The Devniad Book 52D Un Zine De Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 U.S.A
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
The Devniad Book 52d un zine de Bob Devney 25 Johnson Street, North Attleboro, MA 02760 U.S.A. e-mail: [email protected] For APA:NESFA #350 July 1999 copyright 1999 by Robert E. Devney Orbita Dicta About 600 of them were Harlan Ellison. Heard in the halls of Let me explain. Now, I've been going to Readercon 11 cons, watching wordcrafters walk and talk The Westin Waltham-Boston Hotel since the late 70s. Waltham, Massachusetts, U.S.A. I've seen Isaac Asimov mobbed with July 9-11, 1999 adulation. Jack Chalker take over a panel. Patrick Nielsen Hayden shred a subject with Once again, here's how it works with a few brilliant, incisive words. Frederik Pohl these con quotes issues: I go to a science tell great stories of the old days. Stephen fiction convention (and right here, my non- King gain a fast rapport with wit and street SF friends are deserting in droves — bye, cred. Ellen Kushner keep a story moving people: there's a movie review or two at the like the broadcast pro she is. Douglas end you might check out before you go, and Adams rock the room for one whole oh, don't miss this month's thrilling hilarious hour. Orson Scott Card fight the installment of Our Man in Honduras; see good fight against an opposing faction. you next month). And I want to capture I've seen David Gerrold pretty puffed some special moments. Little snippety up with Hollywood success. Larry Niven a dialog bits that elicit this particular congoing little smug in the knowledge of his experience's ineffable flavor. greatness. Ursula Le Guin serene in the So I do my best to eff it. certainty of hers. Darrell Schweitzer I take frenzied notes, in the worst relentlessly try to sell us something. Jane handwriting since Cretan Linear B, that at Yolen shine out tough, smart, and warm. least approximate what somebody said a I've seen Joe Haldeman speak with minute ago, or at the party last night. Then I touching vulnerability of wounds and dead go home, try to read my own writing, friends. R. A. Lafferty lonely in the midst of succeed at least sometimes, and end up a crowd. Barry Malzberg so bitter you could keying in the stuff you see below. With my hardly look at him and hardly look away. own sarcastic, befuddled, or uninformative Lucius Shepherd not give a shit what notes added in brackets before, during, and anyone thinks. sometimes after. Was going to say, "and I've never seen Enjoy yourselves. I faintly recall I did. anything like Harlan Ellison" — but of NOTE: Any resemblance to accuracy or course I have. All of the above. fairness is, to be accurate, fairly surprising. He's a nifty combination of Tennessee and Robin Williams. Jack Kerouac and Jack the Ripper. Mother Theresa and Mother Special Note: Fucker? The Beast That Shouted Much of the crowd this weekend adored him. Others told me he was a jerk, that this Love Me cult of personality thing was bad for a con, at the Heart of the Con that his need for everybody's love and approval and undivided attention — and his There were approximately 650 people in sometimes savage attitude when he didn't attendance this Readercon weekend. The Devniad, Book 52 Page 2 of 18 get it — were bad form. Oh, and that he had [I'm starting to fear nobody at my office will a big ego. offer a customary clueless send-off to my lit'ry Well, duh! weekend until designer Steve Rebello speaks up] I'd say his ego is almost as big as mine, Well, see you, Dev. Hope you've got but with a tad more justification. Go read your Star Trek uniform ready. just his better stories and articles again — [In what's becoming another tradition, author that should take you about 2 months and quote-hungry Hugo nominee Michael A. straight. And you'll emerge white and Burstein jumps me in the lobby first thing] shaken … I've got a panel at 5:00, a kaffeeklatsch You could say that like Theodore on Sunday — and I'll have some very Roosevelt, he demands to be the bride at scintillating material. every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. Or you could say that he throws his [Wife Nomi props him up] dark little heart into being a great, totally — That's because he's got glitter. available Guest of Honor. I left one of his speeches this weekend [The Friday afternoon panel on Outrage in halfway through. After things got way too Literature finds Co-GOH Harlan Ellison — ugly. And after he repeated things he'd author of Angry Candy — on familiar ground] written elsewhere, then things he'd said in I think it was Orwell who said, There are earlier speeches, then things he'd said in this situations from which one can only extract speech. Look, I couldn't take Harlan Ellison oneself by becoming a madman. at every con I attend. He drowns out all the … I'm suspicious of writers who write a other voices, and that beautiful Babel is one controlled, delicate prose. I suspect they are of my chief pleasures in congoing. not in touch with their own viscera. Also, as I told him when I had my moment with the man, he's a con reporter's [Event Horizon webzine editor and other walking, talking nightmare. He speaks way Co-GOH Ellen Datlow frames it differently] too fast and says great stuff way too long There has to be a real story framing the for decent note-taking. I believe my phrase anger to make it effective. to him was, "My goddamned hand is falling off." [Let's distinguish, says Carolyn Ives Gilman] Finally, when he indicates he thinks, say, One kind is anger at people. Another Forrest J. Ackerman is one of the most kind is anger at institutions and power infamous monsters of filmland, I can't print relationships. all the details he dishes in the next 25 … Writing about a person, you're forced minutes, complete with reading letters aloud, to think from that person's point of view, to show why he thinks that. So should I print and that defuses the anger … Writing about it at all? It's a problem of space and taste. institutions, I find I get more angry as the Harlan at every con? Oh please. story goes on. It would be too tiring. Probably for both parties. Like having chili-and-amphetamine [In a war of words, writer James Alan Gardner ice cream for dessert every meal. sounds like sniper material] But I'm glad he came. How about you? I find I'm a lot better at cold anger or devious anger — Colorful Language Caution: Aunt Ann, in reading this report, I'd skip right over [Ellison helps with a label] anything that nice Mr. Ellison says. — You're a sneak! * * * [Death did not dim Ellison's animus at the producer of Star Trek; but writing it out helped] The Devniad, Book 52 Page 3 of 18 Let me give you a specific: Gene [Ellison notes he's not the only Angry Young Roddenberry was an ambulatory sack of Man around] shit, as far as I'm concerned … While I was When Barry Malzberg is being at his writing The City on the Edge of Forever, I was most bitter, it's like paper cuts all over your so angry after years of his lying to me and body … He's one of the best there ever was. about me, the story became demented and inarticulate. [Gilman wants to recall that emotion] … But as soon as it was finished, I Anger's the fuel. You have to transform opened my mouth and a — a dove flew out. it into the story. I was so relieved, finally. And I could actually say the pussbag's name. [Gardner says it isn't only writers] Have you ever met a real live standup [SF Age editor Scott Edelman says sometimes comedian? Almost all of them, there's an obsession don't sell] awful lot of anger hiding in there. There are times you must say, "That's the fifth story I got from you about killing [Ellison on the comic/talk show host Bill Maher] your ex-wife. I think it's time you moved He's got the best job in television, all on." these great people every night … but he never talks to anybody … He said in a [Though Ellison's still thinking about a story he Playboy interview that he sits in his dressing wrote in 1978 (and an editor whose name I've no room before every show and masturbates. idea how to spell)] The best editor I've ever had in my life [Edelman flogs a huge laugh from the audience] was at Playboy: Victoria Chen Hyder. Asian- — Yes, we all did that right before this American, very young … I wrote a story, panel. "All the Birds Come Home to Roost" — one of my best. The narrator, his wife ended up [Gilman thinks SF's cool — maybe too cool] in an insane asylum, where my first wife I've gotten this heretical thought that [Charlotte] ended up … maybe people read SF so that they don't And Victoria said, great story. But you have to take it personally … There are so talk about how she almost drove him crazy, many levels of alienation that they can say, and you never give an example.