Thursday, June 28, 2018

FAREWELL, HARLAN ELLISON...


I think of you whenever I become enraged, Mr. Ellison, because you taught me it's okay to be incensed. Thanks to you, whenever I form an opinion, I make certain that it's informed. Through your acute words and that stinging edge in your voice, you've inspired me to scream, to rejoice...to write. 

Sometimes, when translated right, your work could delight, as it did in the "Outer Limits" classics, "Demon with a Glass Hand" and "Soldier": without which no Terminator would have ever risen. 


Other times, you were dissatisfied with the results, as in "Star Trek'"s "City on the Edge of Forever", but what's proven so touching to so many comes all from you.

"Grail" remains my prime reference on love; "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty", my savored reference on boyhood; and your "Dangerous Visions" and "Angry Candy", worthy of continual consumption.

The world already feels vapid without you, Mr. Ellison, but your fables, your wit...your goddamn audacity will never perish. For that, I'm forever grateful...forever in your debt. 

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