Harlan Ellison is as controversial a figure in speculative fiction as they come. He’s a say what he thinks, wear his emotions on his sleeves kind of guy. He has a brilliant mastery of the English language, but not exactly a mastery over social interaction. He has done his share of dumb things.
Despite his mistakes, I still like the guy. I think he means well, and can be quite charming when he wants to be. and while he will go down in history as one of the great fiction writers of the Twentieth Century, I’ve always enjoyed his non-fiction essays a lot more than his fiction.
This is true even when he gets political, even though we don’t see eye-to-eye on things. (Refraining from short joke here, I’m not all that tall either.) Harlan is a pinned-against-the-left-wall liberal. I mean, the guy marched in Selma, Alabama during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. That took guts. So, when I finally came across his book of television essays, The Other Glass Teat, I had to buy it.
I read The Glass Teat several years ago, and it was hard enough finding a copy of that one. I never thought I’d find a copy of the other half of his compiled television columns. These were all written circa 1970, give or take a year. In those days, I was a wee lad, and I don’t remember much television from those days other than early Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.
It’s a biting commentary on a time I was around, but don’t remember, and it’s interesting to get a window into television of the day. Shows we all remember were just in their debut, shows like The Odd Couple, for instance.
The essays are short, four to five paperback pages each. As I mentioned, they come from a Free Press newspaper column he wrote in the day, so they are all easily consumed in just a few minutes. While some of the shows he discusses are better left lost in the depths of time, he does have a good insight into why shows work and fail, even if the language is blunt and direct (and hip, ya dig?).
If you have the opportunity to pick up a copy of either, most likely at a used book store these days, then I recommend you drop the few bucks and give the books a try.
