/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.22039429]

What are /lit/'s thoughts on Harlan Ellison?

[Anonymous No.22039446]

evil manlet jew, but decent storyteller

[Anonymous No.22039456]

>>22039429
Sex offender

[Anonymous No.22039459]

He was lucky enough to be born before /lit/ existed so he could turn all his shitposting into books. He has instants of extreme lucidity, some lines stand out way above anything you'd expect. But his general ideas aren't all that great and he became famous for tapping into current topics and ideas that anyone could had done, probably way better than him. It's not the worst, but people who adore him should just read other authors.

[Anonymous No.22039499]

>>22039429
Never been interested in his work by description, even less interested on seeing him go on and on about himself in tv interviews.

[Anonymous No.22039807]

>>22039459
>It's not the worst, but people who adore him should just read other authors.
pssh

>>22039429
Easily going to be remembered as one of the greatest writers of the second half of 1900's for touching on themes nobody else did; kicking through the layer of normative cliche; even if some of the themes don't shock today they did at the time of publishing when a very strict regime was in place on what could and couldn't be published, and surprisingly his most popular book isn't even nearly one of his best. Also happened to have invented Terminator, wrote one of the best episodes of the original Star Trek and.. lot of other things I .. don't care much about.

Would suggest,
RUN FOR THE STARS
BOY AND DOG
JEFTY IS FIVE
LAUGHTRACK

I havent read everything he's ever done, I've learned to savor good things when I find them.

[Anonymous No.22039830]

>>22039807
>some of the themes don't shock today they did at the time of publishing when a very strict regime was in place on what could and couldn't be published
the beats were getting mass distribution decades before. They sold Hellraiser toys to kids. There isn't a single 80's author pushing any real boundary, it's a lie pushed by marketing people.

[Anonymous No.22039850]

>>22039429
His stories were good but the introductions he wrote for dangerous visions made me respect him less and less

[Anonymous No.22039853]

>>22039830
Have you read run for the stars?

>80's
ah come on, the 80's and early 90's was a golden age.

[Anonymous No.22039864]

My grandpa has a copy of the Boy and His Dog movie on DVD

[Anonymous No.22039881]

>>22039850
Oh man, I love his intros, and the fact he couldn't stop himself writing more with each reprint or new edition.

Haven't read Dangerous Visions though, what was wrong with his intro to that?

[Anonymous No.22039891]

>>22039853
I read
>Have you ever run for the stars?
and it left me stuck changing gears.
I'm not that much of an elitist, if I had way too much money I'd buy some of those Hellraiser children toys. But there was nothing to really push by then, and all the people who actually risked something were being ridiculed (like the beats in the 90's, I don't love Kerouac but stories of injecting heroin with hobos in the 50's was turned into wearing all black and finger snapping at random words). There was a very agressive revisionist model of pretend edge. Again, pretend edge can be fun, but it's not a real merit.

[Anonymous No.22039902]

>>22039864
I regularly recomend that movie as proto-Fallout and remember days later that it starts with a rape and I must have looked like a total creep if they followed through.

[Anonymous No.22039919]

>>22039891
>Again, pretend edge can be fun, but it's not a real merit.
You know what.. I know what you mean. I like Ellisons work a lot, for fun. In the same sense of George RR Martins unknown masterpiece SANDKINGS .... a I think about it, RUN FOR THE STARS is my favorite, maybe top 5, maybe, at least top 10, but I remember Ellison apologizing for some of it, that he wrote bits of badly because he was young hahaha .. but that's what's great about it in my opinion. It's a cool early 90's movie, but it's a book.

And none of his stuff is soulless or "just for fun" either really, it's high brow in a backroom sort of way. Anyway, just my opinion.

[Anonymous No.22039923]

>>22039429
Didn't know anything about him until somebody here posted his TV shorts for the SciFi channel (on YouTube, Harlan Ellison watches). Thanks for that, you changed my life a little.

Fell in love with his style from that, then started picking up his books where affordable.

Some gorgeous prose, some duds, but always electrifying. Not the best writer in any of the genres he wrote in, definitely in the top 10, but I don't think anyone wrote as much or across such diverse genres. He wrote because he loved it. I love his intros that might have nothing to do with the book (one being a fuck you to a fan he bumped into at a convention, another a big fuck you to god for taking a friend if his too early, a lot of fuck yous, actually).

He was always fighting for other writers, tried to get many classic authors their due recognition, and he'd advocate for lesser writers who were having their works effectively stolen by being recombined in other collections or published abroad without royalties.

Maybe the last of the angry authors. Wish he were still around.

[Anonymous No.22039930]

>>22039902
>proto-Fallout

Oh yeah, also happened to have invented the Fallout genre. Thanks for reminding me: >>22039807
>lso happened to have invented Terminator, wrote one of the best episodes of the original Star Trek and.. lot of other things I .. don't care much about

[Anonymous No.22039933]

>>22039499
>go on and on about himself in tv interviews.
Do people normally go on about other people when interviewed?

[Anonymous No.22039950]

>>22039807
>Would suggest,
>RUN FOR THE STARS
>BOY AND DOG
>JEFTY IS FIVE
>LAUGHTRACK
Definitely on my to read list, but I just finished Deathbird Stories, all about people transforming into horrid things.

Some from there worth reading:
Whimper of Whipped Dogs
Shattered like a Glass Goblin
Paingod
Deathbird
Basilisk

[Anonymous No.22039956]

>>22039930
>also happened to have invented the Fallout genre.
nah, it was super common in scifi pulp from the 70's. Most of his work is just a more accesible and marketed take on things that were the norm. Maybe that's why he dedicated so much time elevating other authors, it must be weird to try to do a thing you read a dozen times and everyone reacting as if you were reinventing genres out of nowhere.

[Anonymous No.22040008]

>>22039446
This.

[Anonymous No.22040186]

>>22039950
>>22039956
You might like: "I Am Looking For Kadak" there's a hilarious audiobook of this on youtube (probably still is on there)

[Anonymous No.22040203]

>>22039950
>>22039956
ed. (wrong title)
try TALES OF LEVENDIS

[Anonymous No.22040354]

>>22039933
Yeah, sometimes.
More to the point, you’re being disingenuous. Watch the Charlie Rose interview where he keeps throwing off the group conversation to talk about how great he is. Watch the Babylon 5 interview where he loses kid temper talking about how he deserves more respect and money for his greatness. The man had an ego. You don’t have to care, but to me it only dissuades me further from giving a shit about his lame sounding books.

[Anonymous No.22040407]

>>22039429
Kind of a self absorbed asshole but had a few good stories

[Anonymous No.22040409]

>>22039429
Reddit writer.

[Anonymous No.22040805]

>>22040354
>you’re being disingenuous.
Yeah, sorry. But it is why most people are interviewed.
>Watch the Charlie Rose interview where he keeps throwing off the group conversation to talk about how great he is.
Is that the one with Gene Wolf and Asimov?

He did have a stick in ass about a lot of things, and he wasn't afraid of speaking out. There wasn't an interviewer on TV who didn't knew w what they were getting Ellison. He was the literary Mr T.

He can rub people the wrong way, but he was friends with those two (and many.of the greats) till the end.

But the man taught himself to read at 3 (same as lit's favourite misunderstood, underachieving, racist horror writer, HP Lovecraft), wrote constantly, edited and mentored mercilessly, stood out by being a short white Jew marching with black people during Selma's marches, fought publishers and producers at every turn to be paid a fair wage. And still wrote hundreds of short stories.

The man earned his ego.

[Anonymous No.22040815]

>>22040805
Hey fair enough.
But I can’t take crazy stuff like “I taught myself how to read at three” seriously from someone with such a belligerent ego. Also don’t really care. Bottom line is his shit doesn’t sound interesting to me; I have no mouth sounds like the gayest plot ever, and his stories just sound like Stephen king tier crap. Maybe he deserves the ego for having a solid career and etc. and I commend a writer for writing, but I guess what I’m saying is I’m not really that interested.
Got any recs that’ll change my mind? (Don’t say I have no mouth, obv)

[Anonymous No.22040848]

He was a funny little jew I sometimes watch his rants they got him to do on the Sci Fi channel

[Anonymous No.22040898]

>>22040815
Yeah he isn't for everyone. Even I think he's written a lot of duds, but it's the consistency and work ethic I admire most from him. His day job for a lot of years was basically yelling at production companies in newspaper columns, which probably only fueled his attitude.

Shattered like a Glass Goblin is almost an eldritch take of drug abuse

Whimper of Whipped Dogs was inspired by the murder of Kitty Genovese

Basilisk is very king-esq about a Vietnam vet returning as a monster.

[Anonymous No.22040906]

>>22039429
he's made more money suing people than he has writing books

[Anonymous No.22041353]

>>22040906
terminator

[Anonymous No.22041589]

>>22040906
James Cameron might have been able to make amazing movies in the 80s and 90s, but his cuntery is well known (not least not ensuring Eliza Dushku's safety from a sexual predator on True Lies).

Harlan was just somebody who didn't bend over for him.

[Anonymous No.22041691]

enjoy - i made this for myself, so.. you know..
https://media1.vocaroo.com/mp3/1e0jLrVxVAkA

also this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6wp0Qbf4Cw

>>22039956
>>22039881
>>22039864
>>22039807
>RUN FOR THE STARS

[Anonymous No.22041694]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB4yUqXWOmo

[Anonymous No.22041712]

ed. >>22041691
https://vocaroo.com/1e0jLrVxVAkA
Harlan Ellisons Run For The Stars 1957 (with dramatic music) end chapt4 beginning chapt5

[Anonymous No.22041754]

>>22039429
He had a hell of an ego. He was a total curmudgeon. He sued everyone. He openly hated fans - something I appreciate more with age.

He was a staunch left wing liberal but he walked the walk. He also not a violent protester who used demonstrations as an excuse to lash out at the world. He was a true believer.

He encouraged creativity and stood up for writers. He advocated for the science fiction genre and differentiated between the quality work and the total schlock.

He was a total nerd and never hid his power level. He genuinely liked his science fiction, his comic books, his radio dramas. He was not out for attention. In short he was what Redditors think they are but he had actual credentials and was genuine.

He was a wonderful narrator and storyteller. Most audiobook narrators should be embarrassed at themselves after listening to him do it.

As for his writing he is often described as a science fiction writer but he wrote fantasy at least as much. He cut his teeth writing during the latter days of tge pulps. He had a serious work ethic for cranking out a story. He even described it as a skill and did not ascribe any mysticism to it. He produced some real classics, some experimental, and his fair share of duds. The man just kept at it. /wg/ wishes they could be as prolific and disciplined as he was.

All in all I wish we had more like him for better or worse.

[Anonymous No.22042435]

>>22041754
>All in all I wish we had more like him for better or worse
Honestly the more I read, the more of his books I manage to tracks down, the more I miss him, and I didn't even know of him when he was alive.

[Anonymous No.22042441]

He thought the Star Trek ep they made out of his script sucked, when in reality it's the best episode of the show.

[Anonymous No.22042451]

I don't know who this guy is but he looks /fa/ as fuck

[Anonymous No.22042501]

Most of Ellison's short story collections are based on a theme, some of which are stronger than others. For a newcomer, I'd recommended Angry Candy. Its stories all focus on death and grief.

Like other anons have noted, his work is very hit-or-miss, with much of his "humorous" works coming across as cringey imo. However, his prolific output and extensive writing about writing have inspired me as a hobbyist author

[Anonymous No.22042606]

>>22042501
My mom passed in January, then a used copy of Angry Candy turned up in the mail, just too late to for me to paraphrase the intro and tell her church exactly what I though about her god taking her way too soon.

Harlan is still prescient in strange ways.

[Anonymous No.22042660]

>>22042501
Just read Angry Candy a couple of months ago. "Paladin of the Lost Hour" and "On the Slab" really stuck with me. "The Region Between" is insane. "Laughtrack" is a classic.

[Anonymous No.22043666]

>>22039429
Ashamed I didn’t pick him up earlier and only finally caved in a few months ago for the dumbest reason one can conceive of.

[Anonymous No.22043713]

>>22039429
I think he's great. He's a total douche but he wrote interesting enough stories and, in my opinion, has a very unique and stylish literary voice. I love his prose, even though you could definitely call it purple more often than not. That's part of the fun of Ellison, though.

[Anonymous No.22043755]

>In 1969, Ellison was Guest of Honor at Texas A&M University's first science fiction convention, Aggiecon, where he reportedly[74] referred to the university's Corps of Cadets as "America's next generation of Nazis", inspired in part by the continuing Vietnam War. Although the university was no longer solely a military school (from 1965), the student body was predominantly made up of cadet members. Between Ellison's anti-military remarks and a food fight that broke out in the ballroom of the hotel where the gathering was held (although, according to Ellison in 2000, the food fight actually started in a Denny's because the staff disappeared and they could not get their check)
I'm tempted to say Ellison was wrong because the nearest Denny's was like two miles away at the time.

[Anonymous No.22043783]

>>22041712
>https://vocaroo.com/1e0jLrVxVAkA
youve got a really good voice, dude. How old are you?

[Anonymous No.22043816]

>>22043783
Thanks! I'm 11 - that's me playing the orchestra too

[Anonymous No.22044179]

idk if I'll ever read him but I greatly enjoyed this short docu on him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kH_SyPHuk0
bonus convo with Asimov and Gene Wolfe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvcKB9vQO0

[Anonymous No.22044511]

>>22043755
>the nearest Denny's was like two miles away at the time.
There was a time when Americans would walk further than a 1/4 mile.

[Anonymous No.22044660]

>>22039429
Is so much of a angry little autistic manlet jew incel kike that he overloads the scale and comes out as an unfathomably based gigachad.

[Anonymous No.22044690]

>>22039429
He's my favorite writer, and the stories about his antics are just as interesting as his work.

[Anonymous No.22045358]

>>22043816
kek

[Anonymous No.22045428]

>>22039429
Total dick.

[Anonymous No.22045449]

>>22041589
Cameron ran his mouth in public about where the idea came from. If he'd kept quiet Ellison wouldn't have had a case.

[Anonymous No.22045525]

>>22045428
Gabe sounds like a fucking idiot; telling someone to fuck off doesn't open up some free floor to say shit back, this is when people usually get punched in the face for not knowing what "fuck" and "off" means.

Seems like the "fools cap" was inserted into there purposefully also, although Gabe would have been oblivious to what he was being set up to do by his organizers.

See, this is why I have no interest to be famous.

[Anonymous No.22045847]

>>22045428
>and then everyone clapped and Gabe passed out crisp $100 bills
I was there, it happened just like that.

[Anonymous No.22046320]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTrnkHuhvFg

[Anonymous No.22046605]

>>22045428
Based Harlan.

Gabe disrespects a titan in American literature, by his own admission makes himself make himself look a fool (with the jerster's hat), then got pissed somebody else wanted to make a fool of him.

Good job Gabe was still writing his fucking comic, I don't know what humanity would have done without it.

The older I get the more I admire Harlan's attitude. Nobody deserves your time if they're just going to waste it. In the time the convention took place he was pissed he's missed out on writing another book.

[Anonymous No.22046609]

>>22045449
Egotists like Cameron can't help but brag about shit they 'invented'

[Anonymous No.22046619]

>>22046320
Kek

[Anonymous No.22046775]

>>22039923
>TV shorts for the SciFi channel (on YouTube, Harlan Ellison watches)
He was right about online bulletin boards. Part of me's glad he wasn't around to see of all that go mainstream.

[Anonymous No.22046922]

>>22046775
Yeah, I was glad he never really got into computers, yet seem to know more than most people today. To the end he got his assistant as in interface to online shit.

[Anonymous No.22047582]

>>22046922
>To the end he got his assistant as in interface to online shit.
I was just visiting his website the other day. What a time capsule.
http://harlanellison.com/home.htm

[Anonymous No.22047588]

>>22046605
>disrespects a "titan" by asking him a question

[Anonymous No.22047604]

>>22039429
anyone with the name "Harlan" is guaranteed by the laws of nominative determinism to be a massive pseud

[Anonymous No.22047663]

>>22039429
Fun guy, entertaining short stories. Haven't read his longer works.
Would be a great shitposter if he were born a couple decades later.

[Anonymous No.22047916]

His essay on malicious 'fans', Xenogenesis may tell you why he was the way he was
>One fan who was invited into my home stole more than two thousand dollars worth of rare comic books during a period of more than six months of friendly visits. Another fan walked off with the virtually irreplaceable Shasta Press books that bear Hannes Bok covers, all of them in mint condition, all of them bearing my bookplates. Yet another fan I caught as she walked out the front door of my house, with the first three issues of Unknown in her tote bag. And there was one who pocketed as memento of his visit, a collectible pinback button from the old Kellogg’ s Pep cereal series of comic book characters, Annie’ s dog, Sandy. Another relieved me of the worry of winding a wristwatch sent to me by an executive of the Bulova company; an instrument produced in the number of two: one I owned, the other belonging to Winston Churchill. Another took a leisurely riffle through my files in the dead of night while the rest of the household was asleep, and got away with a series of original letters from the author of THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, B. Traven, as well as the carbons of my letters to him in Mexico. And still another managed to cop— one by one, under his shirt— several dozen first editions that I’ d bought new in the mid-fifties, when I’ d been a fan myself, and had started collecting, paying for the books by saving lunch money. At the Kansas City Worldcon a number of years ago, a fan who still comes to conventions showed up at a party in my room and stole the only Virgil Finlay artwork I’ ve ever been able to find for a reasonable purchase price.
>A fan from the Seattle area pulled the subscription coupons from more than fifty magazines ranging from Good Housekeeping to Hustler, typed in my name and address, and signed me up for subscriptions. Have you ever tried to get Time magazine to stop sending you its journal, and billing you endlessly? Have you ever received twelve dunning letters from bill collection agencies for goods you never requested, all in one day? Have you ever considered how much time and money you expend calling computerized subscription services in Colorado, trying to get them to trace where bogus subscription coupons came from?

[Anonymous No.22048001]

I don’t know who that is. I also don’t care to know who he is as he is not a milf with big boobies

[Anonymous No.22048277]

>>22044511
If they walked, that's even less plausible--a convention and their Guest of Honor would walk two miles for a Denny's, passing numerous restaurants along the way?

[Anonymous No.22048821]

>>22048277
I'm not picking a side here, Harlan would exaggerate and spin stories, just know people weren't so lazy as they are today.

[Anonymous No.22048852]

>>22039429
This is a pretty weird thing to note but his title game was the best in the business.

>"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
>The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
>Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled
and of course,
>I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

[Anonymous No.22049291]

>>22048001
But anon, this is the literature board.

[Anonymous No.22049352]

>>22049291
Butt Anon is right.

>>22047916
>>One fan who was invited into my home stole more than two thousand dollars worth of rare comic books during a period of more than six months of friendly visits. Another fan walked off with the virtually irreplaceable Shasta Press books that bear Hannes Bok covers, all of them in mint condition, all of them bearing my bookplates. Yet another fan I caught as she walked out the front door of my house, with the first three issues of Unknown in her tote bag. And there was one who pocketed as memento of his visit, a collectible pinback button from the old Kellogg’ s Pep cereal series of comic book characters, Annie’ s dog, Sandy. Another relieved me of the worry of winding a wristwatch sent to me by an executive of the Bulova company; an instrument produced in the number of two: one I owned, the other belonging to Winston Churchill. Another took a leisurely riffle through my files in the dead of night while the rest of the household was asleep, and got away with a series of original letters from the author of THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, B. Traven, as well as the carbons of my letters to him in Mexico. And still another managed to cop— one by one, under his shirt— several dozen first editions that I’ d bought new in the mid-fifties, when I’ d been a fan myself, and had started collecting, paying for the books by saving lunch money. At the Kansas City Worldcon a number of years ago, a fan who still comes to conventions showed up at a party in my room and stole the only Virgil Finlay artwork I’ ve ever been able to find for a reasonable purchase price.
This is absolutely awful... but... why did he keep letting people in his house... xd

[Anonymous No.22049395]

https://www.patreon.com/posts/update-on-harlan-78252204
Update on Harlan House Restoration

what a sick exterior

[Anonymous No.22049505]

>>22049352
>why did he keep letting people in his house
Because despite being a human heart attack, Harlan never stopped helping out or standing up for little authors and never wanted to turn away a fan.

He made plenty of enemies, but he made many more friends

[Anonymous No.22049597]

>>22049505
Still, after the first couple of times I'd think about putting a lock onto the door of my trophy room and library.

[Anonymous No.22049628]

have you seen all the crap in his house? I'd be tempted by sticky fingers too. He's like the manchild funkpop final boss but with better taste

highly rec anyone in this thread watch the documentary on him 'Dreams with Sharp Teeth'
https://fmovies.to/movie/dreams-with-sharp-teeth-nkpyn/1-full

[Anonymous No.22049758]

>>22049597
His house was his Library, rare shit hanging off every wall. A hoarder, but his stuff was actually valuable.

[Anonymous No.22049850]

I'm fond of his story 'The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World' about Jack the Ripper being abducted through time to a society even more deranged than he, especially the description of the city they inhibit
>[Around them, the City. As they walked, the grandfather paid no attention, and Jack watched but did not understand. But this was what they saw as they walked:
>[Thirteen hundred beams of light, one foot wide and seven molecules thick, erupted from almost-invisible slits in the metal streets, fanned out and washed the surfaces of the buildings; they altered hue to a vague blue and washed down the surfaces of the buildings; they bent and covered all open surfaces, bent at right angles, then bent again, and again, like origami paper figures; they altered hue a second time, soft gold, and penetrated the surfaces of the buildings, expanding and contracting in solid waves, washing the inner surfaces; they withdrew rapidly into the sidewalks; the entire process had taken twelve seconds.
>[Night fell over a sixteen block area of the City. It descended in a solid pillar and was quite sharp-edged, ending at the street corners. From within the area of darkness came the distinct sounds of crickets, marsh frogs belching, night birds, soft breezes in trees, and faint music of unidentifiable instruments.
>[Panes of frosted light appeared suspended freely in the air, overhead. A wavery insubstantial quality began to assault the topmost levels of a great structure directly in front of the light-panes. As the panes moved slowly down through the air, the building became indistinct, turned into motes of light, and floated upward. As the panes reached the pavement, the building had been completely dematerialized. The panes shifted color to a deep orange, and began moving upward again. As they moved, a new structure began to form where the previous building had stood, drawing—it seemed—motes of light from the air and forming them into a cohesive whole that became, as the panes ceased their upward movement, a new building. The light-panes winked out of existence.
>[The sound of a bumblebee was heard for several seconds. Then it ceased.
>[A crowd of people in rubber garments hurried out of a gray pulsing hole in the air, patted the pavement at their feet, then rushed off around a corner, from where emanated the sound of prolonged coughing. Then silence returned.
>[A drop of water, thick as quicksilver, plummeted to the pavement, struck, bounded, rose several inches, then evaporated into a crimson smear in the shape of a whale’s tooth, which settled to the pavement and lay still.
>[Two blocks of buildings sank into the pavement and the metal covering was smooth and unbroken, save for a metal tree whose trunk was silver and slim, topped by a ball of foliage constructed of golden fibers that radiated brightly in a perfect circle. There was no sound.
>[The late Juliette’s grandfather and the man from 1888 continued walking.]

[Anonymous No.22050886]

>>22039923
>YouTube, Harlan Ellison watches
Started collecting his work after watching that. I liked how he thought, so I thought I'd like what he wrote. And I did.

Still have another Edgeworks on the way. They're not ideal, but the good thing about Harlan's work is the updated or extra intros. He fucking loved talking about his work, or what he'd been up to since the last edition. A Harlan book is like having a distant family member stay over.

[Anonymous No.22050892]

>>22039429
He was a cute.

[Anonymous No.22051093]

>>22050892
For a manlet he did pretty well for himself with women. Even went on The Dating Game:-

Here we are, these two other guys and myself, behind a modernistic backset, with pseudo-Herb Alpert music rattling, and they introduced the charmer I’d seen in the hall.

She sits down and asks the first question: “Number One, describe the worst of your bad habits.” So Number One, who looked like an out-of-work Via Veneto pimp, replied, “I snore. But you won’t have to worry about that because I know I’ll stay awake with you.” He thought that was really dynamite repartee. Then Number Two—a collegiate football hero if ever there lived one—denigrated himself with his bad habit of drinking beer and watching sports on tv every Saturday and Sunday. But he assured her that in the light of her wonderfulness, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was nowhere. Then she got to me, Number Three. “Number Three,” she said, “do you have any bad habits?”

“Well, frankly, no,” I said, smiling a Huckleberry Finn smile she was the poorer for not being able to see. “My friends say I’m without flaw, if you ignore the fact that I’m an ax murderer and rapist.

“But everybody has a few minor character flaws,” I added.

There was a hushed silence from the other side of the set. Then she recovered and went on to her second question.

“Number One, describe what we’d do if you took me out, what kind of an evening you’d consider a big date.”

The Via Veneto pimp did a fast ramadoola about how she was the kind of girl who should be treated to a fancy dinner, the theater, and dancing thereafter. One could almost mentally envision this lad squiring the lady to a series of (what he thought were) high-class places like Frascatti’s, the Victory Drive-In and the then-extant Cinnamon Cinder.

Number Two opined the lady was a “down-to-earth kinda girl who’s more interested in simple things,” and he conjured up a dream date consisting of hamburgers at McDonald’s, bowling, and making out in his car at Malibu.

It wasn’t hard to beat those two efforts.

“Well,” I said, adopting a Ronald Colman voice, “for you I would plan a formal evening with you in Pucci gown and me in tuxedo. I would have the chef at Scandia prepare for us a picnic dinner of breast of guinea hen under glass and jeroboams of champagne—Taittinger’s Blanc de Blanc ’45 possibly—and then I would have us, with our dinner, chauffeured out to the city dump where, with ivory-handled .45s, we would sip bubbly and amuse ourselves by shooting rats.”

“Shooting rats?!?!” The shriek from the muffin on the other side of the set was a ghastly thing to hear.

Again, silence.

The recovery was much longer this time.

[Anonymous No.22051106]

>>22051093
But recover she did. And proceeded through the rest of the questions concentrating on #’s 1 and 2. Number Three was conspicuous by his silence and his satisfied smirk.

As you may have gathered, by this time I was thoroughly nauseated by the whole thing. It was demeaning, it was vapid, it was like a hiring hall for dock wallopers. It removed from male and female alike any pride in self, any sense of self as worthy, any depth or loveliness. I wanted out of there.

Finally, because it became apparent that she was ignoring me, I suppose, my potential ladylove decided to include me in a final question. It was a beauty.

“Tell me, Number One,” she began, “how you would go about convincing me I should go out with you.”

I could not believe my ears. She didn’t really ask that, did she?

But she had, and he did, and I wanted to puke. Number One did a seedy Continental number unctuous with double-entendre. Then Number Two all but fell to his baggy knees pleading with this brainless excuse for a woman to go out with him. Then she got to Number Three: “Convince me, Number Three,” she said.

“Convince you, you idiot!” I snarled. “I wouldn’t go out with a nit like you if they offered me the governorship of Hawaii as inducement. You, and this whole dumb show can go take a sunbath in a cyclotron!”

And I got up and walked off.

There were screams from the stage. The director and the tape editor and the cameramen and the producer and the emcee and the advertising men and the grips and maybe even that nifty little guy, Chuck Barris, started screaming.

“Burn that goddamn tape!” I heard someone shriek from back out there.

“Cut! Cut! Cut!” the floor director was shouting. It was bedlam. People were running everywhichway. I couldn’t see her, but the female contestant was hawking in a dry-heave sort of way over her chest mike. The other two guys were still sitting on their stools, dumbfounded.

I saw a horde of people advancing on me from backstage, and I ran like a thief. Got away with barely my skin intact.

The show was never aired, of course.

[Anonymous No.22051142]

>>22050886
>Mind Fields
nice. I remember watching a video of him reading fan mail or something (probably a part of Harlan Watches series, I could be wrong), and he talked about how that art had inspired him to write stories about each picture.
there's not even a pdf on the web.

[Anonymous No.22051149]

>>22051142
I got that quite recently, they keep finding batches, so keep an eye out. It's great and typically Harlan how the stories he wrote (and wasn't asked to) are shorter than the explanations at the back.

[Anonymous No.22051179]

>>22051106
good story. thanks

[Anonymous No.22051531]

>>22051142
Harlan read the story from Mind Fields he dedicated to his wife in this one segment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UecDuXHRe0g