker asking for some aid in his endeavor and for honest reviews of his work.

I thank ya.

~Peter

Sam Hill, et al.: okay, so I might as well use that BSci I supposedly got in sociological stats. The full/proper version is "50% of marriages end in divorce in the first three years." That's what it was back in the 1980s, anyway -- probably gotten worse.

Steve: but none of us has ever seen Chris & Cris in the same room together, so forgive us for being suspicious.

M. Ellison et al.: I've been digging through a "Twilight Zone" marathon that The Skiffy Channel put on at year's end, & reliving my literal childhood wonder. One episode was, well, far from perfect... but it starred Lee Marvin & Lee Van Cleef. Also got to see _three_ eps w/Burgess Meredith, & the incredible Chuck Bronson/Elizabeth Montgomery pas de deux. If there was a god, TV would have more such edgy, risky teleplay shows that give character actors a real chance to stretch.

Harlan,

Yup, no apostrophe. Apparently the name is off of an English base and not an Irish cum American interpretation. Used to drive my father-in-law crazy.

Will let Ian know, which should spin him quite nicely for the day. Should you receive a return box with air holes poked in the sides, you'll know why.


shagin

Ahhhh, the Oscar
Never saw THE OSCAR. Always wanted to. Closest I came was the SCTV parody, which nailed the awful combination of fervid dialogue and flat acting. I think Joe Flaherty recited Hymie Kelly's opening speech word-for-word. (Harlan, did you ever see it?)

And yeah, wanting to see it is perversion I understand. There are pleasures in such things. The movie I love in that manner is RUNAWAY TRAIN, based on an abandoned Akira Kurosawa screenplay and filmed by a not-untalented Russian director (whose name I would type here but who I am terrified of getting wrong), with Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, and Rebecca DeMornay; the movie is kinetic and compelling, but for reasons I can only attribute to the director's newness to the English tongue, he consistently used the takes that showcased all the actors at their worst. Flat deliveries? Check. Odd inflections with the emphasis on the wrong words? Check. Over-the-top actorishness? Check. I strongly believe that another potential cut of RUNAWAY TRAIN exists, where everybody was spot-on hitting every note, and it wouldn't be half as fun. What you have, now, is simultaneously Jon Voight's worst performance, and his best.

STEVE BARBER: the 3 went off today.

SANDRA ODELL: am I spelling Odell correctly? Share the inked remarks with Ian. Keep us posted.

Harlan

The Oscar blogger respondeth....
... apres Harlan's commentary. I must confess that I, like F. Scott's ideal and Mr. Nugent, can hold TWO opposing ideas in my mind at the same time concerning "The Oscar".

Anyway, I just shared the below with Mr. Ellison, as well as my complete agreement with its gist. His comment, shared with you all at his explicit request:

"You are both sickening perverts".

My work here is done.

January 25, 2008 7:05 PM
Phil Nugent said:
Moviemaking is a collaborative medium, and one of the unhappier effects of that is that sometimes, people who worked on a movie may get the credit, or feel that they get the blame, for work that someone else, as they say, "improved" upon. We can only apologize for any misunderstandings that result from the inherent unfairness of this system.

But however much Mr. Ellison may regret the imperfections and even the very existence of "The Oscar", we cannot, in good conscience, apologize for the pleasure this unique film has given us, or for wishing to inform others that it's out there somewhere, and that if they should ever have the chance to take a look at it, they should jump on that sucker like Slim Pickens riding the bomb down to Mother Russia. Seriously. The pleasure that "The Oscar" gives may be of a different order that that offered by, say, "Spider Kiss" or "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream," but it remains an unusual and memorable movie, one that retains its fascination after more than forty years, even as most of what came out of Hollywood at the same time has congealed into an indistinguishable mass of inert sludge. We are deeply grateful to Mr. Ellison for sharing his memory of and insight into its creation.

Endless Oscar nights
***Harlan*** I'm out the door (yes, I know it's 10PM here) but I saw this. Consider it noted and grabbed/copy-pasted. Very choice little rejoinder there. No need to cc Clifford that particular response as it goes in a different section than what I.D.W. will publish in volume 1. At least that's the "plan" as far as themed sections go as I understand it - and have tried to convey.

I'll be off-line over the weekend and GONE *period* tomorrow into Sunday as I'm toasting at a Burns Night dinner and am walking point with the "Address to a Haggis" In kilt and hose and sporran. Swoon. ;-)

Catch anybody who needs catching on the other side of the weekend.

Oh, and Harlan, one of those two books hits the mails tomorrow. The other is proving a wee bit more problematic.

- Barney

Dirkstab, PA.

THE SCOTT VANDER WERF POST JUST BELOW

For which, Scott, thank you. Considerably.

AND ... pursuant to that post and the link therein

This post is ONLY for the following:

1) BARNEY DANNELKE, who may wish to add it to the YR. PAL, HARLAN mss. -- for Barney to e.mail off to Mr. Meth.

2) ERIK NELSON, who dotes on such trivia.

3) TIM RICHMOND, because, like Barney, this stuff seems to have an epistemological fascination for him.

4) ANY OF YOU who have such pathetic little lives that you cannot get enough of my big fat mouth here in Webderland, and are thus drawn, leapers to the edge of the abyss, to more distant and serendipitous venues out of what one can only surmise is an unhealthy curiosity.

THUS: if you scroll back a few hours of today's entries here at the Pavilion, and you strike the vein of Vander Werf's URL link to the Screengrab mother lode, you will find quite an accurate review of My Maxima Mea Culpa circa 1966, with a rather longish comment post there-following.

Someone here may wish to archive either/both here at Webderland to assuage any johnnycomelatelies who may show up hereafter, inquiring about THE OSCAR. I leave it to yoursellufs.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

REPLY TO KOS

The story--one of the few truly great sf stories--TRULY GREAT--after which you seek, is the late Charles L. Harness's "The Rose." It is a heartbreaker.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

(Forgive the second post, but I'll be silent for the next week...)

But Tom Morgan asked "Is that your Chris I saw credited in the track listing of a 5CD John Mayall collection?"

I hope not Tom. CHris Barber is a male 78 year old British dixieland trombone player. He's not my type, really.

MY Cris (no "H") is a %# year old American jazz singer, and a cute brunette to boot. In their review of MY Cris' third CD the BBC noted the confusion, but hoped it would be short lived...

50% of all marriages.
I'm ready to be corrected by those in the know, but I think the statistic "50% of all marriages end in divorce" is not an accurate predictor for an individual marriage.

For instance, if I get married once and you get married 3 times, between the two of us there are 4 marriages and two divorces. No indicator of how long MY marriage will last.

Steve Barber,
Is that your Chris I saw credited in the track listing of a 5CD John Mayall collection?

Story Search Help
Looking for help with title/author of a classic Spec Fic story I read sometime in the late sixties to early seventies.

It may have been by J. G. Ballard.

The story was of a man and woman, probably elderly, who live in a house in a wilderness/desert(?). Surrounding the house is a garden, in which grow glass roses.

On the horizon a barbarian horde is visible, moving in extreme slow motion, trapped in some sort of time-stasis. The horde threatens to overrun the house and destroy the idyllic existence of the couple.

The man every now and then picks a single glass rose, and smashes it, slowing time and pushing the horde back a bit, delaying the inevitable. Finally there is just one glass rose left, and he breaks it.

I think at the end the horde is right at the wall of the garden.

I may have misremembered some details, but believe most are as related.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Politics: Barack has a small chance of winning the nomination (taking on the Clinton's politically is like getting into a knife fight with Jim Bowie), and smaller of winning the election. Just the way it is.

McCain or Romney will be the Republican nominee (likelier McCain, Romney is deeply disliked by what is left of the Party Establishment, and McCain (while not liked by them) is not as heartily despised. Then again, the NY Times just endorsed McCain.

Why can Barack likely not win if nominated? Because there are enough Americans who are closeted racists (why do you think the NH polls showed Barack winning, and yet he lost the primary by six points? People will tell a pollster one thing and do another when they are ashamed of their motives. Well known political fact not often talked about), enough Americans who think anyone with the middle name of "Hussein" isn't a "real American", and more then enough Americans who just don't like "funny" names. Added together they make enough to give him as many "Anyone But Obama" voters as Hilary would "Anyone But Hilary".

It's a popularity contest, remember?

I hope to be proven wrong.

The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong. It's just the way to bet.

The British bookmaker William Hill handicaps them:

Hillary Clinton 1/1
John McCain 10/3
Barack Obama 4/1
Mitt Romney 6/1

We shall see.

KOS

JAMES LEVY:

D'uuuuuh.

Of course!

What an idjit I am. Yes, of course I knew it was Woodrow Wilson's phrase, but I must have had one of my brain-fart interregnums and simply didn't make the short hop to his 14 Points.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Nerve.com Screengrab Celebrates
http://nerve.com/CS/blogs/screengrab/archive/2008/01/25/forgotten-films-quot-the-oscar-quot-1966.aspx

"(Tony)Bennett, who has spun such magic with the words provided to him by Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, and E. Y. "Yip" Harburg, here had the chance to work with a real peach: Harlan Ellison. The movie's script is credited to Ellison, Russel Rouse (who directed it), and Clarence Greene (who produced), and Ellison's penchant for dialogue that's so florid it's borderline lurid — pulp poetry with a touch of hepcat — is much in evidence."

Painesville justice
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080125/ap_on_fe_st/odd_judge_homeless_sentence

Frank,

Barack won't win.

And Barack's policies aren't that far Left either, anyway.

And a Libertarian vote only "protests" the balanced measures necessary to make the market work and a thriving American middle class. No Libertarian out there is Chomskyesque, so much as Randian.

Setting things right

Harlan and friends:

My friend Greg Benson is a maker of very funny, very clever short films. Recently, one of his pieces was pirated, and posted on a British film website as an entry in a contest to win an HD movie camera.

Greg spoke to the website's management and got the mess straightened out. The film ("The Kidnapping") has been reposted under Greg's name, and entered into the contest.

Many of us have had stuff stolen from us, and we know how that sucks. Wanna' strike a blow for artists' proprietary rights? Then go to the website (below) BEFORE January 31st, register and VOTE for Greg's film. He's a good guy, and deserves to win that camera.

http://www.clipstar.com/videopage.jsf?video=5_563_133

Love 'n kisses,

The Night Manager

Perception
The difference between what George Bush perceives and what happens to be true.

Find out the story of Bush's favorite painting. Read all the way to the end. It is perfect.

http://harpers.org/archive/2008/01/hbc-90002237

Ah Mr Loftus and Mr Dooner are referencing that exquisite purple eruption known as "said bookism", I believe.

"Said bookisms" are like Monty Python's sheep. They do not soar so much as plummet.

Bill Maher is back on the air, but with no writers, so he is doing a show with mostly guests and online questions. Maher mentioned that he supports the writers but thinks the union bosses are performing a "witch hunt" of sorts, because they are critical of anyone who doubts the reasoning behind the strike, or the fact that maybe the writers should make lesser concessions, at least for now. He also wanted to ask if it was the right time for a strike and that mentioning that made you the enemy of the union. Bill thought that was against free speech.

He does have a point, but justice dictates that the writers keep it coming, at least for a while longer. Revolution can be ugly, that's the point.

----------

Rob, I would vote for the libertarian as a protest vote, knowing that they could never win, even a bake sale.

Hillary is going to kill it for us and elect McCain, mark my words. Barack must win or the left is toast.

loud and sudden remarks


Steve Dooner recalled, uh, I mean said:

:: When I was in fifth and sixth grade, I read every Lester
:: Dent "Doc Savage" book I could find in Bantam paperback,
:: and Doc's man, Johnny, always used fabulously long words
:: that I loved to look up. In dialogue though, Dent would
:: frequently have Johnny "ejaculate."

You'll find that verb a number of times in the Holmes canon, too. When I was recording and reading Holmes stories aloud before live audiences, I ran across Watson saying "I ejaculated" once or twice. I normally stick very close to the written text when in performance or recordings, but in this particular instance I quietly left out the phrase.

Actually, I'm surprised I didn't run across this usage in Gravity's Rainbow, with which I am nearly finished (page 732 this morning). It's a natural.

Elmore Leonard argues that writers should never use words other than "said" when composing dialog, and I suppose it can be intrusive when people "aver," "postulate," or "rejoin."

I believe I can speak to this point. When I was in fifth and sixth grade, I read every Lester Dent "Doc Savage" book I could find in Bantam paperback, and Doc's man, Johnny, always used fabulously long words that I loved to look up. In dialogue though, Dent would frequently have Johnny "ejaculate." I, of course, dilligently looked up the word and found that it meant "erupt" in conversation. So, I started using it in my school essays and stories so profusely that I spent a year with school psychologist.

Steve Dooner

The winds blew, the rains came. Life goes on.

Around two a.m. something -- it might have been a tornado but did no visible damage -- whistled over our home creating what has to have been one of the most intense downpours I've ever seen here in SoCal. Cris reported opening the front door (fearless, my wife) to see rain falling sideways to the street.
________________________________

"Freedom of the Seas" is also a cruise ship in the Royal Caribbean fleet -- which adds to the complexity of the "Queen Mary 2" joke.
________________________________

I'm sure Erik will correct me if I'm wrong, but DWST is not playing at Sundance. But, as has been referenced here a few times, it IS being shown at the SXSW Film Fest in Austin.
________________________________

Last thought: The wind is whistling down the chimney making a sound strongly reminiscent of the desert windstorm in the movie THEM. Enough to send chills down your spine...

What drought???

Dear Harlan,

Your earlier comment about open covenants, openly arrived at was a direct quote from Woodrow Wilson's "14 Points" declaration of 1918. Another of his "points" was his declaration of "freedom of the seas" which was meant to repudiate the German tactic of unrestricted submarine warfare. Please forgive the lame joke about the Queen Mary 2, but I surmised incorrectly that you knew the origin of your quote; it must have just been floating in the ether and your voracious mind picked it up.

DWST at Sundance
Not being a regular poster hereabouts (but a full time lurker at the threshold), I may have missed this. Is DWST being "pitched" or shown at Sundance? Just curious and very hopeful to see HE in hs glory on the Big Screen.

Also, has anyone read the "Lost" Teen Titans Annual by Bob Haney? Just wondering if it would be worth picking up.

good read
Zack (and anybody else looking for something to read):

If you can get a copy, NOT THE END OF THE WORLD by Geraldine McCaughrean is well worth checking out, and can be read in a single sitting. The story of Noah's Ark retold. That's all I will tell you, because otherwise I will end up writing a review, and I don't want to do that. And you probably don't want me to do that either. Just don't be put off by the fact that it's aimed at kids. Really, it's just a terrific book.

Sorry, can't do anything about Italian politicians.

Hydrox site
http://www.spacefem.com/hydrox/

This is the site metioned in the WSJ article.

JAMES LEVY: I haven't the thinnest sliver of an idea what you're talking about.

Sorry.

-he

Editors
Why, Prodi? Why?!

Hahaha! I love Italic politics. Who needs government anyway?

And on the reading section: I'm running low on writers. Who is good? Who can I read that will knock me on my fat Italian ass? I need to learn some more...

I don't have my Essential Ellison with me and I'm all out of Twain, Mencken, Faulkner, Hemingway, Dick, Vonnegut, Asimov, and Thompson as well. It's gonna be a long and frozen weekend in this sad, little town, and I am gonna go out of my mind. Out of my mind!

I got nothing, and I realize now that even if you guys could point me in the direction of something good, I wouldn't be able to get it. Hell, I should just delete all this and leave a message about Prodi. There you go, added at the top ifn ya didn't notice.

Dammit. One day I'm gonna have a fuckin' library stocked by...by someone that knows a lot more than me about this crazy industry, and I'll sit in my library all day long and just laugh and laugh and laugh.

Because that's the punchline, you see. So what if it is vague and unaffective? It's not even comedy; it's not even tragedy.

Dammit again. I'm sorry, gals and guys. When you got no one to listen to you, you gotta yell at something. The wind.

anything

"Other" referring to Huggins, not Garner.

Sorry

credit where credit is due -- Rockford
With all recognition to wonderful Garner (the man punched out Glen Larson -- you have to love him for that) and the many other fine writers (particularly the gifted Cannell), you can't mention Rockford without stopping to remember Roy Huggins (a.k.a. John Thomas James). Rockford. Maverick. The Fugitive.

Amazing.

Paul wrote:
"Our wedding is Feb. 29th, '08. So far the only stress she's had is how the divorced parents are going to get along with the new spouses. Our only argument has been over the music, and we just decided to bear with each others tastes, since we do anyway. I understand there is something called "middle ground" which we tend to traverse on occasion. Here's to hoping it stays that way."

Communication is your friend and the middle ground is the best place to do it. As for wedding stressors, hubby advises "smile, nod, and always have chocolate ready".


shagin

Leap Year nuptials

:: Our wedding is Feb. 29th, '08.

So you'll only get to (have to) celebrate your anniversary once every 1,460 days?

Here's hoping you manage to see that silver anniversary . . . .

Is this the first time I've double posted? I think so.

Harlan, I am not personally acquainted with Patton in any way, but I did send a message to his comment section of his journal/blog, and copied your passim verbatim. The posing reads thus:

"Patton, some folks and I were discussing your appreciation for Harlan Ellison on his fan-run website-
http://harlanellison.com/heboard/unca.htm-
and he asked me to convey this message:

"If you get a spare moment, could you let Patton Oswalt know I'm here, and ask him to get in touch so I can clutch his claw?"

That's his way of saying, come by the above URL, leave a comment, say hi and whatnot. Shmooze.
This is real, no gimmick or weirdness attendant. If you scroll on the page, you'll see the request he made at Thursday, January 24 2008 10:45:55 (am)"

That's the best I can do. He's a funny guy, but I gotta go with Galifianakis for sheer foot pounds of laughter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It's not that 50% of marriages end in divorce that is the astonishing rate, it's the 50% of marriages that end in MORE MARRIAGE."
~ Michael Ian Black, a happily married man.

Our wedding is Feb. 29th, '08. So far the only stress she's had is how the divorced parents are going to get along with the new spouses. Our only argument has been over the music, and we just decided to bear with each others tastes, since we do anyway. I understand there is something called "middle ground" which we tend to traverse on occasion. Here's to hoping it stays that way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James~ Now , THAT is a Barney Quizzer if'n I ever heared of one!

Quote help
I need some help tracking down a quote which I believe came from one of Mr. Ellison's essays. In this quote he talks about selling your writing where ever you can, to the publishers until they cut you off, in the marketplaces and even on the street corners. Do whatever you can but above all never give in to fear because the moment you do they have won. Several years ago I had this pinned to the wall over my desk and since I am finally getting a proper work area set up once again I would like to have this quote up on the wall. I have tried several different searches in Google to no avail as well as digging through the Ellison volumes I currently have in my office with similar results. Any help would be appreciated!

Dear Uncle Harlan,

Do the other 13 Points also apply? And if so, does "freedom of the seas" imply that I get a no-expenses paid trip on the Queen Mary 2?!? Just askin'.

HERC and The Rabbit Hole
SUSAN

I suspect that my HERC membership has lapsed. Would you please check on this matter? And I may have missed a few issues and am more than willing to pay for those back issues.

I'm extricating myself from a disastrous relationship and in the process of moving, I have many papers in boxes, not readily accessible. So...I thank you in advance for your help.

And I'm thanking you now for providing a regular Ellisonian fix with The Rabbit Hole.

Richard Halasz

My P.O. Box number/address remains the same. RH

Even with an attorney, the divorce process can linger, in my case 21 months after first papers were served. My attorney "no longer practices in Michigan", which was said with a tone of voice indicating that he had screwed up, so I had to get another. The replacement attorney had no feel for the case. After I had the "final" paperwork turned in, it was another 5 months before the divorce was finalized. And even that day, it was mediation that ended the thing. I said "X-Y-Z", the counter proposal was "X-Y-Z, but I want Z today", the Mediator said "That's unrealistic", and it was ended that quickly. 20 minutes total of mediation.

Get an attorney. If you eventually don't like that one, get another, but do not keep switching, especially if you have scheduled court times. Do not piss off the judge. From the few times I have seen a judge react to something, I think most of them take every little slight to the Court as a case where you have slapped their Sainted Mother in the face. (Vindictive Authority Figures---imagine that.)

Best of luck to any who are involved in divorce.

To those who are single, remember that marriage is the leading cause of divorce.

PAUL IN AUSTIN:

If you get a spare moment, could you let Patton Oswalt know I'm here, and ask him to get in touch so I can clutch his claw?

Thanks.

(And no, I don't neeed my diaper changed, I'm just a little bit how shall I put it, webistically-shy.
----------------------------------------------------------------

OZ-POSTER:

I never met Ms. Bartlett. Steve is a long-time friend. I've met David Chase. Nice man.

Terry Gilliam and I are big fans of each other's work.

Use your real name next time. Around here it's "Open Covenants, Openly Entered Into."

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Brian,

As someone whose divorce will, please whatever deity you wish, be complete in the next day or two, allow me to give you some small bits of wisdom I have accumulated that you may pass along to your friend:

* It will always be harder than you think. Areas where you thought you have perfect agreement will be some of the largest area of contention.

* Start with using a mediator, but do not be afraid to stop the mediation process and just go to court if necessary. Mediation is a wonderful process if both parties in the divorce are healthy, sane individuals who are committed to ending the process as quickly and cheaply as possible. When you realize that the other party in the process is as crazy as a soup sandwich, however, do not be foolish like I was and try to work through the process, just let the courts handle it.

* Make sure you have a good support network around you. Does not matter if it is friends, co-workers, a therapist just make sure you have someone to talk to who is willing to tell you when you are getting ready to do something stupid.

* Harlan gave me advice which should be in the archives from last year on 1/2/07. In it, he provides some advice which is extremely practical

Send me an email if you need to discuss anything in greater depth

I wish your friend all the best, it is the most miserable process I have ever been through and I hope the resolution to his situation comes much quicker than mine

Mark

I need to ask for some advice. I have a friend who needs good legal advice or counsel for divorce in the New York City area. There are few assets and no children. I've snagged heaps of info from the NY State court web pages, including do-it-yourself forms and manuals and FAQS, and that's a start. But it's looking as though an attorney may be required. If anyone here has someone they could recommend, please let me know, so I can pass the info along. Send it to brian at briansiano dot com if you'd like to keep this board free of the topic.

Why do I know this stuff?

Barney, the Harlan mention is on Werewolves and Lollipops. There's a review that mentions it briefly here:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/44557-werewolves-and-lollipops

Also, from a while ago, Patton wrote on what i presume is his personal website journal, here:
http://www.pattonoswalt.com/index.cfm?page=spew&id=24&mode=comments

If you scroll a touch down to 4/20 CLEVELAND, SERIOUSLY, you will find a nice thank you to Cleveland for giving us certain people.

That was easy, just 'cause my Kathy loves Oswalt and reminds me where pop culture shit is on the web (she used to be friends with the Pitchfork crew). I cannot fathom tracking down forty-five year old anecdotes with dead celebrities that someone 'may' have overheard.
This better be a helluva book, Dannellke. ;)

"He was very wise to stay out from the limelight, too bad the dark light snached him instead.

May he rest in a kinder place."

Me, I'm just counting the days until Matt Stone and Trey Parker inevitably pick up the Heath Ledger ball and run with it.

Come on. You know as well as I do they're gonna do it.

THERE WILL BE BLOOD
Excerpt from a much longer essay about THERE WILL BE BLOOD:

"Charles Foster Kane of CITIZEN KANE and John Plainview of THERE WILL BE BLOOD would not like one another, but they would understand one another, and find chilling resonance in their respective downward trajectories. They are both Americans, both rich men, both damned by an essential flaw of character that will ultimately leave them wandering alone in sprawling mansions.

Plainview's fortune is based on oil, which he's skilled at drilling from the Earth, but his greatest talent is public relations; he's very good at talking people into selling him their land for a fraction of the money he will make from it, and the skill gives him pleasure, because as he eventually confesses, he looks at people and sees nothing he likes. He is not incapable of love; he seems to have a genuine affection for the young boy he has adopted -- left him when a fellow driller dies in an accident -- and who he has cast as the angelic son who stands beside him in silence while he delivers his sales spiel. But his driving force is wealth, and his contempt for the human race eats at his sanity. He will gain everything but lose his soul. He may not have always been a monster, but that is sure as hell where he will end up."

Translation: Holy shit. See it.

another bankshot Ellison reference
OK, I'm getting this at two steps remove, but from reliable sources that somewhere in one of Patton Oswalt's recent comedy releases (he has had 7 in the last 8 years)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patton_Oswalt

there is a ONE LINE reference to him confessing to being a big geek who read Harlan Ellison as a young man. I like Oswalt as a comedian just fine. He ranks just below the likes of Lewis Black and the late Mitch Hedberg and Bill Hicks in my modern pantheon - but I'm not spending thirty or forty dollars just to track down one "I liked Harlan" reference.

BUT, in the interest of completeness I mention it here.

- Barney

MAJOR thank you to Paul for remembering that Hydrox conspiracy location and/or tracking it down. Thank you. - B.

Correction to message from Scarecrow
Harlan: Um, make that Juanita Bartlett (typos, the bane of existence here in Oz).

Questions for Harlan
Hey Harlan: Have you ever met Juanita Barlett, Stephen J. Cannell or David Chase (all writers of "The Rockford Files")? Just curious, because I've been watching the third and fourth seasons of that show -- about 90 -95 percent of the episodes in those seasons are top-notch, due, in large part, to the writing (no reflection on James Garner, who is always excellent).

Second question: I recall your mentioning -- in an installment of "Harlan Ellison's Watching," that Ridley Scott once wanted to be the John Ford of genre films. Do you think that slot has been aptly filled by Terry Gilliam? (I know two of his movies, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "The Fisher King" could be labeled mainstream, but the hallucinations experienced by the characters in both films have the feel of fantasy).

In fact, since most of you Webderlanders are film buffs, chime in with your opinions as well. Whattaya you guys think? Is Terry Gilliam the ultimate genre director or what? I LLLLLove is his movies: (along with the aforementioned) "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Time Bandits," "Brazil," "The Adventures of Baron Von Munchausen," "Twelve Monkeys," and even "Tideland" (which no one seemed to like). Hell, I thought the exhibited pieces of his work shown in the "La Mancha" documentary were great.

Hope his new movie gets made, and that they dedicate it to Heath Ledger, who was certainly a talented thespian.

Cheers,
S.C.

PLAINTIVELY ...

Would someone more adept than I please use the URL given by Barney, just below, and get a copy of my column 38, AN EDGE IN MY VOICE (8 August 1982) to Christopher Rhoads at The Wall Street Journal? Please? Please!

I want my name placed Emeritus on that demand for the return of Hydrox cookies! Many many thanks to whomever.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

Josh, 28 is way too young. I hate to interfere, but did he have depression, from what you know? He was a talented young man. That blood trickle in the snow defiles the virgin splendor.

He was very wise to stay out from the limelight, too bad the dark light snached him instead.

May he rest in a kinder place.

Cookies

Barney, The Great Hydrox/ Oreo Cookie Conspiracy can be found as Installment 38 in An Edge In My Voice. 8 August '82 seems to be the original print date.

I'm a Tim-Tam man, myself.

Love and Loss
Almost exactly two years ago I lost a friend, a marvelous young woman who was, like Ledger, a mere 28 years old. She lived alone, and when I couldn't get ahold of her for two days in a row -- highly unusual, since we spoke often by phone -- I passed my concerns on to her family, and they sent the police, who found her slumped over her bath tub. To this day no one knows how she died, because she had laid there too long. She was a bright, fierce, funny woman and I miss her terribly. Ledger's death makes that loss even more acute. 28 years old. Good god.

Hydrox/Oreo conspiracy link
A friend of mine sent me this. Long time readers and convention goers will know Harlan has a very funny rant about this. I know he formalized it "somewhere", but it's one of those things that I enjoyed that I can never quite remember which essay it appeared in.

Here you go;

Barney - I thought you’d like this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120069573721101481.html?mod=yahoo_itp&ru=yahoo

It has both an Allentown (East Stroudsburg anyway) and Ellison connection.

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

- Barney

Whitestuff, PA.

REPLY TO JOHN SABOTTA

Kind words, appreciatively received. Thank you.

But, then, how could I think anything but "grand!" of the man as played onscreen by my old friend, the late Lee Van Cleef, a moment to pray, a second to shoot, Sabata.

Respectfully, Harlan Ellison

Ledger

:: I have noticed on some other websites a sad trend of people praising his acting, "except in that damn brokeback gay movie".


"Brokeback" was a marvelous movie, and Ledger was incredibly good in it. Although Josh and various news stories I've seen declare that he rejected a lot of big-budget "sure winners," I even liked him in one of those . . . a so-so remake of that old standby, "The Four Feathers."

Isn't it funny how filmgoers don't freak out over an actor who pretends to kill dozens of people, but do over one that pretends to love somebody?

Whereas it would appear the pressure on the actor in this case came from the opposite.

Condolences, Josh. The news this morning indicates it was probably just an accident, but the results won't be released for another ten days or so.

I cannot admit to being an overt fan of Heath Ledger simply because I have seen so very few of his movies. But I've seen enough (THE PATRIOT, MONSTER'S BALL, and THE BROTHERS GRIMM) to know he was talented and had the unique ability to vanish into a role.

Last night I had a dream which ended at a barrier on Mulholland Drive, a wall that had been placed over tire tracks that disappeared off into a canyon. Clearly evocative of James Dean, an obvious connection.

May Ledger's memory be that of talent lost too early, and let the memory grow with the thoughts of what he might have become.

___________________________________

And, though not to distract from the above, I couldn't let John Sabotta's comments go unremarked upon. I know, I'm easily baited.

I admire those who can be fair and honest in their compliments and criticism, but "slightly unfriendly exchange" is such a vast understatement of the vitriol Mr. Sabotta posted in numerous places that it defies fair appraisal. You have to wonder, as Kim asks, what prompted the post below, and why at this particular time?

Thanks, Harlan.

I can't say Heath was a friend in any kind of real sense, but I did know him, and our acquaintance was more than passing.

Brokeback Mountain was the movie to beat the year I was doing the awards circuit, and I'm in that group of people who thought it was a lovely, powerful piece of work. A movie about two men in love that actually somehow managed to connect with a straight male audience. That's an accomplishment, and not to slight the amazing writing, I think Heath's performance had a lot to do with that.

It became a running gag that at every awards show I went to, I'd bump into Heath at the bar before the event. Every single one, even the BAFTAs in London.

When I went to the Oscars, I wandered over to the bar before the show and looked around, didn't see him. Ordered a drink, and before it arrived, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to see him there.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

We ended up connecting a few times after that, and I went up to the house once or twice for parties. I can't say I got to know him well, but I feel safe saying he was a good guy, and he really cared a lot about following his own muse. He turned down a ton of big buget sure things in favor of work that mattered to him - it's one of the things we bonded over. He was tickled that the first job I took after being nominated was co-writing an episode of an anthology TV show with the writer who made me want to be a writer, instead of the enormous budget sci-fi (I use the term advisedly) crap fest that would have netted me a gazillion dollars.

I know he was conflicted about Batman, but I could see that the challenge of doing something really dark and different with it appealed to him - from what I've seen, he's going to wash the taste of Nicholson's ham out of the collective mouth forever.

The last time I saw him was a few months ago, I was crossing the street and he honked and waved, which impressed the hell out of the young lady I was with. He was smiling broadly.

At the other end of the spectrum, Ledger's death will probably attach a nasty reputation to a production that simply doesn't deserve it.

http://defamer.com/347791/heath-ledgers-final-project-was-being-helmed-by-notorious-bad-luck-magnet-terry-gilliam

What the hell IS God's beef with Terry Gilliam, anyway?

Heath Ledger
My most heartfelt condolences to his family, fans and friends.
Too short a run on the stage of life.
I have noticed on some other websites a sad trend of people praising his acting, "except in that damn brokeback gay movie".
Stupid narrow minded people.

More on Ledger
In light of that, Josh,

If I hadn't made it clear, in my earlier post, that my comments about Heath Ledger's death were made with all appropriate sadness about the loss of a human being who did not have to go at such a young age, then please consider that omission rectified.

All I've heard indicates that this was a true accident, not even related to reckless recreational drug use, but the kind of unfortunate drug interaction that could happen to anybody, even those who believe they're being responsible; I just found it tragically ironic that the role likely to propel him into the A Plus list may have contributed to the conditions that led to his unfortunate demise. Ironic. Not funny. I didn't even know the guy, and this will still likely cast a substantial cloud over a performance and a film I was looking forward to and still intend to see.

This is quite a different thing from the gibbering I've read elsewhere, the facile bleats on the part of personalities on such gathering-places-for-imbeciles as the message boards on Aint-It-Cool-News, to the effect that they don't feel any sympathy for Hollywood assholes who blah blah blah blah blah. There have been any number of people who jumped to THAT meme, the instant his death became public knowledge, who didn't even wait to see what happened before they began trumpeting about moral just deserts. Again, I didn't even know the man and I had more than enough of that self-serving self-righteous posturing at first glance. It genuinely angered me. After all, this would be no less tragic even if he'd deliberately or recklessly hastened himself into that good night. But the bleats go on, and I'm certain we will hear more of it -- most likely on Faux News, among other places that like to portray the film industry as monolithically evil -- before the next story arrives.

I note that I thought he was great in MONSTER'S BALL and BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and I was looking forward to his Joker. And I ask that you please accept my sympathies for the loss of your friend.

KOS: you could try melanza!

John Sabotta? Hmm, would that be the same "John Sabotta" who called someone a "senile old fool" on Journlaista for September 30, 2006?

Seems so.

Interesting. You come here to "compliment" our friend in his own corner of the Internet about something that was settled, what, four years ago and was largely a misunderstanding but this is beside the point.

Where's MY rod. Forgive me, for I am also a "bit" impulsive.

But this is Harlan's corner of the Internet, so I will restrain my impulse.

Malocchio! Basta! How does one say "troll" en italiano?

KOS

He was beautiful and gifted. My oldest son is the same age. It's heart shattering. I think of his family-- his mother and his child. It's too sad for words.

I'm sorry for the shock, Josh. Nothing prepares.

My heart to yours,
Cindy

Despite our earlier disagreement....
...I would like to observe somewhat belatedly, Mr. Ellison, that your defense of Gene Wolfe against the absolutely shameful treatment he received at the hands of writing workshop idiots was an act of decency in the cause of justice. Outrages against literature should not go unanswered. An act of despicable ingratitude in response to Mr. Wolfe's considerable personal generosity should not go unavenged, and in this case your anger was justified and righteous. (I realize, of course, that my approval means nothing, and properly so, but after our slightly unfriendly exchange earlier, I feel I have a duty to say this.)

This:

"Today, colleges are not permitted to discuss “failure” as a life possibility. Not to upset the ego-drenched little parvenus surfeited with their 21st Century self-pity, pointless rebellion, need to deconstruct and ridicule, not to mention their rodent-like feeling that everything and anything they want, they deserve, and they don’t need to work to get it."

...is exactly right. In my opinion, any workshop swine (or swinette) who dared utter a word of disrespect to Mr. Wolfe should be beaten with iron rods, but I am somewhat impulsive.

John S.

(I still, however, wince slightly at the word "trottercases", but I suppose "swinette" is really no better.)

damn

RE: THE PASSING OF HEATH LEDGER

as it pertains to us here:

Go carefully with the remarks, folks. Ledger was someone Josh knew. I think it matters to him.

-he

STEVE BARBER:

Plz call me at yr convenience. U know the #.

he

Ledger
Just the information that has come out so far points to an accidental overdose, and not even the kind of overdose that comes with stupid recreational use.

1) In a recent interview about his appearance in THE DARK KNIGHT, he said that the role of a sociopathic murderer with no human feeling, the Joker, went home with him at night and that he had so much trouble sleeping because of it that he was taking sleep medication for the first time in his life. It may have, unfortunately, become a habit.

2) His family says that he had pneumonia and was taking medication for that as well.

If the picture this paints is at all accurate, then his role as the Joker very likely killed him.

Well......
We don't know all the facts as yet as to wether it was suicide or accidental overdose

There is only one fact right now.

Heath Ledger's death is not only a loss for his fans but also a even greater loss for his family and the friends he had.
In the end, powerful as film is....
it is after all, an illusion.

Who you are and the mark you leave behind to those who know you without the makeup and the fame is what counts.

It's tempting to say "good career move," but that would be tasteless. I wasn't a fan of Ledger, especially, but he did show some promise as an actor. Helluva shame.


* * * * *


I know I can't be a great artist but sometimes I can do things.

Heath Ledger Dead
Heath Ledger, about to be seen as the Joker in the next Batman movie, was found dead today of a suspected drug overdose.

-TODD

IAN:
Out of the mouths of babes...

Ian brings a tear to my eye this cold, snowy morn.

Ian Jackanape
"You are a great writer because you write great stories and a great friend because we can dream together."

That's the best tribute to Harlan I've ever read.

The preceding post brought to you by parental encouragement sans parental editing. I'm now off to bandage my bloody cuticles...


shagin

To Harlan Ellison
Dear Harlan Ellison,

Thank you for letting me use your story for my report. The class liked it. Repent Harlequin said the Ticktockman was a fun story to read. Harlequin rules!!!!!!!!!

I liked throwing the jellybeans because there are jelly beans in the story. That was being a jackanapes like you and Harlequin. It made people smile, even my teacher after a while. I didn't get introuble to much, but I did have to clean up the jellybeans so they wouldn't make a mess or atract bugs.

You are a great writer because you write great stories and a great friend because we can dream together. I am going to be a great artist and a jackanapes. Sometimes I can't do things but I know I can be a great artist.

I have to go to school. Thank you everyone who congratulated me. Harlequin rules!!!!!!



Ian Odell

Aaron Teschner - congratulations on the new baby. :) Lots of fun times ahead, and I wish you and yours the very best.

"Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."

MLK

verbiage----the new "hot" word.

"Verbiage" is used in one of Barney's quoted emails. It is also currently being used in a commercial to sell goods on how to control your children. The author of the book speaks, then a woman with a voice that induces pictures of Neanderthals says: "We learned Verbiage!" as if "verbiage" was the latest miracle drug. My Mother knew verbiage:

"Your Father will be home in half an hour."

That's all the "verbiage" I needed to hear.

King.

He wasn't a President, back when being President was something which inspired people.

He wasn't a movie or television star.

He wasn't born to a lofty and wealthy position, raised in a gated estate by a nanny in Newport, RI, just off the Cliff Walk. Nor did he run a major multinational corporation from a corner office perched high above Madison Avenue. He was not a famous war hero. His batting average was likely pretty bad, and I'd guess he wasn't much for tennis.

But a dreamer? He dreamed as many had before him, but he dreamed and talked and touched.

And in that dream, and in that talk, he made it so that all of who wanted to all aspire to something better than our selves and than our culture could do so. He was in many ways just a regular man, just an everyday mortal -- but he possessed that singular ability to talk to us in such a way that barriers moved and minds opened.

Some people mistakenly thought his words were spoken just to one group, but others knew what he meant and to whom he needed to reach. People, a lot of them, listened and understood -- or at least started to.

Not all of them, and not all in the same way or at the same time, but enough that 39 years after his passing we're still talking about him -- and his dream.

This is the power of the not-so-common man.

And, as all people of this ilk will do, he attracts detractors. "He's only a man!" Yes. Yes he was. With weaknesses and strengths and hopes and fears and dreams and nightmares. Not perfect, but perfection in and of itself was never the goal.

(Let them talk, and in their talk demonstrate that they -- among us all -- are the ones who most need to listen.)

I will button my lip til tuesday, with knee on the holy ground, face to the clouds:

"You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression ... If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream"

"Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy."

"I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

MLK.

Adam-Troy, while I would echo your comment about Cloverfield that it should be avoided if the viewer ain't a fan of the shaky camera technique, I do not think this film was about 9/11. True, it does use elements from that horrific event, but in the end I would say this film is about nothing more than people struggling to survive in an impossible situation.

This is not a bad film, but I did find it deeply disappointing because there are parts of the film that are brilliant. It just needed a little bit more time to expand upon those points and to get rid of some of the sillier elements, which I will not elaborate upon because of spoiler restrictions. But, hell, what do I know, it just broke the January weekend box office record.

My more detailed review, with some minor spoilers, is over in the Forums.