From the article:
God that guy was epic 
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Personally, I’ll miss Ellison’s personality, as much as many may disparage it. We need writers who are prickly, opinionated, demanding, unwilling to play nice with readers and editors. Thirty+ years of professional writing have taught me that fans of a genre aren’t particularly smart or discerning (“fan-dumb”) and most editors I’ve encountered shouldn’t be running a photocopied class newsletter, let alone a major publication (or publishing house).
Authors these days are boring, lacking distinguishing characteristics and quirks, and when it comes to invective, Scalzi and Stross can’t touch Ellison with a 10-foot barge pole.
Log on to a SF/fan forum and if the idiots aren’t talking about the latest popular TV or movie franchise, they’re exchanging fucking recipes and holding circle jerks for their favorite semi-literate scribe with a degree in astrophysics but absolutely no affinity for the English language (and certainly no ear for it).
I talked to Harlan a few times on the phone–it wasn’t always pleasant but when I’d touch on a favorite person or notion, he warmed considerably (especially once he realized I wasn’t a complete idiot). I particularly remember a brief chat we had about his old friend–and one of my literary heroes–Charles Beaumont.
I doubt he’s “resting in peace” or any of that other nonsense. He was a pain in the ass, a prankster, a man who treated the printed word with the reverence it deserves.
Fuck all the naysayers, we need more people like him in this world.
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But the point in this analogy is that the beans are fine even if you dislike the cook.
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I visited my old college campus the other day. Looking over the photos, I remembered a fine Ellison rant. On the way from the airport he spotted a White Castle hamburger joint, and insisted on going in.
He bought ONE tiny hamburger, and raved / complained about it during his performance. "Man, what great shit food! I don’t know what that toad burger was made from, but in life it was not a happy animal.’
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If anything I think the world is less ready now than it was when the first two came out.
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No, it won’t; Ellison’s wife has been told to burn up all remaining manuscripts, which most likely includes that work as well.
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“who told me that I would be pretty good writer”
Heh heh heh.
When you’re a writer, you know that criticisms of your work are not criticisms of you personally. Yet somehow it’s hard for a professional writer (Doctorow) to reconcile his liking for Ellison’s work with the fact that Ellison wasn’t always a great guy (unlike, say, oh, the rest of humanity)? Come on.
Good people are not always good and bad people are not always bad. What a concept. But I guess this is the age where it’s an easier pastime and fun little hobby to publicly pile onto This Week’s Villain thanks to footage on some morality cop’s phone camera.
People are complicated? No shit.
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Well, there is always the off-chance that she’ll pull a Brod and safe them anyway.
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And I suppose her chances of going Max Brod on us are negligible. Still, Ellison wasn’t as picky as Kafka was, I guess, and has already given us a lot.
Re: screenplay of I Have No Mouth
Did these two ****s really think they could get Ellison to shit gold bricks? No wonder his disposition was often raw and inflamed.
Ellison’s acerbic style still makes me roar with laughter or outrage, and I’ll never outgrow it, especially when goaded to type a letter to the editor. Echoes of his wordsmithing contrast well with populist ineptitude or the fifty shades of dishwater-grey journalese penned by staff to avoid the sadistic attentions of wealth and advertisers.
Damn, Harlan. We’ll miss you every time 45 and Sarah open their hell-holes.
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Just make sure you don’t get the German version that is impossible to finish (they removed the Nazi doctor and his death camp section, but didn’t change the success conditions related to it.)
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(This is satire, in case anyone needs to ask)
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And a bonus Rowan Atkinson appearance at the end there! Brilliant!
Was the photo accompanying the article shot during HE’s hitherto unknown cameo in Warren Beatty’s 1990 DICK TRACY adaptation?
Cory, I wasn’t bothered – perhaps I should even be honoured to be in the large club of people Harlan called a motherfucker. Some of it was bluster I am sure, having fun being that sort of personality because, as a good writer, he could get away with it. But knowing to expect it, it did not trouble me. But I think your analysis of good mixed with bad deserves being applied to people even bigger than Harlan was, people known outside the SF community, because it’s an important topic.
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