Harlan Ellison's Watching (65 page)

The subject next time will be wit. Not a sense of humor, but
wit
.

And just so you don't feel cheated because I didn't "review" anything else, here's another:
Harry and the Hendersons
(Universal/Amblin Entertainment) is a delight. It's manipulative as a
Rocky
flick, but the manipulation is in service of making us feel good, and hey, I'll invest in that any day.

See how good I am to you? Now stop crying, and go downstairs and apologize to your mother, and wash up for dinner while I put my belt back on and burn these imbecile letters George and the others sent.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
/ January 1988

"Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words"

—Dorothy Parker

In the words of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, placed by that superlative scenarist in the mouth of Bette Davis, in the 1950 film
All About Eve
, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

But first, as is my wont, anecdotes (one short, one medium long, both absolutely true) in aid of setting the tone and laying the groundwork. With assistance from the editors of
The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged Edition
.

Anecdote the first.

A friend of mine, a woman who heads up "development" of projects in the area of television specials for one of the three major networks, called me from her office, oh, roughly, about a year ago, and she said, "Sit down. You're going to
love
this one. Are you sitting?" I told her I was, and she proceeded to tell me that thirty seconds earlier a man had left her office. This man—who, like my confidante, shall remain nameless for obvious reasons—is a major supplier of endless hundreds of hours of primetime product. He is a Big Name in the world of films and teevee; we're talking on a level with Chuck Fries or Aaron Spelling; a man whose assorted production companies have multimillion-dollar contracts with the networks. And he said to my friend, a woman empowered to say yes or no for the go-ahead or turn-down of his big-ticket projects, "I've got the most sensational idea for a Special that you've ever heard! This is fantastic, it'll get you the numbers like nothing else you've ever done!" And my friend, blown back against her chair by the intensity and passion of this man's enthusiasm, replied, "Well,
tell me!
What is this incredible concept for a Special that will blow America out of the water?"

And the man said: "Let's do
The Wiz . . .

"
 . . . white!
"

As she paused for my reaction that day, oh, roughly, about a year ago, so I now pause for
your
reaction.

Depending on whether your stomach aches from laughing as you now read this sentence, or you have a blank look on your face and the phrase
Why is that funny?
in your head, you will find yourself in one of two categories: those who need this essay desperately but won't perceive themselves as being the subject of the discussion . . . or those who already understand what I'm going to be getting at here, and know themselves not to be lacking. For those with the blank look, those in the first category, relate that anecdote to a friend you consider to possess a finely-tuned sense of humor, and check his/her response. Though like seeks like, you may have lucked out and your friend can help you along with the rest of this confabulation. Not to mention the rest of your life.

(This has been, as stated, an absolutely
true
story. The man was dead serious. If this gives you pause as to the level of acuity demonstrated by those who cobble up what you watch on the tube, well, what took you so long to get The Word?)

Anecdote the second.

A number of years ago, while under the spell of Providence, Rhode Island, once the haunt of H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, I began writing a short story titled "On the Slab" as an
hommage
to HPL. While only passingly echoic of the great fantasist's style, it was my admiring nod to the best of what he had written that had impressed me as a tyro.

One thing and another, I set the first few pages of the story aside after Providence, and was unable to return to the piece for several years. But when I did, I completed the yarn and sold it to
Omni
. "On the Slab" was a contemporary retelling of the Prometheus legend, told a bit more in the dark fantasy mode than is my usual approach with such efforts. I liked that story a lot.

And so it chanced that after the sale to
Omni
, but before it was published, I was engaged to deliver a lecture at New York University and, as is my wont, I read my latest (usually unpublished) story as part of the presentation. On that night in April of 1981, the story was "On the Slab."

When I finished the reading, I was rewarded with considerable applause from the large audience, thanked them prettily, and asked if there were any questions.

Rising from the shoals of attendees was a young man in his middle twenties, a largish young man whose somatotype and manner stirred instant recognition in me:
This is a stone science fiction fan
, I thought.

(Pause. The more contumelious among you, of whom I wrote at length last time, will no doubt snarl that I had no way of affirming such a snap judgment. That 1 was pre-judging the largish young man and saw him as stereotype. Maybe. But if you think those of us who deal with fans and readers constantly can't spot the fans in a crowd often thousand ordinary humans, I suggest you ask your nearest sf writer. It is an amalgam of clues informed by an understanding of body language, cultural taxonomy, deductive logic, the eye of the artist and the sad-but-true repetition of fan behavior as witnessed firsthand for more than three decades. Anyone who has ever read the Sherlock Holmes canon can do the same. And as we shall see in a moment, as the anecdote proceeds, whether an actual card-carrying, registered with N3F or FAPA fan, or merely one who is obsessed by the genre in the fannish manner, though unallied . . . this was a stone fan.)

So he stood, and I asked, "Do you have a question about the story?"

He said, "Have you ever heard of the Prometheus legend?"

The snickering in the audience kept me from answering for a moment. He looked around in confusion. My instant reaction was to be gentle. "Yes, I have," I replied.

"Well, your story is a ripoff of that, it seems to me," Now the audience was chuckling at him. And though I wasn't exactly toe-tappingly delighted at being accused of plagiarism by a total stranger, I tried to maintain a humane demeanor.

"You mean the way Alfred Bester's
The Stars My Destination
was a ripoff of Dumas's
The Count of Monte Cristo
?" He just looked at me; hadn't the scarcest what I was talking about.

"But you made a lot of mistakes," he said, oblivious to the whispering of the audience throughout Eisner and Lubin Auditorium as those who knew what was happening explained to those who did not. He was determined to press on, and there wasn't a lot I could do to keep him from making a fool of himself.

Had I tried to cut him off, I'd have been pilloried for savaging this naîf.

"Oh?" I said, as pockets of laughter around the hall gave him a warning he refused to hear.

"Yes, you made a lot of mistakes. You see, in the Prometheus legend it was his
liver
that was eaten out every day, not his heart, the way you wrote it. And it was an eagle that ate his liver every day, not a vulture like you wrote in your story."

"Carrion crow," I said.

"What?"

"I called it a vulture, and also a carrion crow."

"Yes. You got it all wrong. Why did you do that?"

The laughter was now ubiquitous. The largish young man kept turning and looking. He was beginning to understand that whatever it was he'd said wrong, it was apparent to everyone else in the audience . . . but him. In anger, he turned back to me and demanded, "
So why did you do that?!
"

At which point I'd had about enough, and I said, as flatly and George S Pattorily as I could, "Because I damn well
felt
like it."

My tone made it quite clear to those ridiculing the young man, that the game was over. Now came the lesson. "Sir," I said, "everyone is laughing at you because it is obvious from the story that I am familiar with the Prometheus legend and have, in fact, written a pastiche on that myth, a retelling, an updating, a variant version, if you wish. When one writes a variant on a well-established legend, one reinterprets it to contemporize it, or to focus on aspects the original either saw one way or ignored entirely. I used the heart, rather than the liver, because in the days when the Prometheus legend was new, it was commonly thought that the liver was the residence of the soul . . . which is why the victors often ate the livers of those they'd vanquished, to absorb the fallen enemy's bravery and wisdom. Did you ever hear this expression, 'Bring me his liver and lights'? That meant his soul and his eyes. But today we think of the heart as the organ of choice. As for the crow, or vulture, rather than the eagle . . . well, I wanted a darker image. We think of the eagle as our national symbol, as a creature of honor and fortitude, soaring and pure. I wanted a bird that feasted on carrion. So I changed it. He isn't chained to a rock, either. These are what we call 'artistic license' and if used within the consistent framework of logic in a story, they are considered quite artful and legitimate."

I thought that would do it, and would get him off the hook. I thought anyone of even passing intelligence would understand and be content. I thought I was dealing with a rational human being. What I was dealing with, sadly, was a stone science fiction fan.

"Well, I still think you shouldn't have written it wrong," he said, and sat down heavily, to a tsunami of hisses and catcalls. Realizing I could do no better, I threw up my hands and went on with the evening's presentation.

Perhaps medium long was inaccurate, because all of the foregoing is merely backstory for the punchline of the anecdote.

I thought no more about that interchange, returned to Los Angeles, and was startled a week later when I received a
most
troubled phone call from the then-fiction editor of
Omni
. (I hasten to advise that the fiction editor at that time was, and remains, a superlative writer, as well as a friend of many years. It was not the current fiction editor, Ellen Datlow, who has been at her post with distinction for quite a few years. The editor of whom I speak knows I bear him illimitable affection, and we have laughed over this anecdote many times. It is not told to embarrass him, or to make him seem less worthy an editor than he proved himself. It just happens to be one of those dopey things we all do every once in a while, and I need it to make my point, so don't go looking for anything malicious, because it ain't there.)

Anyhow. He called, and he said, "Listen, we got a letter in the office the other day, from a guy who heard you read 'On the Slab' at NYU, and he's pointed out a lot of errors in the story, and we'd like you to rewrite them to take care of it."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "You're putting me on!" I cried. "You mean to tell me that humorless dweeb
wrote you a letter?!?!
"

"Uh-huh."

"And you actually are taking it seriously, about a story that hasn't even been
published
yet, and you're asking me to honor the imbecile nitpicking of some yotz with a flat affect who may, for all I know, believe Bacon wrote Shakespeare's stuff, who may, for all I know, think Stephen Crane had no right to do a Civil War novel because he wasn't in the fight, who may, for all I know, interpret everything so literally that he wonders if the light goes out in the refrigerator when he closes the door?
Is that what you're telling me?!
"

My friend the editor fumfuh'd for a moment, and then said in a smaller voice, "Well, he said in the letter that it would embarrass us at
Omni
if readers thought we didn't know it was Prometheus's liver, and not his heart, that was eaten . . . "

"Send back the story!" I howled. "I'll return your fucking check! This is unconscionable! It's deranged! I'm going to kill you!"

Well, it worked out just fine. I calmed down after the fourth phone call—yes, we discussed this hot and cold and tepid for more than a week—because he refused to send back the story (demonstrating a lot more good sense than previously), and at one point I said something like, "Look, kiddo, myth and legend are plastic, they're fluid, they're malleable. They belong to whatever culture takes them up. And we, as Artists, are
required
to examine and retool not only myths and legends, but all variations of those myths, and all commentaries on those myths and legends and variations! It is our bloody
job
, fer crissakes!" And along about the fifth or sixth phone call he came on the line and said, with awe in his voice, "How did you manage to do that?"