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The Hogs of Entropy 0303
'##::::'##:::'#####:::'########: VIVA LA REVOLUCION! CERDO DEL CAPITALISTA!!
##:::: ##::'##.. ##:: ##.....:: THE HELOTS OF ECSTASY PRESS RELEASE #303 !!
##:::: ##:'##:::: ##: ##::::::: ===========================================
#########: ##:::: ##: ######::: "Harlan Ellison Responds in an Out of !!
##.... ##: ##:::: ##: ##...:::: Context and Pointless Manner to an !!
##:::: ##:. ##:: ##:: ##::::::: Equally Out of Context and Pointless !!
##:::: ##::. #####::: ########: Usenet Capture" !!
..:::::..::::.....::::........:: by -> Squinky 12/3/98 !!
!!========================================================================!!
THE HARLAN ELLISON "SLIPPAGE/SUSAN" CONTROVERSY:
THE FOLLOWING FEW MESSAGES WERE COLLECTED BY RICK WYATT
FROM USENET ARCHIVES. I'VE INCLUDED THREE MESSAGES FROM MAY
1998 CONSTITUTING AN ATTACK ON THE DELAYED PUBLISHING OF
_SLIPPAGE_ AND INDICATING THAT SUSAN, HARLAN'S WIFE, HAS
MADE HIM "LOSE HIS TOUCH"....FOLLOWED BY RESPONSES FROM
DAVID GERROLD AND HARLAN HIMSELF.
I'M NOT GOING TO INCLUDE THE REST OF THE CRAP THAT WAS POSTED
OR THE OTHER RESPONSES ASIDE FROM MR. GERROLD'S. SORRY.
!!========================================================================!!
Subject: Re: Edgeworks (Future Volumes)
From: jwk208@is8.nyu.edu (Jarett Kobek)
Date: 1998/05/06
Message-ID: <6iqdmi$v27$1@news.nyu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison
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Paul T. Riddell (priddell@usa.net) wrote:
> early grave as s/he spends weeks sorting it all. I've come to learn
> that waiting for a new Ellison collection is half of the fun: my wife
> ordered a copy of the Ziesing print of _Slippage_ for Christmas 1996
> that I didn't get until April, but it was worth every last second.
Yeah, hah, hah, real "fun".
I waited for _SLIPPAGE_ to be released since like 1934, (well, 1994).
Real "fun", wading through an author's lies about release dates and his
idiotic justifications being remouthed through fans.
Hah hah ah!
It's so fun!
-Jarett
!!========================================================================!!
Subject: Has Ellison lost his touch?
From: inpoverty@aol.com (InPoverty)
Date: 1998/05/02
Message-ID: <1998050223342300.TAA17371@ladder01.news.aol.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison
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Ever since his marriage to Susan, his output has dropped quite a bit...
Now that he is finally happy, he seems to have lost inspiration for new
material...
Most of his stories were semi-autobiographical where he'd disguse
himself as a lonely, bitter man afraid of getting lost in the shuffle...
Who knows how long his legacy will live on....
Other than the "Glass Teat" there really isn't much of his work to
discuss... Everytime a story of his is brought up, it's followed by "I
loved that story" or "Great story" and that would be the end of it...
To say you hate a story, brings about the "Then why are you reading this
newsgroup?" messages....
BTW, what do you people read when you're not reading Ellison? I took an
Ellison break the last few months where I tried to catch up on the works
of Thomas Ligotti, Paul Auster, and James P. Blaylock...
!!========================================================================!!
Subject: Re: Has Ellison lost his touch?
From: jwk208@is8.nyu.edu (Jarett Kobek)
Date: 1998/05/04
Message-ID: <6ijf0b$9ad$1@news.nyu.edu>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison
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BOBMORALES (bobmorales@aol.com) wrote:
> Harlan's imput slowed because of various maladies, not because he got
> happily married, for Christ's sake. Anyone who know them will tell
> you--as will Harlan--she's been chiefly responsible for keeping him
> together the last decade or so. So give her her due.
Ah, whatever.
Honestly, Susan *is* responsible for Ellison's decline as a writer. She's
also responsible for him keeping it together as a human being. As,
however, none of us are honestly concerned with Ellison the HUMAN BEING
(with several notable exceptions, Lawrence Watt-Evans, perhaps? certainyl
not D.J.L.), it's a valid point to be made she has done more harm than
good.
What young master Ellison has fallen into is the trap that all
relationships serve up: complacency. People in relationships get
complacent and lazy and don't do anything to rock the boat, for fear it
will disrupt their current status of actual (perceived) happiness.
> As for how original Harlan's work has been, you might liken him to jazz
> musician working out new riffs: Slippage contains two trial runs for
> The Man Who Rowed Christopher Colombus Ashore;
"Christopher Colombo", "Scarlatis", and "Anywhere but here" are the only
things in _Slippage_ which are up against Ellison's best work. The rest
is absolutely terrible or just rehashes of stories we've already seen a
thousand times, said in much firmer voices. "Jane Doe #1354125" is a
good example.
_Mefisto In Onyx_ is a depressing piece of work because it *should* be
so good, but just comes off as a horrible rendering of where Ellison's
mind really is: trapped in the seventies. Who the fuck thinks about race
relations like that anymore?
---
And to satisfy the circle-jerk: C.G. Jung, Robert E. Howard and related
fandom, Thomas Ligotti, Antonin Artaud, J.K. Huysmans, Edgar Poe,
Falkner, Algernon Blackwood, etc. etc.
Stuff no one cares about.
!!========================================================================!!
Subject: Harlan and Susan
From: davgerrold@aol.com (DavGerrold)
Date: 1998/05/08
Message-ID: <1998050807022900.DAA09395@ladder03.news.aol.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison
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Jarett Kobek wrote:
>>Honestly, Susan *is* responsible for Ellison's decline as a writer.
She's also responsible for him keeping it together as a human being. As,
however, none of us are honestly concerned with Ellison the HUMAN BEING
(with several notable exceptions, Lawrence Watt-Evans, perhaps? certainyl
not D.J.L.), it's a valid point to be made she has done more harm than
good. <<
Bullshit.
And you're lucky you're not in the same room with me or you'd be picking
up your teeth off the floor and carrying them home in your pocket.
I've known Harlan for 30 years, and I knew Susan two years before she met
Harlan. I love them both dearly. Susan is a talented and intelligent
woman, and she has given Harlan what he most needs in this world. She
has also made it possible for Harlan to continue growing and exploring
his own humanity.
The record of Harlan's work is a self-documented journey of personal
growth and commitment that is humbling. The only other man I ever knew
so committed to continuing his own education was Robert A. Heinlein.
That anyone judges either Harlan or Susan simply by the output of
Harlan's typewriter is such a narrow-minded vision that it's
mind-boggling.
The job of the writer is to report back. But first he has to go to the
other side of the hill and take a good look around so he has something
to report back. Harlan is being true to the one person he most needs to
be true to -- himself.
David Gerrold
!!========================================================================!!
Subject: MESSAGE FROM HARLAN!
From: davgerrold@aol.com (DavGerrold)
Date: 1998/05/10
Message-ID: <1998051000150600.UAA17142@ladder03.news.aol.com>
Newsgroups: alt.fan.harlan-ellison
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From: Harlan Ellison
Via: David Gerrold
To: Those who have posted at this site for the past several days.
My good friend David Gerrold has responded to my request for a download
of what you-all have been saying these last few moons, by kindly sending
along everything since Mr, Kobek's comments on the 7th of this month. I
should hasten to note that even though I choose not to own or use
equipment that would provide unending access to your venue every once in
a while some "concerned" observer will disturb my decades-long slumber
(if Mr, Robert Whelan's estimation of my career is to be taken as
accurate) and launch a gardyloo that ticks my curiosity, so that I break
my own rule about staying out of earshot of internet opinions.
Oddly, I'm a lot less than bothered by the less-than-flattering entries,
I have a belief that that is exactly why the web exists, to provide a
place for those who cannot create art to piss and moan about those of us
who break our asses in a lifelong attempt to do the job properly. Even
Mr. Kobek, who doesn't think I'm worth very much on the market these
days, who thinks--like most children his age-that only They have the
Wisdom that has fled the rest of us, even he seems to read my work. Don't
know why, but I'm am always grateful for such crumbs of attention from
The FX Generation.
As always, I get to evaluate my own worth as an artist and as a human
being, by those who are prepared to call themselves my friends. Lawrence
Watt-Evans, Bob Morales, David, these are exemplary fellows...and
Mr. Kobek, though graciousness in clearly not a tongue you speak, you
really ought to refrain from calling those who know me better, and
who--unlike you--know what they're talking about, my "tools." Anyone who
knows these three guys or knows me even casually, knows that I despise
sycophancy, have friends who'll tell me what a loud, obnoxious, imbecile
adolescent I an (without bidding, and on a moment's notice),) and knows
that they are very much Their Own Men. They don't toady for me, they
just share my annoyance at banjo players who had a big breakfast. Oh, I
forgot, you're only eleven years old, and won't catch that allusion. It
means: a know-nothing who likes to shoot his yap off. (See, you were
wrongs Susan hasn't mellowed me all that much.)
But let's got to some conversation of substance, shall we?
Mr. Kobek and Mr. Farber and Mr. Davies seem utterly bout out of shape
because SLIPPAGE came out in March of 1997, instead of 1991 when it was
first idly mentioned as forthcoming. Apart from the ludicrousness of
their paranoid reasoning as to why it wasn't right there when the stamped
their widdle foots for a fix, let me illuminate the ignorance and
naivete of their insulting assumptions. The truth will be vastly less
filled with areas for them to bitch about, but it will reveal to all the
rest of you the perils pursuant to mistaking the cawing of carrion birds
for the sweet song of the nightingale.
In 1991 I signed a contract with a small press publisher to do a limited
edition of my next collection, SLIPPAGE. The trade edition was under
contract to Houghton Mifflin--the last of a 3-book deal--it was
untitled by HM, but SLIPPAGE would have been that book. The book was
intended for, probably, 1992 release. But a number of things
sidetracked no. MIND FIELDS, which required my attention; a rather
unpleasant earthquake that cost me about a year of digging out from
under; a number of shattering deaths of my friends, including Bob Bloch
and Isaac Asimov and Roger Zelazny and...well, lots more; spinal surgery
an Susan; the depredations of a quartet of scumbags and their running
dogs that required endless hours of wasted effort in attempts to prevent
them from driving me either out of the game entirely, or out of my mind,
which depredations merely resulted in my having (What do they call it?)
a "coronary episode" and a quadruple heart bypass, procedure. All this
and much more, rather, uh, slowed me down. Sorry if that inconvenienced
you, fellahs, but if you were ts upset at my tardiness, all you had to do
was ask for your money back...if in fact, you'd laid out any in advance,
or were you just grousing without having anything at stake?
The book wouldn't have come out in 1992, anyhow. (Sorry that the one
lone mention of it in a "forthcoming" column made you so deranged.
Clearly, the printed word Is not salutary to your health. I urge you to
stay here, on this electronic playground.) The stories I wanted to go
into the book were simply taking me more time to write than I'd
ancipated. The entries at this site that pointed out I'm always
struggling to innovate, they had it right. I work hard at what I do and
sometimes art, even Art, refuses to obey arbitrary deadlines. But by
1994, the small-press publisher was in financial troubles and he couldn't
do the book, so I returned his money, and took my time finishing
SLIPPAGE. At my own pace. Not Mr. Kobek's. Not Mr. Whelan's.
But, even so--and here's where your lack of Information makes you look
a trifle foolish for your blustery accusations that I'm a big fat
liar--in the 24 July 1995 issue of Publishers Weekly, the bible of the
publishing world, on page 68 there was printed, all the world--and even
you--to see, the following notice:
ATTENTION BOOKSELLERS: Harlan Ellison's new
collections, Slippage, originally scheduled
for publication in August 1995, has been
temporarily postponed to accomodate the
addition of newly written, previously
uncollected stories. The expanded table
of contents will bring the new collection
to more than 100,000 words. Look for announcement
of the new publication date in Upcoming Houghton
Mifflin catalogues.
Then I finished the book. And by that time the limited edition had been
resigned this time with Ziesing. By contract, I guaranteed Mark Ziesing
six months clear time to sell his limited, boxed and signed edition
before publication of a trade or book club edition that might interfere
with his exclusivity.
The book was scheduled to Ship in November of 1996, in time for
Christmas. It came out in March, after Christmas.
Now, let's take the gloves off, guys. I'm fed to the eyeballs with the
horse faces you clowns cointinue to drop, all of which redound to my
sloth, ineptitude, inconstancy, laggardliness, and just all-around
inconvenience to your Noble Selves. As if I really give a shit that you
had to wait three months for a book as good, and as well-made as
SLIPPAGE. But, in truth, the short and simple of it was this: Mark
Ziesing tried a new typesetter on the books and she was an amateur and
she screwed it up royally, and I wouldn't let it pass, and we started
back at square one with the eminent John Snowden of Victoria Magnetics
in Atlanta. Square one, you pinhead Whelan. We (meaning the designers,
Arnie Fenner, and my assistant, and my wife) had to reproof over 100,000
words of copy in three weeks. Just so insulting pukes like you wouldn't
be able to piss and moan about "typos." We all worked our butts off, and
the book came out three months late. Not eight years late, from that
idle mention in 1991, but three months.
That's it. Three lousy months. Still feel as though you're been
hideously Imposed upon?
Let me be absolutely candid. I write for me. I write at my pace and I
do the best I can every time out. But I owe people like you, Mr. Davies,
and Mr. Whelan, and Mr, Farber, absolutely nothing but my best work. And
if that isn't good enough for you, I urge you to stop reading my work
just so you can beat your meat about how old and weary and complacent and
out of date and empty I am. Go read someone better. There are lots of
them, and I'm sure they'd love to hear your excruciatingly insightful
analyses of their uselessness.
To Warchild and Paul Riddell and Michael Benedetti and Karen Williams and
Mark E. Smith and the several other of you whose sane responses put you
in line to be called "tool" by such bad-mannered adolescents, my thanks.
My thanks not for necessarily thinking I beat Shakespeare, or even Donald
Westlake, at the craft, but thank you for your reasoned and sane replies.
If you get real addresses to David Gerrold I'll send you each a signed
copy of my next-finished story. Not much of a gift, but something real,
nonetheless.
Harlan Ellison
!!========================================================================!!
Any typos in the above are my fault, not Harlan's. (Or blame the
scanner.) Folks who want to send Harlan their real world addresses via
me should send them to 70307.544@compuserve.com. (Do not use the AOL
address because e-mail to that account gets buried with all the junk
e-mail from porn-purveyors, so I just delete it all without reading any
of it.)
David Gerrold
!!========================================================================!!
!! (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! #302 -- WRITTEN BY: SQUINKY -- 12/3/98 !!
