Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion

Discussion of the man and his work.

No WAY!
Honey West? I LOVED that show-- I yearned to look like just her when I was a kid. In yet another example of what a dork I was-- I got into my mother's black eyeliner and painted a mole on my face. My stepfather thought it was a malignancy when he met me for the first time.

Honey West-- how cool izzat!
Cindy


Hey Shagin,
It's good to see you!
:)
Cindy

JAN:

We can always use extras--and sometimes, without knowing it, thinking it may be "known," our overseas sources send us something we didn't even know existed. So if you need advance monies to procure what you spot, just tell us where to send it, in what amount, and in which currency. Better more than less items, if you're up to it, C. Auguste, mon ami.

Yr. Pal, Harlan

HANGING QUESTION FOR ZACK MALATESTA

A short while ago, circa 23 December, we received an Xmas card from you and Jessi. We'll skip my feelings about such cards, expressed in detail in THE GLASS TEAT, and merely ask--again--what's with the ten-dollar-bill in the envelops?

We haven't spent it, because we don't know why you sent it.

Please enlighten us.

Respectfully, Harlan & Susan Ellison

*Tick* . . . *Tick* . . . *Tick* . . .

(Also Italian, French and plenty of German anthologies, I should add, in case it's important. Sorry about double posting.)

You'll get the Harlaan papyri in about two months. I am triggering the alarm system every four hours and will go in soon. After that it's all quick. Faisal, last year, has tried to track down the 11 (?) lost papyri which contain the secrets and (a professor here thinks) the location of the "door" or gateway. We thought the pages would still be in the Caspian Sea. If Faisal found them, which he insists he didn't, he has hidden them again. This is between you and me. He doesn't talk anymore and his eyes...

I believe the recent Tommy Smothers interview on Bravo was in reference to the DVD recently released of the best of year three of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, along with censored and/or deleted material. "Smothered" is a much earlier DVD, which I believe was edited by Maureen Muldaur, that concerns the censorship troubles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and not the actual showing of the tv shows itself. I guess they are going for the greatest effect with the last year of the show first including all that occured during what would be the last year of the show as it was cancelled by CBS that season. I certainly hope they release the first two years of the show also, it was a great favorite of mine and I would use my tape recorder to record the shows so I could listen to them over and over again. I have all the original albums they released and actually saw them live in concert at the Hollywood Bowl summer of 1974, with oddly enough a new artist at the time Olivia Newton John as their opening act.

In the words of Douglas Adams: "Don't Panic"

I believe Rick, under the influence of the dreaded "Pirin" tablets (aspirin with the "as" rubbed off) may have archived messages without mentioning it publicly.

Y'know, this is what happens when the kid with the keys is post-surgical.

Forgive the third post Rick, but I thought a comment was warranted.

QUERY TO FAISAL AND JAN IN THE EU

Hoping for an update, fellahs:

In going back a bit, I remember that each of you mentioned that there were books containing something by me in, for instance, Persian editions. We've tracked some of that material down, but is there still incunabula you two are keeping an eye (or four) out to locate?

And Faisal...are you still out of the line of fire?

Yr. Pal, Harlan

ROB:

Tommy, yes. Dickie, no.

he

MARK GOLDBERG:

I wrote that in the mid-'70s. I have no idea why I said three, as opposed to 8, or 14, or 37. I have no idea why I used the word "excellent," when I might as easily have used some other semi-superlative. But this I know: it tends to harsh my buzz when someone arriving much after the party requests that I explain, update, or even accept chiding for something remarked casually, forty years earlier. I'm not upbraing you specifically, Mark, but it does seem that people such as yourself seem oblivious to the reality that there has been a lotta shit happen in the world before YOU turned YOUR attention to it. I know we currently bend 'neath the weight of a generation or two of folks who think unless it happened to THEM, and it happened no earlier than last weekend, that it never existed. Context, Mark; context.

Harlan

That little studio in the valley...
...used to be Republic. I wonder, Harlan, if you have the late Jack Mathis's books, VALLEY OF THE CLIFFHANGERS, VALLEY OF THE CLIFFHANGERS SUPPLEMENT, REPUBLIC CONFIDENTIAL VOLUME ONE: THE STUDIO, and REPUBLIC CONFIDENTIAL VOLUME TWO: THE PLAYERS? Mathis was obsessed with Republic Pictures, and those books were his life's work.

Steve, was that the time when your driver's license was revoked?


(The Other Jan: Your post was only an excuse to mention Florida sunshine. Do try to be less cruel.)

Good lord

Not "twenty minutes", FORTY minutes! Even 'I' can't put away wine that fast. FORTY minutes.

Some new stuff up on my webstie, and some long-necessary editing of a couple of my essays. Several galleries gone (forever, *sniff*) but FoE Galleries intact and looking to grow at some of the events this year like Josh's screening of DWST (in May? I don't have RH 46 handy, so the month might be wrong.)
________________________________________

Cris and I had the pleasure of meeting Tommy Smothers many years ago (around 1996, I think). He owns a winery up in Sonoma, with a tasting room along the Sonoma Highway -- "The Wine Room", I think. The Wine Room features not only Smothers/Remick Ridge wines but several others, including one named Moondance Cellars.

This was soon after Cris' first album, AMONG FRIENDS, was released, and she covered Moondance. We stopped given the double attractions of Smothers and Moondance. As we were talking to David Cohen, owner of Moondance (named because of his love of the song), he insisted on hearing Cris' take on it. I ran to the car and grabbed a promo copy and took it back in. As we were listening to the track, Tommy came in from the back room -- we didn't know he was there -- and asked who we were listening to.

The next twenty or so minutes are a blur, courtesy the copious tasting both David Cohen and Tommy gave us of their respective wines. (David's assistant also joined in, so the five of us consumed roughly the equivalent of four bottles, with Cris limiting herself to a shot or two per bottle. You do the math.)

One of the all-around nicest guys I've ever met. Just wonderfully warm and refreshingly non-Hollywood.

And it was also one of only two times in my married life when I saw my wife sporting a serious buzz.

Like Rob, I'm curious to know if Harlan has ever met either of the Smothers. It would seem to be a natural connection...

just when
::: blinks rapidly.

You're kidding. Really? Because I had hopes - perhaps not high hopes, but, you know, hopes for 2009 DESPITE the Middle East and the economy and unemployment and...

So I go to my watering hole for a little morning cheer and what do I see. Really?

Thanks 2009.

- Barney Dannelke

(Day 2)

Correction
I need to correct something in my post about Pat Hingle yesterday. He was nominated for a Tony for Best Featured Actor in DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STARS, but did not win.

Though I confess to still being baffled that his impressive theatre work and the main body of his film and TV work was pretty much ignored in his obit in favour of his 'Commissioner Gordon'. This I would not have even remembered if someone asked me to name Pat Hingle's acting gigs.

The other night I saw Tommy Smothers on Bravo discussing his heated years confronting CBS over the network's censoring material on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Meant merely as a promo for the new DVD, 'Smothered', I nevertheless gained great clarity about the media of those days, and the willful intrusion of the White House itself, from Johnson, but even more by far from Nixon.

The comments by both Tom and Dick Smothers, particularly the passions expressed by Tom, reminded me of your essays in 'The Glass Teat'.

I could easily imagine you in that clique - along with Steve Martin, George Carlin, Pat Paulson, and David Steinberg.

The DVD looks RICH with historical information about that period.

Harlan, were you ever friends with Tommy Smothers?

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father
I taped DEAR ZACHARY: LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER off MSNBC, and watched it last night.

Talk about best movies of 2008? Holy mother of God. This is absolutely one of the top five. A heartbreaking tragedy, genuinely more than the human heart can bear, but worth every single nanosecond of the experience.

It was made by Kurt Kuenne, a young documentary filmmaker who made adventure epics even as a child and therefore has many hours of film of his best friend, Dr. Andrew Bagby, dating back to childhood. When Andrew was murdered by a jilted girlfriend who his friends had long thought creepy and already warned him as dangerous (and whose guilt, thanks to truly inept planning, was beyond obvious), Kurt decided to make a documentary interviewing the many, many people who loved Andrew. Originally intended as a gift to Andrew's parents, the project became even more pressing when the murderess fled to Nova Scotia and the announcement of her pregnancy forced his grieving parents to play nice with the very woman who took their only son from them.

Things got more emotionally fraught when the baby, the Zachary of the title, was born, a dead ringer for Andrew in both looks and temperment -- visible even to us watching the many home movies, and a great comfort to those who knew the dead man. Meanwhile, the murderess was out on bail, still crazy as a loon -- her behavior caught on film and on recorded phone conversations -- and had full custody of the child...

Meanwhile, Kurt continued to make his film, which he now intended as a gift to the child, introducing him someday to the father he would never know.

You would think this film to be a sad series of talking heads, but it moves like a rocket, and Kuenne plays a great editing trick with the various eulogies of Andrew, doubling the voices whenever his friends and relatives fall back on the same words of praise. The camera does not spare us the sight of some weeping (one man comforted by his uncomprehending four-year-old son) or Andrew's Dad fulminating at length about why he didn't just murder the woman he now calls "the bitch." It's clearly something he's thought about at length, and part of the tragedy on display is that of a fundamentally decent man who now has to live with those kind of thoughts.

The interminability of the extradition proceedings, the incomprehensible bail and child custody decisions, and the insanity of the Mom murderess lead to bad places, which you can probably see coming. (Everybody but the court saw it coming.)But the film's a love letter to a lost friend, and just when you think that there's no possible way it can end as anything but a dirge, there's a final five minutes that is so human and so positive and so right and so filled with reasons why the world that would let this happen does not entirely suck that I was left, not weeping, which let's face it I do at the right kind of McDonald's commercial, but shaking and bawling at humanity's capacity to counter the greatest evils with compensatory good.

DEAR ZACHARY: LETTER TO A SON ABOUT HIS FATHER is not just an appalling true-crime story. It's a testament to endurance, to family, to the healing power of love. It is an astoundingly powerful piece of work. I don't know if MSNBC will be playing it again, or when it will be available on home video, but I urge everybody within reach of these words to overcome any fear you might have of its subject matter and seek it out. It is not just one of the best documentaries of 2008, but one of the very best films.


www.dearzachary.com

(Since writing these words I have found out that Dear Zachary will continue to play on MSNBC, and that the DVD will be out in February.)

Thai and Radford Studios
Harlan:
Can't wait to eat at Sompon Thai -- I'll try it soon.

Yes, I'm currently working at CBS Radford, formerly MTM, Four Star, etc. And I get a great feeling from it. It's nice they have little cement blocks outside the parking area with the names of all the old Republic western Stars (and my colleagues have no clue who 99% of those people are)... and I think it's great that Studio City has little plaques in the sidewalk celebrating all the films and TV shows shot there.

A few weeks back, when we were discussing Writers, I mentioned that I was overdue in submitting completed chapters to the publisher on business book.

Today, all chapters finally submitted. Only one and a half months late. I know none of you were waiting in breathless expectation for the announcement, but I am so ecstatic it is over I just had to share.

Remove weight from shoulders. Prepare shoulders for next act of procrastination.

Mike

various things
http://www.flickr.com/photos/koru999/
is that you diana? (we use copy&paste for urls around these parts)

Faith & Creationism
According to a British survey (the article can be found here--http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/76915/Third-of-teachers-want-Creationism), over a third of primary & secondary school teachers want Creationism to be taught in science class. Although this particular survey was taken in Europe, I suspect that similar results are likely to be found among American teachers.

I am not opposed to the teaching of creation in school, as long as it is in a World Religion class & a variety of creation stories are taught equally. What worries me is the seemingly unending attempt by religious groups to force their beliefs into the classroom, as well as the political arena.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the basis for most (if not all) religious belief a matter of "faith"? How often do we hear that 5-letter word bandied about whenever there is an argument or debate about religion? How many have heard the "because I have faith" defense when asked about their religious beliefs. Do we not have government sanctioned faith-based initiatives?

According to The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, faith is defined as-- "firm belief in something for which there is no proof".

When the religious claim belief through faith, there is no arguing. Can you argue "faith"? Yet these so-called faith-based individuals/groups are constantly trying to insert themselves into our classrooms, politics & media. Someone help me understand why they continue trying to justify their beliefs scientifically & politically, when they freely admit that "belief-through-faith" is the only necessary defense for their side of the debate.

Diana, welcome to the madhouse. However, you should be aware that Harlan does not have an email account. If you prefer, you can write something about yourself over in the Forums (see the link at the top of the page) where you could post the URLs or jpeg files, if you prefer.

Harlan, I have an odd question for you. Rick Keeney recently gave me a little gift, a copy of Tom Reamy's San Diego Lightfoot Sue (and, although I have only read a couple of stories so far am loving it, Thanks Rick!). In your introduction to the collection, you make a passing reference while discussing "The Detweiler Boy" that there are only 3 Lovecraft stories that one might term excellent. What would they be? My guess is Shadow Over Innsmouth, The Call of Cthulhu and The Shadow Out of Time, but that is because those are some of my personal favorites

Thanks,

Mark

Dear Paul: Thank you for the welcome.

Dear Mr Ellison: In an effort to comply with your request for less anonymity I've put a face on things. I've uploaded a few pictures of myself, some very old, some recent, along with a few pictures of some of my loved ones, to a Flikr account. There's minimal personal commentary but there's some. But where can I send the url's? I can't add them to this post.

Dear Steve Barber: Your explanation of the difference between homage and theft was helpful, well written, and made a lot of sense. Thank you.

Diana

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