
Harlan Ellison has died - mormegil
https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/harlan-ellison-dead-dies-star-trek-1202861048/
======
e40
[posted this on reddit, too]

When I was a teenager, a long time ago, when there was one phone per floor and
it was on a long ass cord so you could take it into any bedroom in the
house... I got a call from Harlan Ellison. At 2am. I was a awake, but everyone
else in the house was asleep. Including the person he wanted to talk with.
Martin H. Greenberg and family were staying at my parent's house, because
Martin was going to some SciFi convention in Lake Tahoe. I guess Harlan wanted
to talk about that. I mentioned that it was 2am and everyone was asleep, but
he said "wake him up." I did!

Same trip, I got to drive Martin to Robert Silverberg's house (in Oakland). I
took a bunch of my Silverberg books and he signed them. Got to shake his hand,
be intimidated by his very large dogs, and longly look at his very young and
beautiful girlfriend. She was probably a few years older than me. He had to be
50+ then, I'd guess.

That was a good summer.

------
robotkdick
Harlan Ellison has been hugely influential on fantasy writers including but
not limited to J.K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman.

According to Neil, he mostly decided to become a fiction writer after reading
one of Harlan's collections of short stories.

Rowling's Death Eaters seems to me to be a direct lift from Ellison's _Flop
Sweat_ but as they say, it's the _highest form of flattery_

Excerpt: _Figures in long black garments, with drawn cowls that covered their
faces. And strange, sickly purple light, the faintest, most terrible glow,
shining out from beneath the cowls. They stared in at her. She could see no
eyes: but they were staring in at her._

Ellison, Harlan. Shatterday (Kindle Locations 1028-1030). Open Road Media.
Kindle Edition.

Ellison may also be the inspiration for some of Harry Potter's adventures in
the shops of Diagon Alley. See _Shoppe Keeper_

Excerpt: _The sign proclaimed Shoppe of Wonders and beneath those words in
curlicued but extremely readable Islamic calligraphy: Your Heart’s Desire._

Ellison, Harlan. Shatterday (Kindle Locations 1593-1595). Open Road Media.
Kindle Edition.

~~~
thebigspacefuck
Dementors, not death eaters. I've been reading through these books again and
wondering how the heck J.K. came up with all this stuff and that makes a lot
of sense.

------
klenwell
My favorite Harlan Ellison cameo, from Gay Talese's famous "Frank Sinatra Has
a Cold" (someone alludes to it in TFA's comments):

 _Frank Sinatra, leaning against the stool, sniffling a bit from his cold,
could not take his eyes off the Game Warden boots. Once, after gazing at them
for a few moments, he turned away; but now he was focused on them again. The
owner of the boots, who was just standing in them watching the pool game, was
named Harlan Ellison, a writer who had just completed work on a screenplay,
The Oscar.

Finally Sinatra could not contain himself.

"Hey," he yelled in his slightly harsh voice that still had a soft, sharp
edge. "Those Italian boots?"

"No," Ellison said.

"Spanish?"

"No."

"Are they English boots?"

"Look, I donno, man," Ellison shot back, frowning at Sinatra, then turning
away again._

You can find out how it ends here:

[https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-
has...](https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a638/frank-sinatra-has-a-cold-
gay-talese/)

~~~
sethrin
Well, that was relatively interesting, but, ah, what exactly did I just read?

~~~
coldtea
An exchange between Sinatra and Harlan Ellison at a bar, as recorded by a
journalist following Sinatra.

Isn't it obvious? (not to mention that a link to the full story was given).

~~~
sethrin
Yes, and the fragment makes no more sense in context. The full story is, I
read, notable for style, in some way that fails to be very current; I'm sure
that it was a big change from Cronkite. However, it meanders more slowly than
a lazy river, and seems to have been padded by anecdote to disguise the
author's failure to actually interview Sinatra. But, I could be mistaken, so I
may as well ask about why other people consider this significant.

I very much appreciate your response, and I'm sure I hope my reasons for
asking a question may meet with your approval.

~~~
coldtea
> _Yes, and the fragment makes no more sense in context._

What sense should it make? It's not some part of the plot in an epic saga,
it's a random casual exchange between two patrons at a bar. The idea wasn't to
mean something, but just to convey a part of Sinatra's personality -- which it
does well.

> _The full story is, I read, notable for style, in some way that fails to be
> very current; I 'm sure that it was a big change from Cronkite._

The subject matter and wording might not be "current", 50 years on, but this
work (and others, e.g. Tom Wolfe, and the like) is part of the basis of modern
long form writing, and has many traits that modern journalists use.

Besides, if one is interested in learning about Sinatra, the person, and how
thing were with his entourage, this story remains gold.

------
LaserDiscMan
'The 3 Most Important Things in Life':
[http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/mostimp.htm](http://harlanellison.com/iwrite/mostimp.htm)

Ellison worked at Disney for a total of 4 hours. :)

~~~
wry_discontent
Having only read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, this isn't at all what I
expected out of this. I'm going to read more of Ellison now.

~~~
angersock
THE!!TEDDY!!CRAZY!!SHOW is remarkably prescient.

------
jalanco
One of the truly greats. Perhaps my favorite short-story writer along with
James Tiptree, Jr. Here are three stories you need to read right now if you
haven't: 1. "Repent Harlequin," said the Ticktockman., 2. Jeffty is Five, and
3. I have no mouth and I must scream, which contains one of the most memorable
similes that still sticks in my mind: "the sliding cold horror of a razor
blade slicing my eyeball." I'm doing this from memory but I think it's pretty
close. And Isaac Asimov, who couldn't have been a more different writer from
Ellison, really seemed (from his writings) to love the guy.

~~~
ur-whale
Wasn't the razor blade slicing an eyeball originally from a 1929 French movie
called "Un Chien Andalou"?

Source: [https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1959/in-un-
chien-a...](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1959/in-un-chien-
andalou-is-a-real-eyeball-being-sliced/)

~~~
mkempe
Although it's classified as French, I think of it as a Spanish movie because
of who made it: a 1929 silent surrealist short film by Spanish director Luis
Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí.

------
dcuthbertson
I met him once, when I was a student at RPI, around 1980 (I don't remember
exactly which year he visited). He was full of fire and anger, and told great
stories. I only wish I had been smart enough then to seize some of his passion
and irreverence and make it my own.

------
macintux
Has JMS chimed in? I’m sure he has some great stories from working on B5.

Update: his Twitter feed is full of commentary.

[https://twitter.com/straczynski](https://twitter.com/straczynski)

Update 2: his Facebook eulogy is striking.

[https://www.facebook.com/139652459402959/posts/1999083533459...](https://www.facebook.com/139652459402959/posts/1999083533459833/)

------
felicopter
This Variety piece doesn't do him justice in the least. For instance, the
paragraph about his marriages is snarky and I suspect that the writer was
unaware that, per Wikipedia, his final marriage ran ~32 years until death did
them part. I expect that more knowledgeable pieces will be forthcoming.

Harlan Ellison was one of a kind, and although I never had any contact with
him[1] I really feel this loss. Even though his works are still with us (I
have a bunch of his books, and so many of the stories are etched into my
brain), he won't be challenging us the way he did.

 _[1] Unless you count the time when in a crowded corridor I heard someone
behind me saying "Wheelchair. Wheelchair." and moved out of the way – and it
turned out to be Ellison walking with a young woman who was horribly
embarrassed._

------
kabdib
Time to re-read Deathbird Stories. In one sitting.

What a magnificent bastard, indeed.

~~~
someguy12
Indeed. Deathbird Stories was my intro to Ellison; it completely blew my 20
year old mind.

------
debacle
If history is a judge, this is something with which Harlan Ellison is not
happy.

~~~
geoelectric
To be fair, that was Harlan Ellison about most things. RIP, the magnificent
bastard.

------
armitron
This is one of the best interviews I've seen Harlan on, he's completely
relaxed and mostly allowed to run with it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3jbeVA-
lKM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3jbeVA-lKM)

------
johan_larson
If life were fair, Harlan Ellison would have been one of the best-paid writers
in the United States, and an utter social outcast.

~~~
logfromblammo
I'd take that deal. On the Internet, people don't necessarily know that you're
an ornery sumbitch, as long as you can keep in character.

~~~
egypturnash
Let me tell you about an ornery sumbitch I think you may currently love.
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-
sti...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/arianelange/john-kricfalusi-ren-stimpy-
underage-sexual-abuse)

~~~
logfromblammo
Well... I liked milkshake duck, too, for those precious few seconds before I
found out.

As a kid, I never really knew much of anything about the people who produced
what I consumed for entertainment, and didn't really care. TBH, the stuff he
made after _Ren and Stimpy_ is not as good, probably because there weren't as
many people telling him what _not_ to do, or a dearth of people powerful
enough to make those recommendations stick.

Monsters can make nice things. You just can't sacrifice the people of the
village to them. When the artist is incapable of working well with others,
they are limited in the art they can produce. They can write books, and mail
the manuscript to their editors. They can make animated shorts and publish on
the web. They can't make feature films or television series. They can't be the
"face" for the publicity campaign. There's too much human interaction, and not
enough corporate lawyers to hold their leash and give it the occasional tug.
And you _can 't_ put them in charge of the project.

------
DrStalker
Does this mean The Last Dangerous Visions will finally be released? Harlan sat
on this since the 70s, holding rights to all the stories to be included but
never actually publishing it.

------
programd
I saw him give a talk once. He told outrageous lies about himself. Half the
audience believed him, and the other half really wanted to. He looked like he
was enjoying himself.

I considered him such a great writer that I went around telling people that
I'd be willing to read anything he wrote, even his laundry list. Which led to
the idea of asking to buy his laundry list and creating a website called
"Harlan Ellison's Laundry List". I suspect it would have been magnificent.
Sadly I never got around to it - too late now. Probably would not have worked
anyway as he was said to be notoriously anti-computer in his life.

Magnificent bastard indeed.

------
classichasclass
Some presumably unintentional humour from the obit:

"Ellison was married five times, with at least two of those marriages lasting
only weeks or months. Survivors include his fifth wife, Susan Ann Toth."

No one bore a grudge like him, and few were as talented.

------
eesmith
I see people mention some of his best known works of fiction.

For those who want to get a better sense of his personal views, try his non-
fiction, like "The Glass Teat". (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Teat)
).

------
xefer
Did anyone else ever watch the TV show he had a hand in creating, “The
Starlost”?

It had a great premise and I loved it as a kid, but I think it only lasted one
season.

~~~
ConceptJunkie
I remember watching at least some of it when it first aired. I was 8 at the
time. I've subsequently seen some of it on DVD. The effects were impressive
for TV at the time, but are incredibly dated-looking now, but the premise was
great.

------
angersock
One of the only writers in the genre whose stories had both bells and teeth.

And man, he _worked_ , making many screenplays as well as stories.

Rest well you magnificent bastard.

------
vmilner
Loved his (unmade) "I, Robot" screenplay.

------
syngrog66
RIP Harlan. the man who wrote the Star Trek masterpiece episode The City on
the Edge of Forever

