Well, I got the Ellison phone calls...

Harlan Ellison called me this afternoon, and left a semi-jovial message on my voicemail taking issue with some turns of phrase and what he said was 26 errors of fact in my essay about his recent work. He also mentioned his YouTube channel and that he writes daily and that he just wanted to chat. He also sniffed at the headline—as if writers write their own headlines and is if "Don't Let Harlan Ellison Hear This" wasn't just a joke referring to the text.

So I called him back and went into it with him for a few minutes. He said he didn't want to get angry, and ultimately hung up—actually starting a conversation and refusing to finish it is a huge pet peeve of mine, but I didn't call him back—so we didn't get very far. He did wish to start over after first complaining about the art accompanying the piece, which of course writers generally have nothing to do with. (I saw the art when the piece was published and not a moment before.)

Anyway, then objected to the idea that he is "barely" writing, pointing to his many new books (comprised primarily of old material) and how much money they make him. I got the Encyclopedia Britannica riff ("between Ellis Island and Ralph Ellison", though he reversed the order on the phone) and he said that I had praised him with faint damns. He also didn't like "allegedly" because he WON all his lawsuits. I pointed out that he settled most of them, and in a settlement the payer generally doesn't admit wrongdoing, so "alleged" is still an appropriate word choice, then he shouted the amount of one of his settlement checks [six figures, between a quarter and half a mil] and grumbled that he didn't want to be angry and hung up.

I played the voicemail for Olivia when I got home and she said that even her young high school students had heard of Ellison, thanks to "I Have No Mouth, But I Want To Scream" (sic) which according to the kids is "one of the best videogames of all time." And that was hysterical.