Harlan Ellison Gets A Haircut

by Stephen J. Gertz

Hollywood haircut noir.

Harlan Ellison did a book signing in Hollywood last weekend. He got a haircut first.

I don't know how many haircuts Ellison gets each year but the media was alerted for this one. He's seventy-nine years old but not on death's door; this wasn't Harlan Ellison's Last Haircut. But it was a Harlan Ellison haircut, nonetheless. Stop the presses.

Considering that he got it at Sweeney Todd's Barber Shop on Hollywood Boulevard we're fortunate that it wasn't something more. Trader Joe's is not offering 100% All-Harlan Meat Pies this week.

Sweeney Todd's offers party services and will, upon request, screen vintage stag films for guests, a classic movie projector running the sin through its sprockets. This occurs at night, after hours. No stag films during Ellison's haircut: it was daytime and the clips were strictly of the scissors kind. Harlan merely needed a little taken off the top and around the ears with neckline cleaned up. But he wound up getting styled.

Prelude to a pompadour.
Photo credit: Miriam Linna.

I arrived late, Sweeney Todd's was packed inside, a crowd of Ellisoniacs piled outside, and the two bodyguards the publisher hired for the occasion (appropriately dressed  as '50s juvenile delinquents  because Ellison is the king of JD-lit. amongst other literary crowns he wears) blocked my entrance. Through the window I saw Harlan sitting in the barber's chair. He'd been regaling those inside with 100% pure Ellison, which is to say he was outrageous, funny, profane, provocative, acerbic, funnier still, insightful, and totally entertaining. I didn't hear any of it but it's a given that when Harlan Ellison opens his mouth to an audience pearls of all grades and colors fall out of it.

Haircut over, he made it to the front door, looked directly at me through its window, got walleyed, enthusiastically pointed, then spread his arms and mouthed "Oh, my God!" Somewhat puzzled by his effusive display I pantomimed my own greeting in return. A moment later he walked out the door with his wife, Susan, and bodyguards in tow. "Great to see you!" he said as if I was his long-lost best friend. I was touched. "Great to see you, too," I said, as if he was my long-lost best friend I never knew I had and lost.  Surrounded by the adoring he introduced me to Susan: "Tell her who you are!" I did while he was distracted by the press, which pressed close, the potential for sterling sound bites too overwhelming to let pass.

He was wearing a black t-shirt under an open button-down. The t-shirt read, "What if the Hokey-Pokey was really what it's all about?," existentialist despair with mordant pop-culture wit ala Ellison. So, we put our right foot in, we put our right foot out and pokey'ed down the street to La Luz de Jesus, the book, art, and pop-culture gallery where Harlan was giving a talk with Q&A followed by a signing for Pulling A Train and Getting in the Wind. These twin collections of Ellison JD short stories were recently published by Kicks Books and reprint those in Ellison's Sex Gang by Paul Merchant (Nightstand Books, NB 1503, 1959) with others from the late '50s - early '60s. Kicks is the wild paperback imprint out of Brooklyn and home to "Hip Pocket Books," the reflection of the all-consuming pulp-culture sensibility of their publisher, Miriam Linna. She's the reigning Queen of Cool whose irrepressibly enthusiastic, tongue-in-torrid-cheek happy-go-hard-boiled fanzine ad copy reads like a rush down a dark alley on a moonlit night in Pulpville in service to moving the merch with an irresistible pitch.

"All hail the first hip pocket volume of Ellison short stories culled
from the rarest of his titles, SEX GANG, which was issued under
the name of Paul Merchant in 1959. The wild set of psychosexual
gangland tales is finally available again, fifty years later, spanning
two volumes which collect all of the stories in the 1959 book plus
an unhealthy dose of lost fiction from the persistent pen of the
grand master of all things tainted, terrible, torrid and terrific."

The gallery was packed; there was no room to wriggle. A sardine would have been thankful to be in a can. Harlan moved through the crowd toward the front; I faded into the audience.

After an amusing introduction by comedian Patton Oswalt (whose recent Star Wars-themed filibuster on Parks and Recreation has gone YouTube viral due to its inspired high-insanity quotient) Harlan took the podium and for the next half-hour he took it for a ride.

Harlan mugs for Patton Oswalt's camera.

Don't get Harlan Ellison started on the stalkers, creeps, and miscreants that have plagued him over the years. Death threats have come his way like confetti at a convention. He doesn't shoot from the hip so much as bazooka from the shoulder and this bugs some people, particularly those with loose hinges. Ellison doesn't take kindly to loons in his yard at night with shotguns. It offends his street-sense of courtesy and he has no compunctions about dealing directly with such hazards. On one occasion he disarmed the intruder and nailed him to a tree. This may seem extreme but in Ellison's telling the episode was a dark Looney Tune™ and the only thing missing was an anvil falling on the bum's head; he got off easy with the nails, and Harlan, naturally, nailed the story's laugh lines.

I wouldn't interrupt Harlan Ellison in mid-sentence if I were you. He takes no prisoners. You'll be impaled but the audience will scream with delight. You may, however, float an inch off the ground with a beatific smile afterward, as did one guilty party I saw. To be cursed by Harlan Ellison is to be blessed; you have been anointed with his words. It's like getting ranked-out by Don Rickles: it's a badge of honor and only the humorless complain.

"Hot on the heels of PULLING A TRAIN comes its savage sister
GETTING IN THE WIND, whipping up more gritty street life odes
circa 1959! Perfect the pair with both volumes - together, they
pack the fervor of a genre too wild, too true, too traumatizing
for tepid tempers - this is the neckmeat for a new breed of reader,
a glittering illiterati channeling raw emotion and constant
visceral stimulation. Without this pair, friend, you are lost."

Harlan Ellison has been called contentious, abrasive, and argumentative. He knows he can be that way sometimes. Considering the many putzes he's had to contend with over the years you'd be contentious, abrasive, and argumentative, too. Robert Bloch once said that while other writers take infinite pains, "Harlan gives them."

He has a healthy ego. Some think it's too healthy. But a novelist without an ego solidly in the pink ain't much of a writer. So, when a young guy asked him what he thought of Philip K. Dick during the Q&A I froze. Uh, oh, I thought, this is a Harlan Ellison book event; Harlan Ellison is performing (because Harlan Ellison appearances are performance art); Harlan Ellison is one of the greatest science-fiction writers the world has ever produced; hell, it's Harlan-Time! and this chowderhead is asking about another author, one in the same genre? I thought the question steel to Ellison's flint and expected sparks to fly.

Harlan grew quiet. It was a two-part question, he carefully replied. What do I think of Philip K. Dick as a writer and what do I think of Philip K. Dick as a man?

Ellison adores 80% of Philip K. Dick's work, it's beyond compare. The other 20% he doesn't care for, Dick's theologically-themed novels. Ellison isn't into spirituality, he prefers gritty, he says. As for Philip K. Dick, the man, Harlan began then stopped himself, afraid that he might say something that would get him into trouble. He earlier expressed a strong aversion to computers, the Internet, social media and hand-held digital devices that can take a snippet and turn it into a tempest in ten minutes. After measured consideration he simply said that when Dick was in the mood he could be the most charming person in the world. When he wasn't in the mood, well..., and he let it go at that.

There was one area in which Ellison admitted satisfaction in besting Philip K. Dick. Dick was only married five times. Susan is Harlan's sixth wife, their marriage in its twenty-eighth year. "I finally got it right!" he said. This after he admitted to being a swordsman in youth, advancing with his sabre five, six times a day, starlets too enchanted to parry his lunges nor want to. You'd think that level of activity would affect his writing schedule but this is a man who used to make in-store appearances as writer-in-residence as window display, sitting at a desk with typewriter and banging out work in progress to draw passersby, mutli-tasking as silent, preoccupied barker.

As long as he was talking about sci-fi colleagues he expressed his grief over Richard Matheson's recent death. Matheson was a giant in Ellison's book and the world lost a master.

At this point the line for signing snaked out the door of La Luz de Jesus, the natives were getting restless, and it was time for Harlan to move into the adjoining space, sit at a desk and begin that part of the party, and this was, indeed, a party.

"EXCLUSIVE TO HARLAN ELLISON'S PULLING A TRAIN In step with all books
in the Kicks paperback line, a 'sidekick' perfume has been formulated,
street-tested, bottled and packaged. SEX GANG is the heady scent
that tells the world OFF! Exclusive, limited, and totally dangerous. With
miniature switchblade comb. Arrives bottled in authentic Italian half ounce
Baralan bottle, boxed in signature Kicks Books Co. gift box."

I had to leave before the signing began. I wedged through the crush, went up to him to say goodbye, and our farewell was as warm as our hello. I still didn't understand why but I enjoyed it. He seemed to enjoy it, too. We both enjoyed it and I saw no point in spoiling the enjoyment by questioning him in public, putting him in an awkward position, and blowing the good vibes. I noticed a few people checking me out, like who's this guy who seems to be such a good buddy of the Great Man?

I'd met Harlan Ellison exactly once, a while ago for a total of maybe thirty, forty minutes or so. What did I do right to earn a generous spot in his memory? Maybe he had me confused with someone else. When he earlier told me to tell Susan about myself it could have been a dodge to discover who I was but at that moment he was besieged and may have simply delegated the introduction for convenience.

Isaac Asimov once noted that "Harlan uses his gifts for colorful and variegated invective on those who irritate him - intrusive fans, obdurate editors, callous publishers, offensive strangers."

Harlan Ellison doesn't suffer fools gladly. In fact he doesn't suffer at all; he makes them suffer. I have the sense that he's annoyed by 99.9999% of the population. While he respects his fans and, up to a point, appreciates their attention, he has no use for flatterers. Perhaps, then, Harlan didn't think me a fool, was not annoyed, nor considered me a fawning supplicant, intrusive, irritating, or offensive  -  though I've been all those things with others, at times. I've been awestruck by a celebrity only once in my life and that was when I had lunch with Yoko Ono a few years back during a book fair in New York and interviewed her for Booktryst. I  felt like a blubbering idiot throughout the experience. Don't tell him but I'm in awe of Harlan Ellison. I just keep it under wraps and behave like a normal person, no matter how alien I actually am.

"EXCLUSIVE TO HARLAN ELLISON'S GETTING IN THE WIND, Like all
Kicks Books fragrances, SIN TIME is created from the world's
finest floral distillates. A scent can evoke the memory of a
stained satin bedsheet or the moonlit hair of a gang deb
teetering down the wet, cobblestone streets of Red Hook.
Extracted from lavender, this ancient scent is symbolic of
magic and mistrust, aiding one in seeing ghosts of gangland past.
A pair of exquisite miniature glass dice are inside each
Baralan bottle."

I wanted to reach out to him later to reinforce the friendship that was welcome news to me. Susan was kind to give me his secret contact info, which I'd lost, a mail drop located in [redacted] within L.A.'s San Fernando Valley. He doesn't do email and few get his phone number. It may have been more interesting but I feel lucky he didn't ask me to place a gladiolus under a garbage can at the corner of [redacted] and [redacted], wait two hours, return, and pick up a coded sandwich bag in the trash can containing his home address written in cuneiform Sumerian.

Cheech Beldone, delinquent, with toothpick.
Photo credit: Patton Oswalt.

I am pleased to report that Harlan and his haircut - "The Cheech Beldone," created by Sween Lahman of Sweeney Todd's and so-dubbed in homage to Harlan's street name when he joined a youth gang in 1954 to research the phenomenon - survived the afternoon, or at least as much as I experienced of it. At seventy-nine years, Harlan Ellison still has a full, lush head of hair. Long may it wave. I want this guy around forever. Make that a permanent wave.

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All images other than header courtesy of Miriam Linna, with our thanks.
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A case of Kicks perfumes was boosted from the Kicks Books trunk. Anyone with knowledge its whereabouts is encouraged to contact the publisher before Cheech Beldone hunts down the dirty dog and dissects it.
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For Purple Monsters Majesty Above A Nutty Plain

by Stephen J. Gertz

New York: E.P. Dutton, 1949. First separate edition.

 "What mad universe was this that Keith Winton found himself in?
Where purple monsters from the moon roamed the streets with
no one paying any attention to them?"

While strolling in the park one day, in the merry, merry month of May, I was taken by surprise by a pair of purple eyes, purple limbs, purple torso, bad hair day.

Hi, I'm Keith Winton, editor of a pulp science fiction magazine based in a major market - and I ain't  talkin' Trader Joe's. One day (in May), with my trusty co-worker and glamorous girlfriend, Betty, at my side, I visited  my publisher's elegant Borscht Belt estate in the Catskills, just down the road from Grossinger's, up the street from The Concord, around the corner from The Pines, and next door to The Nevele, which is eleven spelled backwards but don't ask me why. We were in a mad universe of upstate New York Jewish resorts and spritzing, tummling comedians. Rim-shot! Laugh? I thought I'd die.

New York: Bantam Books #835, 1950. Cover by Herman Bischoff.
First edition in paperback.

Unfortunately, on that same day an experimental rocket was launched to the Moon. Simultaneously, Betty was launched back to New York. I was alone, then, in my publisher's' garden, lost in thought, when, suddenly, the Moon rocket (whose launch was a friggin' failure) crashed and exploded on the estate (aka Inanity Acres), careening me into a strange but deceptively similar parallel universe. 

Wild-eyed, as you might imagine (if not, imagine it now), I was astonished to discover that credits had replaced dollars; amazed when I encountered scantily-clad pin-up girls who, it turned out, were distaff astronauts with va-va-voom and oh-la-la lunar dreams; and was stupefied when I encountered a Moon race of seven-foot tall purple beings who insouciantly walked down Broadway in New York City as if they were cast members from a parallel universe production of Rogers and Hammerstein's 1949 sock-o South Pacific and belonged there, enjoying one enchanted evening on The Great White Way. Even a cockeyed optimist would look askance at this parade of purple protoplasm engaged in happy talk. How would Earth wash these purple people right out of its hair?

New York: Bantom Books #1253, 1954. Cover by Charles Binger. Reprint.

What mad 1949 universe was I in where Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower makes a cameo appearance? Last I heard he was president of Columbia University and the staff and faculty resented his galavanting around the nation to promote a personal agenda that would one day lead to his nomination and election as President of the United States. Now he's in command of the Venus Sector in defense against the Arcturians with whom we are at war? I like Ike but what mad universe indeed!

Startling Stories - September 1948 - Vol. 18, No. 1
First appearance in print.

And a comic one, yet. Y'know, when a character like yours truly winds up in a science-fiction novel you figure cosmic funereal not interplanetary farce; dying is easy, comedy is hard. But that's exactly what What Mad Universe is, a social and literary satire of modern American life at mid-century and science-fiction genre conventions.

Call me Pirandello minus five but I feel like one character in search of an author, specifically Fredric Brown (1906-1972), who wrote me into  What Mad Universe. I suppose I should consider myself lucky: Brown was a master of the short-short story, often writing fully-developed tales of only one to three pages in length; my story - my life! - could have been dramatically condensed. In 1955, he published Martians Go Home (They Came, They Saw, They Left!), another screwball sci-fi comedy.

London: Grafton, 1987. Artist unknown.

Brown was also a fine mystery writer, his first full-length novel, The Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), winning an Edgar Award. For years prior he wrote hundreds of stories for the pulp magazines of his era.

What Mad Universe has become a classic, one of the most popular speculative fiction novels ever written. It has been reprinted many times.

Paris: Le Rayon Fantastique #21 (Hachette/Gallimard), 1953.
First ppk. edition in French. Cover by Rene Caillé.

It was very popular in France, winning immediate critical acclaim upon its release. Many French critics consider it to be one of the major sci-fi novels of all time. But they are equally ga-ga about Jerry Lewis movies, UFOs in the U.S.A. but laff-fests in France. Vive L'Univers en Folie.

What Mad Universe?

Goodbye, I'm Keith Winton, not to be confused with my cousin, Alfred E. Newman, above.

Below, allow me to serenade you with a little bagatelle I recorded in 1959 under an assumed name when the purple people eaters returned to digest and excrete me.

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BROWN, Fredric. What Mad Universe. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1949. First separate edition. Octavo. 255, [1] pp. Cloth. Dust jacket.

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Tennessee Williams' Sweet Sacred Ibis Of Youth

By Stephen J. Gertz

Cover by C.C. Senf.

"Hushed were the streets of many peopled Thebes. Those few who passed through them moved with the shadowy fleetness of bats near dawn, and bent their faces from the sky as if fearful of seeing what in their fancies might be hovering there..."

An emotionally iffy ancient Egyptian princess, sister to the Pharaoh, seeks revenge on those who conspired to execute her beloved brother, ascends the throne, builds a temple as an elaborate death-trap, drowns them all with sadistic glee, and then kills herself.

It's Tennessee Williams' first published story, his second appearance in print, The Vengeance of Nitocris, issued under his given name, Thomas Lanier Williams, and published by Weird Tales,  the American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine, in 1928. It might just as well have been titled  A Chariot Named Desire, or The Orisris Menagerie. 
 

"I was sixteen when I wrote [the story], but already a confirmed writer, having entered upon this vocation at the age of fourteen, and, if you're well acquainted with my writings since then, I don't have to tell you that it set the keynote for most of the work that has followed" (Tennessee Williams, New York Times interview, as cited by Francesca M. Hitchcock, "Tennessee Williams' Vengeance of Nitocris: The Keynote to Future Works," The Mississippi Quarterly, Vol. 48, 1995).

A strong if emotionally fragile woman, a close brother-sister bond, a descent into madness, and  death - this is, indeed, Williams territory, with revenge and lurid blood and guts thrown in as a nod to the Bard, Titus Andronicus, according to Hitchcock, William's favorite play by Shakespeare. In this weird tale for Weird Tales, as in so much of Shakespeare - and pulp fiction - everybody dies miserably ever after. It's necropolis-noir.

Little Tommy Williams was in good company in this issue. Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, contributed the featured story, Red Shadows, which introduced 17th century Puritan swashbuckler Solomon Kane and is considered to be the first published example of Sword and Sorcery fiction.

This issue also contains Crashing Suns, a story by science-fiction pioneer Edmund Hamilton. Hamilton, in 1946, married science fiction writer, and screenwriter, Leigh Brackett, perhaps best known for her collaborations with William Faulkner (The Big Sleep, 1946);  five Westerns for director Howard Hawks; Robert Altman (The Long Goodbye, 1973); and Lawrence Kasdan (Star Wars' The Empire Strikes Back, 1979). This copy, in fact, belonged to Hamilton and Brackett; their ownership stamp appears on its first page.

"What more horrible vengeance could Queen Nitocris have conceived than this banquet of death? Not Diablo himself could be capable of anything more fiendishly artistic. Here in the temple of Osiris those nobles and priests who had slain the pharaoh in expiation of his sacrilege against Osiris had now met their deaths. And it was in the waters of the Nile, material symbol of the god Osiris, that they had died. It was magnificent in its irony!...

"When in the evening the queen arrived in the city, pale, silent, and obviously nervous, threatening crowds blocked the path of her chariot, demanding roughly an explanation of the disappearance of her guests. Haughtily she ignored them and lashed forward the horses of her chariot, pushing aside the tight mass of people. Well she knew, how-ever, that her life would be doomed as soon as they confirmed their suspicions. She resolved to meet her inevitable death in a way that befitted one of her rank, not at the filthy hands of a mob.

"Therefore upon her entrance into the palace she ordered her slaves to fill instantly her boudoir with hot and smoking ashes. When this had been done, she went to the room, entered it, closed the door and locked it securely, and then flung herself down upon a couch in the center of the room. In a short time the scorching heat and the suffocating thick fumes of the smoke overpowered her. Only her beautiful dead body remained for the hands of the mob."

Sweet Sacred Ibis! The maturation from purple pulp to poetic prose may have been Williams' greatest achievement as a writer, though the recognizable, often delicately tough, real yet unnatural and not quite of this world turn of his language can be glimpsed this early.

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WILLIAMS, Thomas Lanier [Tennessee Wiliams]. The Vengeance of Nitocris. [In Weird Tales, p. 253]. Indianapolis, Indiana: Popular Fiction Publishing, 1928. Octavo. 288 pp. Illustrated wrappers.

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Images courtesy of Between the Covers, with our thanks.
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Of related interest: 

Unpublished Significant Early Tennessee Williams Poem Surfaces. 

Tennessee Williams Rocks the Rare Books Round Up at L.A. TImes Festival of Books.

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Scarce Letters of Movie Pioneer Georges Méliès, Hero of Scorsese's "Hugo," Surface

by Stephen J. Gertz

[MÉLIÈs, Georges] BESSY, Maurice and Lo Duca.
Georges Méliès: Mage et "Mes Mémoires" par Méliès.
Paris: Prisma, 1945. First French Edition, never translated into English.
One of 2000 numbered copies, this being No. 956.
With Melies' business card from 1909 laid in.

Between 1928 and 1932, when pioneering film director, Georges Méliès, was running a toy shop in Montparnesse Station in Paris - the period in his life covered by Martin Scorsese's splendid homage to Méliès and movie magic, Hugo - Méliès wrote a series of  letters of enormous interest to film lovers and historians. The content of the letters is quite broad and uniformly fascinating throughout.

This trove has just come into the marketplace, offered by Royal Books in Baltimore. Surviving ephemeral material representing Méliès' work is excessively rare; letters in his hand are virtually non-existent. OCLC indicates that there is no institution with autograph material, and auction records show no appearance of any letters since 1975. Virtually all known surviving material is held by the Cinémathèque Française in Paris.

From: A Trip To The Moon - Earth Rise.

An archive consisting  of six extraordinary signed autograph letters, five in French and one in English, by Méliès, generally considered to be one of the inventors of narrative cinema,  it reveals a great deal about his little-discussed but profoundly important origins in the Robert-Houdin Theatre in Paris, as well as his work as a magician and ultimately a film director. 

Equally interesting in these letters are various revelations regarding his character, great love for artists, magicians, and all performers whose work came under the umbrella of "illusion." His spirit, so finely captured by Scorsese on film, is animated on these pages.

Méliès began his career in theater at the Theatre Robert-Houdin, doing extremely creative work in an area that could be described as an intersection of live theater, pantomime, magic, and vaudeville. After seeing an 1895 demonstration by the Lumiere Brothers, he became very interested in cinema, and betweem 1896 and 1914 made over 500 short films. 

His film work utilized many of the elements from his live performance as a basis for content, and the portion of his work that has survived reveals a storytelling style that revels in Jules Verne-esque fantastical adventure fiction. The films ranged from 1 to 40 minutes in length, and many were completely abstract, with his intense interest in the effect of "illusion" on an audience that ultimately led to him becoming the inventor of "special effects." Importantly, the "effects" he invented on celluloid were not just a component of his cinema, they were the essence of it.

Equally important, Méliès made the first cinematic foray into science fiction and horror, and was a pioneer in the making of fantastical adventure films. Le Manoir du diable (The House of the Devil,"1896) and Le Caverna maudite ("The Cave of the Unholy One," 1898) are generally considered to be the first horror films ever made. A print of the former was acquired upon its release by Thomas Edison, who duplicated and distributed it with great financial success in the United States. Though Edison paid no royalties to Méliès, as a result the director's name became well-known to film-goers all over the Western world.

Six years later, Méliès produced what is today his most famous short feature, Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon, 1902), the first known science fiction film, and the first to depict space travel. The film was based very loosely on two popular novels of the time, by Jules Verne in From the Earth to the Moon, and The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells.

From: A Trip To The Moon - A Rocket In The Eye.

Méliès was forced into bankruptcy in 1913 by large French and American studios. Because the concept of film preservation was still nearly 20 years away, most of his films were ultimately melted down for boot heels during World War I or recycled to make new film.

The archive is divided into four  groups:

(a) A brief but extraordinary 1932 letter in English about his days as a filmmaker.

(b) A group of three letters from 1928 regarding his earliest days at Robert-Houdin Theatre, details regarding a series of short pieces he is writing about his life (for a magazine or newspaper), and a proposal to gather the pieces for publication in book form.

(c) A letter from 1929 regarding the proofs of caricatures that Méliès has drawn for the purpose of publication as postcards to be sold to fans of his work.

(d) A brief but significant letter from 1931 regarding the annual "magician's gala," mentioning several of the magicians who performed, a gathering of artists that was clearly at the heart of what preserved Méliès spirit during the years after his film company collapsed.

In the first letter, Melies writes candidly of his days as a filmmaker, and the collapse of his career: "You will find me every day, even Sundays, in the hall of Montparnasse station, from 10 o'clock A.M. to 10 P.M. I keep there a shop of toys and sweets, since I have unfortunately, lost 3 millions of francs during the war, which I had gained as a producer of motion pictures and pioneer of cinematography."

The next three letters represent the heart of the this archive, regarding Méliès' earliest days working as a magician in the Robert-Houdin Theatre. These letters deal in some detail with an ongoing memoir being written by Méliès, ending with a letter responding to a proposal for the memoirs to be expanded and published as a book.

From: A Trip To The Moon - Dream Sequence.

In the first letter, Méliès writes: "I think by now you must have received the first two articles... I   believe that information on the subject of the Robert-Houdin Theatre will interest your readers, so I won't hesitate to send more details... Today I constructed the exact floor plans of the stage and back stage from memory and I am enclosing them here. Your are right if you think that nothing that that happened in my little old theater has escaped my memory. With an average of 750 performances per year, that makes 27,000 performances! When I think about it, that is simply staggering."

He goes on to discuss the irony of his current situation: " [This is] written in great haste (and on my knees, above the market)...from my little store atelier where there is no space for me and I am crowded by, or should I say, drowned in merchandise. I, at 67, a merchant! I who was always an artist first and who always detested business? What is there to do!? Life has reversals like this, and the war has made me lose the result of 47 years of work [One must] resign oneself, and that is what I have done. That doesn't mean that I do not miss the good old days and I am never as happy as when I am together with colleagues, comedians, cinematographers, or magicians, when I am in my own element."

In another letter, Méliès refers to plans to produce an edition of his memoirs, which, though never published during his lifetime, is the probable foundation for the 1945 publication of Méliès' memoirs edited by Maurice Bessy. The letter goes on in great detail about all aspects of production, including how the linotype should be set up for the book, the importance of illustrations, etc.

The last letter, from 1932, is an enthusiastic review of Robert Evans' A Master of Modern Magic, a biography of Eugene Robert-Houdin (NY: Macoy 1932). The book is "very well written and as exact as possible concerning the dates," and that it "contains very few mistakes. It is certainly more near the truth than the book written against Robert-Houdin by Houdini, who seems to have been jealous of the posthumous reputation of our old master...[Evans] has evidently written this book in order to break this reputation."

Méliès  then expounds on the nature of his original trade, and the philosophy behind the illusion at the heart of cinema: "The conjurors (don't they?) work for the public, not for the professionals; if they have a success and seem extraordinary men to spectators, what do they require more? Nobody of us is really a 'sorcerer,' it is sufficient to look to be, and principally to know how to put our tricks, clever or not, in the maximum of value."

I had a chance to examine this precious archive at the recent 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair.  It was no illusion. But it was definitely magic. Méliès was indeed the sorcerer of the Silent film era.

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Images courtesy of Royal Books, with our thanks. The Méliès biography, at top, is being offered separately from the archive of letters.

Stills from the colored version of A Trip To The Moon courtesy of Harvey Deneroff, with our thanks.

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Meet Adele Mundy, Badass Space Librarian

DRAKE, David. Some Golden Harbor. NY: Baen Books, 2006.
Cover by Steve Hickman.

For conspiring against the government of Cinnabar, her family was massacred; she is the sole survivor. She's a scholar, a librarian turned Signals Officer who has joined Daniel Leary, a lieutenant in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy (RCN) to battle against treacherous politicians, the Alliance, rebels, and all manner of galactic grief and peril. She is a master of information technology and spy craft. She likes weapons and knows how to use them.

Don't mess with Adele Mundy, sharpshooting librarian in space.

It was just the other day when I rued the exclusion of librarians from science-fiction literature only to learn that yes, in addition to Space Lawyer, there actually is a librarian plying her skills in the cosmos beyond Earth. I was so taken by the revelation, provided by Vic Zoschak, of Tavistock Books, who perpetrated Space Lawyer on me, that I pursued it directly to the source, David Drake, author of the  highly respected RCN series featuring the inter-galactic adventures of Lt. Leary and Signal Officer Mundy, and mercilessly interrogated him.

Booktryst; Why did you choose librarian as an occupation for Adele?

DD: My RCN series is consciously modeled on Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series which pairs a naval officer with a technical specialist who is a crack shot. O'Brian made Maturin a doctor. I wouldn't create so direct a copy, and anyway, I don't have the background to describe a doctor's work usefully.

I did, however, spend quite a lot of time as a book page at the University of Iowa and later at Duke. I love libraries, and I have some knowledge of and enormous respect for librarians - the first and still the best information specialists. It was therefore natural to make Adele a librarian. 

Booktryst: Is there something intrinsically sexy about a librarian with martial skills?

DD: I don't think of occupations as being sexy. I've never understood the cachet which some people attach to this occupation or that. In particular I don't understand why people consider being a writer 'special.'

I'm a writer and a darned good craftsman. My dad was a very good electrician, and my dad's father was arguably the best tinsmith in the country. These are all respectable things to be, as is librarian; but they aren't sexy.

Booktryst: You have cruelly destroyed the fantasies of many library patrons with over-active imaginations. Let's get to another key issue. Adele Mundy, space librarian, on e-books: sí­ or no?

DD: The late Jim Baen (who founded Baen Books) was a real leader in electronic publication. For some years now Baen Books earns a great deal of money annually through its electronic publications (though that's still a sidelight of its dead tree operations). Jim was one of my closest friends, and I'm proud that the RCN series has been a feature of Baen's electronic publications from the beginning.

Booktryst: Any chance of spinning off Adele into her own series? I smell chick-lit, grrrl power bonanza! Followed, of course, by film adaptation, Angelina Jolie, and sequels.

DD: Spinning off Adele? Tsk! As in O'Brian creating Stephen Maturin, Pistol-Packing Doctor? Adele and Daniel Leary are halves of a single archetype. I'm certainly not going to split them up.

Booktryst: Alright, then. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, together again after the deadly Mr. and Mrs. Smith, as Daniel Leary and Adele Mundy. Hollywood, are you listening?

DD:

Booktryst: I'll take that as "no comment."

DD: I'll throw in a comment on Space Lawyer, which I read a very long time ago. I think you'll find that the concluding portion of Space Lawyer was written for book publication, not for the magazine.

Schachner [Nat, author of Space Lawyer] (though he's forgotten today) was a mainstay of Astounding  during the Golden Age and wrote consistently thoughtful material. [Asimov was a fan]. Unfortunately he was at best a pedestrian writer. When I was 14, that didn't bother me; but Space Lawyer is sprightly compared to some of his work.

Best wishes to you and your readers.

And to you, David Drake.

Next time you visit a library, don't mess with that shy, demure reference librarian behind the desk. It could be Adele Mundy, incognito and undercover for a secret mission on Earth, packing a devastating weapon to deal with unruly patrons, rude behavior, and aliens in the rest room. And if you owe late fees, better pay up, buster. Adele takes no guff.

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Do Bibliophiles Dream Of Electric Sheep?

DICK, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
London: Rapp and Whiting, 1969.
First British Edition Of The 2010 Cornell University
New Student Reading Project Title.
(All Images Courtesy Of Cornell University Libraries.)

Ah, book clubs. When they are good they are very, very good. But when they are bad they are horrid. Like the hopeful single preparing for a blind date, the bibliophile spends all week getting mentally gussied-up for an evening of amiable companionship. The big night finally arrives, and our literary lover sets off artfully clothed in the latest haute couture critiques, accessorized with exquisitely elegant opinions, and scented with a splash of wicked wit. Longing for an evening of stimulating conversation, climaxing with the deep connection found only with true soul mates, this eager reader can hardly contain his high hopes.

DICK, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968.
First American Edition.

But soon the ice-water of cruel reality douses even the most ardent suitor's desire for a marriage of true minds. Our would-be dream dates haven't even finished the book, much less come prepared to share their keen insights and innermost thoughts about it. The real agenda of our fellow clubbers is to down some cheap wine, and enjoy the thrill of having a captive audience to tell their troubles to. After one of these thinly-veiled pity parties, spending a lifetime reading in solitude with a couple of cats for company never sounded so good.

DICK, Philip K.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1996.
Note Inclusion Of The Film Adaptation's Title
On This Trade Paperback Cover.

But what if there were a book club lead by an Ivy League professor of 18th century English literature, whose members included a cognitive psychologist, an environmental engineer, a computer scientist, a veterinarian, an expert on Arabic literature, and a horticultural ecologist? And there's no need to worry about being rejected by such elite company, this club is always open to new members. Where do I sign up, you say? All you need to do is go online and check out the Cornell New Student Reading Project.

DICK, Philip K. Blade Runner
(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).
New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1982.
On This Mass Market Edition The Film's Title Takes Precedence
Over The Book's, Despite The Fact That This Is
Simply An Unchanged Reprint of the Text.

Cornell's Reading Project is now in its tenth year, and was originally designed so that all new freshmen and transfer students would enter the school with "a shared focus." Each year, about 50 titles, recommended by faculty, staff, and several student groups, are short-listed for the project, out of which one is chosen. Past titles have included The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, Lincoln At Gettysburg by Gary Wills, The Pickup by Nadine Gordimer, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Antigone by Sophocles, and Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond.

DICK, Philip K. Blade Runner
(Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep).
New York: Ballantine Books/Del Rey, 1982.
Another Mass Market Issue. This One Features Not Only
The Film's Title, But Also Its Poster Art.

The project quickly expanded to the entire city of Ithaca, via participation from the Tompkins County Public Library. Branches of the Public Library stock multiple copies of the book chosen by Cornell, including translations into over a half-dozen foreign languages, as well an audio books, large print copies, and ebooks. The Public Library and the University offer book discussions, art exhibits, writing workshops, and lectures all centered on the year's selected text. And now six lectures by distinguished faculty members (AKA our "Book Club" colleagues) have been posted online, along with study questions, a book blog, and online exhibits, opening this "community read" to anyone with access to a computer.

BURROUGHS, William S.
The Blade Runner (A Movie).
Berkeley, Calif.: Blue Wind Press, 1979.
A Novella Which Gave The 1982 Film Adaptation
of Androids Its New Title,
And Nothing Else.

This year's title is an offbeat break from the choices of the past nine years. It comes from the catalog of "genre fiction," the red-headed stepchild of the literary world, often overlooked, and even disparaged, by academia. The Cornell Project title for 2010 is the highly influential Science Fiction novel, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. First published in 1968, it is the tale of a dystopian future in which the majority of earth's population has emigrated to Mars following an environmentally devastating World War.

Alan E. Nourse. The Blade Runner.
Philadelphia, Penn.: David McKay, 1974.
And The Book From Which Burroughs Took His Title.
Also Having Nothing To Do With Androids.

The mass extinction of animal species in the aftermath of "World War Terminus" has led to the creation of incredibly life-like and highly coveted android "animals" as replacements. The trouble begins when the android-creating technology is taken one step further, resulting in the manufacture of robotic "humans," who can no longer be distinguished from their flesh and blood counterparts. These human-machine hybrids are treated as slaves said to lack the essential quality of a true human, empathy. But the human race's inability to empathize with their android doppelgangers, who are hunted down and "killed" if they attempt to disguise their mechanical origins, raises questions as to who and what constitutes a genuine, sentient person.

A Still From The Blade Runner Press Kit,
Featuring Actress Daryl Hannah As A
"Standard Pleasure Model" Android.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? is also the first Reading Project book to have had a major impact on popular culture. This is made clear in an exhibit sponsored by Cornell Library's Division of Rare Books and Manuscript Collections, which is also available online. Along with rare editions of Dick's novel, thematically related short stories, and correspondence concerning its creation, the exhibit details its road to the silver screen as the Sci-Fi film classic, Blade Runner (1982).

DICK, Philip K. and Tony Parker.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Los Angeles, Calif.: Boom! Studios, 2009.
A Graphic Novel Version Of Dick's Book,
Complete With Every Word Of The Original Text.

Initially relegated to cult film status due to its failure at the box office, director Ridley Scott's adaptation of Dick's novel has since been recognized as a masterpiece of futuristic story-telling and production design, and has served as the model for dozens of far inferior post-apocalyptic Sci-Fi sets, costumes, and screenplays centered on humanity's attempts to survive amidst the wreckage of a shattered planet. Blade Runner's pop culture influence is further revealed by the library exhibit's display of products created by the numerous cottage industries fueled by the film's hard-core fans, including toys, comic books, video games, magazines, fan-zines, and other ephemera.

Toy Advertisement From:
Blade Runner Souvenir Magazine, Vol. 1.
New York: Ira Friedman, 1982.


And The Supercool Toy Version Of Android Hunter
Rick Deckard's (Harrison Ford) "Spinner."

Upon reflection, the initially surprising selection of Philip K. Dick's Science Fiction novel for a prestigious University's interdisciplinary reading project becomes more and more inspired. The book's exploration of the theme "What constitutes humanity?" makes it germane to such diverse disciplines as psychology, sociology, philosophy, anthropology, and medicine. It's exploration of Earth's fate following a planetary disaster brings in biology, ecology, astronomy, climatology, geography, geology, zoology, agronomy, horticulture, botany, and veterinary medicine. And it's position as a landmark of dystopian fiction and film brings in the departments of literature, interior design, information science, theatre and drama, mass media, marketing, public relations, advertising, and business. Another book with such an eclectic reach would be nearly impossible to find.

Another Blade Runner Toy, Inspired By

The Origami Creations of Rick Deckard's

Fellow Cop, Gaff (Edward James Olmos.).

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? really does have the universality to appeal to almost anyone. Who knows, this title might even keep those book club slackers reading all the way to the last page. Now if only they'd give the text enough thought to actually have something worthwhile to say about the damn thing...
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The Girl Who (NSFW) Loves Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury in 1975.

Last Sunday, August 15, 2010, novelist Ray Bradbury received a very special advance birthday gift in celebration of his 90th birthday on August 22, 2010, that the whole world was invited to share.

Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury, a video valentine/birthday card by Rachel Bloom has since been viewed 441,407 times on YouTube.

Once upon a time the novel stood at the pinnacle of culture and novelists were idolized. That time has, alas, passed, so it’s good to see a little old fashioned hero-worship by a very sincere fan who has brought novelist-worship into the 21st century with a video camera, wit, and a wink.

It's a tender testimonial, in the tradition of Judy Garland's love letter in song, You Made Me Love You, to Clark Gable on the occasion of his birthday in 1937 - with sex and grrrl power!

Booktryst reached Ms. Bloom, an aspiring stand-up comic, for comment.

Booktryst: Tell us a little about yourself.

RB: I’m twenty-three, and a student at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

How long have you been a Ray Bradbury fan?

I've been a Ray Bradbury since I was about 14.

What’s your favorite book by Ray?

The Martian Chronicles, which is also not only my favorite book of his but my favorite book of all.

Do you collect books by Ray?

I do collect his books, especially now, since I had to buy all the books for the music video!

Any other favorite authors?


Other favorite authors I have intensity for...probably no one as dear to my heart, but I'm a huge fan of Philip Roth, Kurt Vonnegut, J.K. Rowling (huuge Harry Potter fanatic) and all comedy books by George Carlin (which were based on his standup). Also, I'm a big fan of Bryan K. Vaughan.

What's your boyfriend's reaction to the video?

My boyfriend, bless his heart, is so proud of me. His name is Dan Gregor, and he's a writer for "How I Met Your Mother," as well as a member of the sketch comedy group ChubbySkinnyKids . The Britney Spears parody-angle to the video was an idea that partially came from him, and he encouraged me to dress accordingly. After all, I'm not showing my boobs/saying dirty things for sluttiness' sake- I'm doing it because it fits in with the comedic intention of the piece. At the end of the day, this song and every other comedy song I will continue to write is a musical comedy sketch. 

Was this a project for school?

This was a private venture. I came across this song on an old word document on my comp, and I was like "Oh. I should record this and make a music video." I produced this whole thing pretty much on my own. I think being an only child really helped me with stuff like this.

My budget was the budget that a recent college grad could barely afford.

What are you up to besides dilating the blood vessels of an aged novelist?

For the next 2 weeks, I will be preoccupied with putting up a musical sketch show I wrote at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. It's called "Sing Out, Louise!" and every sketch is a musical number from a fictitious Broadway show. After that, it's on to more music videos. In addition, a huge goal of mine is to release a comedy song cd by...let's say February or March of next year. It will probably be a compilation of songs that I've written music and lyrics for, as well as songs that I've collaborated on with my collaborator Michael Maricondi (he and I write musical theater together, and have already composed a children's musical called "When Push Comes to Shove.") So yeah...all good stuff!

My aspirations now that I'm officially a year out of college are, in the vaguest terms, to be writing and performing my own comedy. I'm working on an original tv pilot, doing a lot of standup, and writing a lot of sketch as well as music videos. Also, I'm working on a full-length musical with my collaborator right now. I'd also, sometime in the near future, like to write an original tv pilot that incorporates original music, along the lines of "Flight of the Conchords" or "Glee." 

What is it about Ray that you find so attractive?

First of all, the number one thing I am earnestly attracted to is intelligence. Writers are thus the pinnacle of intelligence. While actors are great and awesome, writers literally create new worlds from scratch. What is sexier than that? Personally, I don't know why every person out there isn't dating a writer.

If you had a chance to meet Ray, what would you say to him?


If I were to meet Ray Bradbury, I would say very earnestly that I am overwhelmed with how well he combines such mind blowingly cool ideas with the realism of how humans deal with these ideas. That's what struck me especially about Martian Chronicles or The Illustrated Man...I found myself as emotionally engaged as I was mentally. If I really met him, I would be nothing but respectful and probably like the 12 year old boy I secretly am inside.

What do you hope Ray’s reaction will be?

I just heard through the grapevine that Ray Bradbury saw the video and loved it.

Does this relationship have a future?

We'll see what happens!

I think it safe to presume that rarely, if ever, has a ninety-year old man been the object of a 23-year old coed's literary libido. This may add another ten years to Ray's lifespan. Or shorten it. What a way to go.

10:31AM Update: Rare bookseller James Pepper, a friend of Ray's, reports this morning that "Ray has not seen it yet, but tomorrow the Mayor and the city council are declaring Ray Bradbury week at city hall. Ray is going to be shown the video after that event at his house by my friend John Tarpinian who is accompanying Ray downtown. So hopefully we will know his reaction late tomorrow."

12:48PM Update: It has been reported to me that Ray Bradbury has watched the video twice and liked it.

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