Doctor Doctor. . .

Doctor M. was not wearing a lab-coat. I would have found her a lot more reassuring if she were. She had her nose buried in a stack of papers.

"If you're not willing to make changes to your lifestyle, cutting out caffeine. . . "

"I have cut out dairy and coffee." I cut in, feeling that had been a rather drastic change.

She shook her head. "Dairy doesn't matter."

"Nevertheless, I have cut it out, and it did help. For a time."

She shrugged. "Whatever. Here's a list of things you should try to avoid." she said, pushing over a piece of paper with a long list of foods printed in a menacing shad of red. Apples. Canned beans. It was the same list she'd given me four years ago, which I remember made no difference whatsoever.

"These are all pretty disruptive," she acknowledged. "I suggest you try gluten first."

"Gluten?" The pit opened up and swallowed me whole. Gluten is in absolutely everything. In bread, in spaghetti sauce, in breakfast cereals, in beer for God's sake. I envisioned my new life eating nothing but liquefied Soylent Green through a straw. I wondered how that was less disruptive than just avoiding apples. 

"I'd like to put you on a different set of pills, which should help with your swallowing. This one you'll have to take twice daily."

I grumbled. I'd only just started the last set which my gp had given me, at a hundred dollars a bottle. So that was how it was going to be done. One doctor would give me one set of pills and another doctor would give me another set of pills, all in the space of week, before a single test or examination had been done. I may as well have gone to my banker.

I mean, she is right. You've got to take the doctor's advice, change your diet, take your pills. I just wish they'd stop treating six years of stomach pain like indigestion, stop acting like I didn't know the difference, and maybe lift their noses up from their laptops just for a minute or two. I'm not against taking pills, but I'd much rather know what the condition is first. The doctors seem to prefer giving the pills first, then guessing what the condition is after. I don't expect them to wave a magic wand and make the problem go away; I want them to tell me what the problem is. Maybe that takes a period of investigation, even experimentation. Maybe it won't always be obvious. But if they'd just look me in the eye and talk about possibilities instead of sending me home with another pile of antacids, I'd feel a lot better about it. 

And stop assuming what I am or am not willing to do, that would help to.

Doctor Who hosts "Chrystal Maze"! Thoughts on "Ghost Monument".

Well, let's get the negative out of the way: the new TARDIS interior, clearly modeled after Superman's Fortress of Solitude, looks propped up by columns of crystallized snot. It's awful.

But, again, Segun Akinola's theme is wonderful, even if the new credits are a bit more liquid, and the new logo more flimsy than I'd like. . .


So, here's the real first episode of the new era, as it can't have really started without the theme. What we get is a condensed quest-epic, sort of reminiscent of "Keys of Marinus". It's very space-operatic, set on an alien planet full of danger and mystery, on the outskirts of a universe hinted to be rich in detail. In this, it is very old-school, and that is a very good thing. I just wish it had a bit more of the old school pacing. . .

With every scene crammed to the brim with speculation, exposition, supposition, and all-too-earnest character growth, I began to long for one scene where nobody said anything. Just an extended panoramic shot of the windswept landscape, or the Doctor looking concerned while deciphering a rune, or an alien robot just looking menacing (rather than menacing). Time to breathe. "Keys of Marinus" took the better part of two hours to unfold, stretched over six episodes. "Ghost Monument" crams in about as much material (its plot synopsis on Tardis Wiki is 1588 words long) into forty nine minutes (probably less if you were watching on Space). No wonder Matt Smith advised future Doctors to "talk fast". . .


I know two-episoders are supposed to be rare, and serialization anathema to whatever's in charge of these things (though isn't it making a comeback?), but imagine if we had some time to actually savour this world so painstakingly created for us? Imagine a real mystery, deliberately and deliciously unraveled? It's something the new series has been loath to do - maybe the author of Broadchurch will be open to it.

Deadly robots - but no UNIT style shoot-outs

Maybe we'd get better action scenes (non-existent since 2005), and maybe it would seem less preachy. Don't get me wrong, the Doctor's moral authority is always reassuring, but it's beginning to feel like Sunday school: "It's alright to trust", "people need to work together", "talk about your feelings", "never give up hope" and "guns are bad" all within a few minutes of each other. Will we have to eat all our broccoli next? (No laser gun battles at all? Not even against killer robots? Come on Doc, what would the Brig say?)(Any moral, no matter how well-intentioned, feels insincere if it sounds focus-group driven).


(And couldn't the reference to Venusian Akido be allowed to just stand on its own?)


I'm sure it all looked great on paper, and maybe it'll read great if ever they novelize it. Chibnall's heart is in the right place, and God bless'em for it, but his visions trapped and stifled by the limitations of the format. There's a lot to love here, but as presented it feels more like British game show than an SF drama (you ever see British game shows in the nineties?). I can live with it, but as is I can't love it.

The Woman Who Lost her Theme: thoughts on the latest Doctor Who. . .

Right. So, the new Doctor's a woman and all of you are just dying to know: what do I think?

Well, there were no opening credits. No theme song. So how could I confirm that I was actually watching Doctor Who?

Where was it? 

Seriously, without the opening title sequence, I honestly can't accept it. I'm watching some other program about some hyper clever person from space. I can't tell you how much I need that title sequence, how important it is to new Doctors and new eras. We Whovians are constantly beset by change, by emotional farewells and tentative introductions. The theme is the continuity, the stability, the unbroken link. The Doctor needs it to establish his - *aheam, her credibility. How on earth am I supposed to accept her without it?

Chris Chibnall has inexplicably decided to usher in his era of Doctor Who without the most crucial element of Doctor Who.  Oh d'd'd'dear dear. . .

So I spend the first half hour of this episode waiting for the theme, and the next half grumping that it wasn't there. I was in no state to judge Jodie Whittaker fairly. The funny thing is that the new theme, reworked by Segun Akinola, is actually quite wonderful - it sounds like Hartnell's. (It's even brought back the middle eight!). I would have been thrilled to hear it chime in right after Whittaker's first lines, and would have been quite willing to go along with almost anything she did (within reason) after. Taking it out is puzzlingly self-defeating.

New composer Segun Akinola's new theme is beautifully reverent. Why hide it? 

And no, this is not nitpicking, this sort of things determines my enjoyment of the program. Keep in mind as well that the success of an episode depends on much more than just the Doctor - a whole host of decisions made by writers and directors, sound effects people and composers, set designers and costume designers, editors and technicians, other actors. . . these things matter.

But, having said that, the Doctor matters most of all, so of what of her?

In a word, she's fine. Voice is a bit higher than I'd like, but she's fine. She radiates all the benevolence and wisdom we expect - demand - from a Doctor. She radiates a reassuring authority that stems from a boundless curiosity rather than a forceful personality. Her knowledge seems to come from asking the right questions rather than knowing all the answers. The minute she appeared on the train, the Doctor was instantly recognizable.

She seems to be channeling her friendlier predecessors, Smith, Tennant and Davidson, in her breathless delivery of technobable - she seems to have taken Smith's advice to "talk fast". ("I'm good at building things" could also have been spoken by Capaldi). This is fairly typical for new Doctors - I reckon it will take an episode or two to really find her voice, and her own definitive Doctor moment. For the next little while, I will have to remind myself that enjoying the new Doctor in no way implies disloyalty to the last one, but give me time.

She has maintained his disastrous fashion sense, which is really the only responsible decision the producers could have taken; it just wouldn't have done for the first female doctor to be a fashion maven. (Though Mattel have already started marketing Doctor Who barbies. Plus ca change. . )

The gender swap thing was handled perfectly. Upon finding she was a woman, the Doctor reacted the way any of them would have, or exactly how he would have (all one person remember), or she would have, or, oh bother it, exactly the way the Doctor would have: "Really? How interesting!". No sexist comments either way, no ideological proclamations, just sheer curiosity. I might even have preferred some more curiosity on her part - she being a scientist after all. The Doctor has always craved new experiences.

I will have to put my foot down and insist this is a new experience; when she said "I haven't been a woman in a long time", she should have said "I've never been a woman before". Come on, William Hartnell was the first Doctor, let's not tinker with that part of the mythology.

Chris Chibnall

The story itself was rather lackluster: I for one am really tired of alien serial killers. I would far prefer
elaborate plots to conquer the earth to collecting human teeth. Perhaps these will come. Chibnall has written extensively for Doctor Who already, penning the superb ("42"), the ok ("Hungry Earth", ruined by costume design) and the downright naff ("Dinosaurs on Spaceship" - oh please). He was also a member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, so his connection to the program goes back a long way, and he presumably has an emotional stake in it.

So, to whit: the Doctor shows promise, the executive producer has credibility, the composer is appropriately reverent, and the new companions are not dislikable. I have been assured that the title credits will be in place next time. Surely there's room for cautious optimism, no?

Silence from the Cracks in the Wall - the Stephen Moffat era.

So, Jodie Whitaker’s taken the stage, and the Twitterverse is aflame! Following those comments is making me more nervous than the episode itself.

Before I watched the new one, I wanted to say a few more words about the old one. Not the Doctor, but the creative force behind it – the enigmatic Steven Moffat.

True, the memory has faded and the moment has passed, and no one cares anymore (if they ever did). Nevertheless, I feel obliged to say a few words for old times sake.

Moffat was not universally loved. “Bring Back the Real Daleks!”, a facebook group I once belonged to, was largely a portal of anti-Moffat memes. Russell T. Davies never got nearly so much animus, though, to my mind, deserved it far more. I suspect folks didn’t know what to make of Moffatt, always toying with the audience, winking at the camera, and just generally upending reasonable expectation. His approach struck me as the inverse of Davies’: whereas Davies was routinely simplistic, juvenile and anti-intellectual, Moffat was frequently too clever by half, serving up absurdly overcomplicated, hyper self-aware meta episodes, more often about himself than any of the characters.  

Yet, if it all seemed convoluted, it came from a refusal to underestimate the intelligence of the audience, and an insistence that Doctor Who could indeed be high concept. If it was occasionally exasperating, even infuriating, it could also be uplifting and enthralling, even elevating, in a way Davies never could manage. I look at it as a three stage process: Davies started out facing a skeptical world, won it ever, then squandered the good will. Moffat started with all the good will in the world, squandered it, and slowly, painstakingly won it back. He pissed me off, no question. But before he left, Doctor Who had never been better.

It was clear right from the get-go, Moffat wanted to shake things up. Even before his season started, the interviews bespoke seismic shifts on their way: faster! Crazier! Scarier! Indeed, Matt Smith’s debut was a bewildering kaleidoscope of jump cuts, edits, and non-linear plot twists. Murray Gold’s soundtrack was more intrusive than ever. It was hard to make any sense of it, and to be honest, hard to love. My main take from that period was motion-sickness.  

Misshapen, asymmetrical, and gaudy, the new paradigm Daleks were just awful.  

Bringing in the youngest Doctor ever - the vicenarian Matt Smith - was surely a sop to this ultra modern approach. Smith certainly captured the ADD of the age, at times scarcely finishing a sentence before embarking on the next one. He tackled the universe with a hyper-fidgety curiosity, delivering impatient, breathless monologues vaguely reminiscent of Peter Davidson. On paper at least, he was a direct contrast to David Tennant: less conventionally attractive, much more nerdy, more introspective and introverted, more moody, and far less fashionable (bow-ties and fezzes indeed). But his lithe physicality and absent minded "quirkiness" all too closely paralleled Tennant's, and the one-liners that came from both their mouths were unmistakably Moffat's. I always wondered if this didn't alienate some of Tennant's younger fans, who might have felt they were being fed more of the same but with something missing. I myself was able to appreciate Smith's subtly different take, but honestly think he would have fared better if he had followed Capaldi rather than Tennant, as the narcissism of small differences is nothing to shake a stick at. . .

As we followed him into this new hard-wired age, Moffat showed himself to be a revisionist and re-inventor of Soviet intensity – he changed the Daleks, changed the Silurians, changed the Ice Warriors, even changed the timeless Delia Derbyshire theme- song, burying it underneath some Murray Gold melodrama. The Sontarans were reimagined as comic relief. He even took the piss out of his own creations, the marvelous Weeping Angels, reduced to ridiculous grotesqueries. Not one of these alterations were improvements; each was a case of fixing what wasn’t broken, struck me as pointless. Why resurrect an old monster if it didn’t suit the current story’s needs? The Daleks were clearly a marketing gimmick from the BBC’s merchandizing (re: toy) department, but the others? If they wanted to make Alien on a submarine, why use the Ice Warriors? If they wanted a more “human-like” monster, why dig up the Silurians, who were never even close? There seemed no creative necessity for it; only to break with the past for its own sake, with an unmistakably personal stamp.

For a time Moffat seemed keen to put out his own show rather than an established franchise. The Madam Vastra/Strax/Jenny trio got the lion’s share of screentime/plot relevance any time they appeared, apparently intended for a spin-off series.  Riversong[i], gun-slingin’, time travellin’, dashing archaeologist adventurer, often made Matt Smith’s Doctor seem superfluous.  That “hello sweetie” business tended to cut Smith’s Time Lord down to size, which seemed a strange thing to do to your hero. Only when Peter Capaldi took over did the doc apparently regain his mojo.

River Song was at least likable in her own right, which is more than I can say for Clara. Of all the bizarre, weird, head-scratching moments of the Moffatt era, the character of Clara Oswald (bravely endured by Jenna Coleman) baffles me the most. She got many of the “best” lines[ii]. Many plots hinged upon her (she saved the day in Rings of Akhenaten, not the Doc). She also carried much of the moral weight - speaking authoritatively while the Doctor just listened. She even got her own TARDIS in the end. For all intents and purposes, it became her show, complete with  her own title sequence at one point.

One wondered why they bothered with Capaldi. . .

All this may have been tolerable if Clara hadn’t been completely insufferable. Smug and snide and downright rude, she struck me as one of those obnoxious class-president types, utterly full of herself because she figured out early on how to game the system. Such folk are never as gifted as they think they are, but thrive in an environment constructed with their kind in mind. Of course, they never need to develop humility because everyone keeps telling them how wonderful they are. This was Clara. She would have made a great OFSTED inspector.

My thoughts on Clara were crystalized during her exchange with Jac (played by Jaye Griffiths), during the otherwise awesome Zygon Invasion:

“ You’re middle-aged (no offense!). Everyone middle aged thinks the world’s about to end. It never does.”[iii]

To which Jac could justifiably have responded. “Fuck you kid. It’s your god-damned latte-swilling-iphone-fucking generation that thinks it’s something special. When you rack up some life experience, then you go ahead and lecture me about the world. Capice?”

But of course, neither she nor anyone else ever did. Know-it-all Clara presumed to lecture the universe, and never got her comeuppance. At least in real life, we can tell these types where to stick it. But no one on Doctor Who had the guts to do it. Not-even the two-thousand year old doc ever challenged her. Because Moffat created a universe where she was proven right again and again. It was agony to watch.

 Even while bending over backwards to show how fallible the Doctor was, Moffat gave us a mortal human who was practically infallible, and wouldn’t let us forget it. Trouble is, she wasn’t that clever. None of her insights (see above) were very insightful. She could act damn foolishly at times, like when Missy lured her into a Dalek casing. To be fair, Missy could manipulate anyone. But what does Clara do when she finds the Doctor can’t hear her real words? Keep shouting “it’s me! It’s me!”, because that worked so well already. Maybe she was panicking and couldn’t think straight, but it hardly went with the ultra-genius we’d been asked to accept.

The TV team at The Guardian called the Capaldi era "frustratingly inconsistent.", and I’d be inclined to agree. For every good or great one, there was a clunker. These were maddening, but puzzling as well: how could someone of Moffat's talents allow such plot holes or lapses in internal consistency?
 How was "Lie of the Land" allowed to conclude "Extremis", or "Hellbent" "Heaven Sent"?
It has been said that Moffat was a better writer than a producer – that his individual stories were better than his mythos building. Indeed, the grand story arcs of his era didn’t usually amount to much - the crack in the wall was a bit of a non-event, the Mr. Pink saga irritating, and don't get me started on Ashildr (a contemptible villain treated like a lovable companion). Like Davies, he was better at setting up scenarios than resolving them. Even so, these felt more like missteps than deliberate hack jobs. Even at his worst, Moffat never resorted to the infantile inanity or crude religiosity of Davies, and certainly didn't rely nearly as much on lazy deus ex-machina. If his mythologies were spotty, Moffat's single episodes could still knock us dead. I maintain the Silence to be his finest creations, even more so than the Angels. But I think it was with the 50^th Anniversary Special Day of the Doctor that Moffat truly made up for his missteps and proved his worth.

"Day of the Doctor" was truly magnificent, a celebration of all that was and is great about the program.

It pulled off the near impossible feat of bridging old and new, funny and scary, wise and innocent. An old monster is resurrected and perfected. Old Doctors do make their appearance, and new ones hint at theirs (it’s even better that we know who Capaldi is. Time travel for real!). If Smith’s Doctor suffered for having too closely mirrored Tennants, they play beautifully off each other here (literally in some scenes). And bringing John Hurt into it as a hypothetical “War Doctor”, a Doctor between McGann and Eccleston so traumatized by what he had to do, that his future selves banished him from their memories, was a stroke of genius. Everything worked. Finally, Moffat quit playing games. Perhaps he understood the gravity of his responsibility – this was the 50^th Anniversary, it was not about him, it was about something that transcends any individual contributor.

This newfound humility served Moffat well. As long as he stopped treating Doctor Who as his personal plaything, and placed himself at its service, rather than the other way around, the show went from strength to strength. Smith’s swansong “Night of the Doctor” was possibly his finest story, and if Capaldi got off to a rough start, he was ruling the roost by the time “World Enough” rolled around.

To be sure, there were still annoyances – Clara would continue to wreck almost everything she touched. But it was also mesmerizing. Most of the early excesses were curbed. We got the themesong back. We got the real Daleks back. We got the Ice Warriors back.  Murray Gold scaled back his string section. Clara took a walk, and we got Bill instead. Best of all, we got Peter Capaldi, the Rockin’ Doc, whom I’ve already explained here. I should stop saying “we” when I really mean “I”. For a very brief time I got the show I wanted. Things that mattered to me were given precedence. For the first time since the eighties, I felt this was my show again. More than anyone, I have Stephen Moffat to thank for that, and I can’t possibly thank him enough.

So long Steve! I know we quarreled at times, but you won in the end. Don’t let anyone tell you different!

---

[i] Alex Kingston made a great Lady Macbeth opposite Kenneth Branaugh if any of you care. . .

[ii] By which I mean lines meant to be clever. Whether they were or not was another matter.

[iii] To be fair, a couple minutes later, Clara does concede “I think you were right”.  Thankyou Ms. Smartypants!

The purpose of social rituals, culture and religion, are ultimately to make life tolerable and loss bearable. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the memorial service.

It was a touching service, mercifully free from empty rituals and superstitious platitudes. Only memories, fostered by a loving attention to detail. Would that all our memories are treated so respectfully. . .

[Trigger warning: sad things]

We’re going to have to talk about death.

                I’d much rather talk about any number of things. I’ve got a lot to say about the existence of a notwithstaning clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I badly want to spread the word about Tilting Biped’s brilliant production of Macbeth. I spent two weeks in England recently and have plenty to say about Brexit, climate change, road signs and Comic Conventions. I still have to compose my retrospective for Stephen Moffat’s tenure with Doctor Who. . .

                But circumstances bring me to death.

                It’s an appropriate day for it. The air outside is grey, and damp with spittles of rain. It’s colder than it’s been for a while, not the razor cold of January but the sad and sleepy cold of the dying summer. All I can see outside is concrete – there are plenty of trees and grass about it, but it all seems more like cheap green furniture than anything living or vibrant. All I can hear are the cars. . .

                I’ve written on death before – pseudo philosophical musings and laments for passing famous people who’s art once moved me and whose halted output made me grouchy. But Real People? Whom I actually knew? I’ve not actually been touched by death in a long, long time. How naïve I’ve been about it. . .

                To be sure, I’ve not lost an immediate family member, but someone very close to me has. The loss is very real.

                It is astonishing how quickly life can change, how one’s assumptions can fall apart, one’s rituals disrupted. I woke up that morning thinking the world would be no different when I went to bed. I was sitting in a choir rehearsal, serenely mumbling the (mostly wrong) notes of Braham’s Requiem, looking forward to a Barbecue in the evening, and perhaps a little live music the next day. It was a beautiful Saturday. There was no reason to think it would be anything but a relaxing weekend.

               

                At one point, our guest conductor felt the need to share his personal connection to Requiem. He’d lost people recently, including his brother-in-law. “It was expected,” he reassured us. “But there’s never a good time, is there?”  

                Not two minutes later, I received a text. There had been an accident, and someone was being transported to St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto. I had held out hope that perhaps it could be something manageable, even trivial – a sprained ankle say. Pretending not to know that no one gets transported to St. Michaels hospital for a sprained ankle. . . By the time I got to the rendezvous point, not half an hour later, I had gotten the message that someone had died.

                I am not accustomed to death. I do not understand it now any better than I did when I was five. I did not grasp the message at first. Honest to god, idiotic as it was, I seriously thought it meant “in a coma”. Or possibly “dying” -present progressive tense, as in ongoing, possibly reversible. Grammar teacher though I am, it was a full minute before I really understood the tense of the verb.  

                Somebody had died.

                There followed a long, long drive to be with the family. Of course there was no radio, and almost no conversation - what could be said? What had happened was unspeakable, and we were driving to confront the intolerable. It was unbearably claustrophobic. And the day did not get better from there.

                I confess, I did not know the man well; but liked him quite well, and keenly feel the king-sized gap he’s left behind. Unlike my (guest) conductor’s recent loss, this one was not expected, and I marvel at the sheer colossal pointlessness of this abrupt removal of someone who meant so much to so many. . .I chafe as well at the helplessness of seeing people I love in pain, and being able to do nothing.

               

                I can’t even say “this will pass”, because it won’t. Things will never be the same again.

                There’s only one lesson, or cold - comfort I can take from it all: we too shall pass. Any time, any where. So we may as well stand tall when our time comes and enjoy what time we have.  I have a feeling the departed would approve. . .

Our Pal, Harlan Ellison

So. . .

The last kids leave, and I am filled with an overwhelming School’s Out mentality of “let’s get the fuck out of here.” But some counteracting instinct insisted I quickly check my e-mail first. 

Now I’m not going to self righteously try to minimize my social media addiction, but I can fight it when I need to, and a little voice did try to say “forget it! There can’t be anything important! You can check later. You gotta get to Dave’s birthday party and you’re running a bit late already!” And yet, I had to see. Just a few seconds. There was a message from “the Harlan Ellison Book Preservation Project”, which again, a voice prompted me to ignore, but again I felt worth looking at. And this is what I saw:

“I'm sure a lot of you have seen the news.

If not, I apologize for breaking it this way.”

Oh no. A cold feeling crept over me.  My hands trembled over the cursor keys. I looked away. Maybe if I didn't finish reading, maybe it wouldn't be true. Maybe I could rewind the clock, and it wouldn't have to be true, not yet. I could live just a few more minutes in a world where it hadn't happened yet. Maybe if I didn't read the news, it could be something else.

But we all know, it doesn't work that way, does it folks? I read on, and learned for sure what I already knew.

Harlan Ellison – dear ol’ “Unca Harlan” - was gone.

It had to happen. We all go one day. But did it have to be that day? Then again, I would have asked the same whatever day it had been. It happened at last: I was going to have to face a world without Harlan Ellison in it.

Now understand one thing: to hardcore fans of Ellison – his “Flying Blue Monkey Squadron”, whose membership I hope was open – he was not just a writer we admired. For those who really ensconced themselves in his work, it was impossible not to think of him as a close friend or even relative. To us he wasn’t “Ellison”, but “Unca Harlan”, a term of endearment he himself came up with and encouraged. He signed off all his messages as “yer pal, Harlan”.  For make no mistake people: for all his reputation as a grump, to us, his really clingy fans, he could not have been more warm, friendly, kind or supportive.  If he occasionally kicked us in the ass, it was only when we deserved it – Unca Harlan expected only the best from people and frequently brought it out of them. Glance even casually at his autobiographical writings, and marvel at how many of his life’s multitudinous dramatis personae he considered friends. While everyone else remarked on his notorious crabbiness, I noticed  how quick to befriend he seemed to be and how much he valued people. I think he appreciated how deeply he was loved, and was quick to reciprocate. Maybe not to faceless masses of fans, but to anyone who got to know him on a human level.

Let’s go back in time a little bit. . .

I first encountered Ellison on the Prisoners of Gravity Show, circa, oh I dunno, 1991 or in that neighbourhood. Unlike so many of the talking heads they brought on, this guy was feisty, animated, outspoken, direct and to the point. He had no patience for nonsense, and seemed to treat writing like hands-on work. I had to read him. . .

The fiction didn’t disappoint. It was every bit as lively and engaging. One day, on a different Prisoners of Gravity episode, he was asked to give advice to young writers in the crowd. He turned straight to the camera and said “the trick to being a writer is to stay a writer!” The advice was good, it was practical, and he said it straight to you. None of the other guests did that. They were talking heads. Some were boring and some were interesting, but they were talking heads. Harlan leapt out of the screen and spoke to you. That was the magic of Harlan Ellison: he made you feel he was addressing you directly. Personally. So the reader-writer relationship was personal. And so is the loss.

Unca Harlan did in fact address me personally, three times, on his message board. The first was when I inquired whether one of is broadcasts would be available in Ontario. His response (and I have not put it in  all caps) was:

“ONTARIO IS NOT SIBERIA!”, followed by a harangue about hiding crystal radios under one’s bed.

The Second time was as part of a larger discussion in which I praised the Dark Knight for being “low tech”. His response was:

“LOW TECH MY ASS!” followed by something about the impossibility of school buses lining up so perfectly. (And then an apology for misreading one of my sentences).

The third time was just a bit of practical advice for making pitches to people – he advised addressing people formally and then asking if they could be addressed informally.

Brief exchanges all, but each one full of his trademark rhetorical virtuosity and personalized bombast. Mini Ellisonian masterpieces carved out of the ether, just for me. I wish I’d copied and pasted them.

That’s the kind of guy he was – he couldn’t say good morning without entertaining someone.

If I concentrated so far entirely on my personal reaction to the Man rather than His Work, it’s only because that’s all I’m qualified to speak on. Smarter people than me will have plenty to say about his work, his thousands of stories and essays and articles, his genius for words, his blinding imagination, his deep, underappreciated humanity. All I can talk about with any authority is what it all meant to me, and why his loss cuts so deeply. He was the crazy uncle whose stories you couldn't get enough of. We all crowded outside his door, waiting for another one, and he was only too pleased to oblige, churning them out with gusto, a verve all his own. You couldn't separate a man from his art. Who would want to? 

To be sure, he wasn’t a flawless human being; doubtless there will be no shortage of pundits and trolls who will be quick to remind you of his shortcomings. I make no excuses for him, but maintain the good far outweighed the bad, that there isn’t one of us who doesn’t have failings and shortcomings, and if were solely judged on them, there would be nothing to celebrate in all of humanity.

In recent years, I slowed my consumption of Harlan Ellison. Not for lack of material – you can never run out. But for the same reason I slowed my consumption of Bradbury. They both inspired me to work hard and follow my dreams. I feel as if I’ve failed. Ellison taught me too well to allow for any excuses, so reading him forces me to face up to that failure. He also wouldn’t allow for any self-pity, so I won’t refer to it any more. Though, perhaps it’s not too late for dreams. . .

I can hardly fathom a world without Harlan Ellison in it. It’s an altogether duller, stupider place. But how incredibly better the world has been for having had him in it. How much deeper my life has been, for having encountered him. So, while I’m heart-broken that he’s gone, I cannot be but thrilled that he lived. What better thing can one say of anyone?

So long Unca Harlan: you were the best!