I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

[Econoline]

Harlan Ellison has died.

Well, shit. Or as David Gerrold just put it, A moment of silence is inappropriate. A scream of outrage instead.

[Scooter]

Should I feel stupid for not having a clue who he was, even after reading his Wikipedia biography?

[Burning Petard]

Once upon a time I had a book shelf in my living room with paperbacks by Mr. Elison, two deep and over flowing the shelf. His stories were great
His critical column on SF movies in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, reprinted as the Glass Teat, vol one and two, were very insightful .Similar to GB Shaw, I found his introductory essays to the story usually even better than the story. His "A Boy'and His Dog was one of my favorites. The punch line at the end is perfect. (later edit) I knew nothing of the man, only the author. His personal conduct later in life as described in wikipedia looks as though her was demented.reads as pretty bad. But his earlier writing about the way writers are used in tv and movies perhaps called for wild behavior in reaction.

I read the first post in this thread and I heard my own screams in my head.

snailgate.

[Econoline]

This is a pretty good summary, Scooter, though it doesn't really tell you much about Harlan, the human being. I met him many years ago, in the 60s, at three different Science Fiction Worldcons, and corresponded with him, and for a while he actually wrote a column, for free, for a tiny little SF fanzine I was publishing when I was in high school. He was one of a kind, and he will be missed. Here's something Harlan's close friend, David Gerrold, wrote about him a few years ago.

And no, Scooter, there's no reason to feel stupid for not having heard of him; I'm sure you have people you admire and would miss who I've never heard of. (Though I do think you might want to find one or two collections of his short stories and give him a try.)

[Econoline]

Harlan Ellison wrote this piece in 1978. The excerpt I've copied below is just the intro, and the whole thing is, I think, enough longer--many times longer--that I can probably get away with calling this "fair use." If not...well, Harlan's not gonna find out, and I figure I'm already in for a few million years in Purgatory.

• • "The 3 Most Important Things in Life" copyright 1978 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.
    
    This work appears online via special arrangement with the the author, Harlan Ellison. You can thank him by visiting the HERC Store. Copying or distributing any part of this piece for personal use, commercial use, or any other use you can come up with is strictly forbidden. Breaking this rule will result in the author coming down on you like the proverbial Hand of God or, barring the author finding out, your being forced to spend 15,000 years in Purgatory watching the same three episodes of "Perfect Strangers".

---

The 3 Most Important Things in Life

I've looked everywhere, and I'll be damned if I can find it, but I know I read that passage somewhere; I think in Kerouac; but I can't locate it now, so you'll just have to go along with me that it's there.

Would I lie to you?

It's a scene in which a young supplicant, an aspiring poet, somebody like that, seeks out this knowledgeable old philosopher -- kind of a Bukowski or Henry Miller figure -- in Paris or New York or somesuch bustling metropolitan situs . . . and the kid comes to the old guru in his ratty apartment, and he sorta kinda asks him that old saw about the meaning of life. Correction: LIFE. He squats there and says to the old man, "What's it all about? What's it mean? Huh?"

And the old man purses his lips and beetles his brow; he perceives the kid is really serious about this; it's not just jerk-off time. So he nods sagely, and clasps his hands behind his back, and he walks to the window and stares out at the deep city for a while, just sorta kinda ponders for a while. And finally, he turns to the kid and he says, with core seriousness, "You know, there's a lotta bastards out there."

Now that's pretty significant. I think. On the other hand, I have never made my residence in a stalactite-festooned cave high up on the northern massif of Chomolungma (Everest to you). I have never been sought out by fawning sycophants, whimpering to abase themselves before my wisdom, hungering to prostrate themselves and to offer ablations at the altar of my Delphic insights. In short, unlike the Great Thinkers of Our Time who appear regularly on talk-shows -- Merv Griffin, Debbie Boone, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Jim Nabors leap instantly to mind -- I doubt that the Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy will ever crib from my notes.

Nonetheless, having become something of an ingroup cult figure among those with a high death-wish profile and a taste for cheap thrills, I am often asked, "What's the big secret, Ellison?" At college lectures, for instance, bright-eyed young people, the great hope of our society, come up to me and murmur in reverential tones, "Wanna buy a lid of tough Filipino Scarlet?"

Naturally I try to demonstrate a certain humility in the face of such trust and innocence. I try to explain that Life is Real, Life is Earnest. In my own toe-scuffling fashion I attempt to encapsulate in three or four apocryphal phrases the Ethical Structure of the Universe. The better to aid these fine young people as they set out to change the world.

And from this long, terrifically fascinating life of encounters and adventures, I have selected three examples of what I think are the most important things in life. Notes should be taken; this will count as sixty per cent of your grade.[/font]

1. SEX

You'll have to go to this link if you want to read the rest of it.

[Big RR]

I with BP, I liked a lot of his writing--A Boy and his Dog was one of my favorites as well (I liked the movie too, don't know about Ellison).

And while I don't know much of him personally, I heard a number of times that he was a bit of an asshole from people who did know him. But that's often par for the course with artists--some of the best conductors I worked with were assholes as well.