Originally published at: Harlan Ellison auction includes the world's most (in)famous "Star Trek" photo | Boing Boing
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Every Harlan wrap up needs this classic video:
but could someone explain why the photo is “ironic”? Or even “iconic”?
I’m sure I’m missing something.
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As always, Harlan looks absolutely thrilled and delighted to be participating in a Hollywood PR event.
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I guess because while Ellison was a giant of SF metaphorically he wasn’t so gigantic physically?
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The real irony was the Ellison was 6’2”. Few people realize that Shatner and Nimoy were each nearly 8’ tall, and could attain running speeds of 45 mph over a short distance. They consumed their body weight in redshirts every show.
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Because Shatner is like “who is this guy?” in the inscription, when he is a well known writer who wrote specifically for the show?
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He had been a guest on Christopher Lydon’s live call-in show The Connection, which later turned into NPR’s On Point. Upon returning from a broadcast break, Lydon reintroduced him as a “science fiction writer,” which prompted Ellison to interrupt, deny he was a science fiction writer, and then leave the studio in the middle of the program.
Any respect I’d had for him promptly vanished.
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As a fan of Ellison’s work, I know there’s so much more to dislike him for than that. His dislike of the label wasn’t because of any disdain for science fiction (although he had issues with the commercialization and simplification of the genre into sci-fi) but for being put into a little hole that he felt his body of work was too broad to fit. If your problem is with how he chose to present himself, then…yeah, I got nothing. He was a prick. An intensely, strongly opinionated prick.
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He’s not the first to object to the title “science fiction author”, but Vonnegut did it with more grace:
I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “science fiction” … and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.
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Nimoy and Shatner look like they are about to throw Ellison down an elevator shaft in that photo.
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Verified
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He was literally supposed to be in his office finishing rewrites of “City on the Edge of Forever”.
Instead producers found him wandering around the set having photos like this taken and asking female guest stars out on dates.
“City” was the best TOS episode of them all but the drama behind its making behind the scenes is just as entertaining.
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Yeesh…I hope giant Lance Henrickson over there has something on under his toga or else those tiny folks are getting a show that none of them will ever live up to.
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I thought it was this one.
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Band name!
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JMS recently mentioned on Twitter that all of HE’s work would be published again & available.
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By every account, he was a massive dick. He got a pass on all of it because he was talented I guess, but nobody besides a cishet white man would get infinite leeway like that. Long after his death people still make excuses for him being a massive dick. Oh, he believed in the right things, and he was so talented, don’t you see? Carte blanche to be insufferable if you’re a white man. Anyone else would never work again.
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