[LMB] OT: Harlan, was request

[Paula Lieberman]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Helen Fenton" <hifenton at internode.on.net>


> James Nicoll wrote:
>> On Sat, 2 Sep 2006, Laura Gallagher wrote:
>>
>>> PAT MATHEWS  wrote:
>>>> This is in reaction to an incident at LosCon but it is a sentiment that
>>>> needs to be gotten out there.
>>>>
>>>> I want a T-shirt that says "Private property - no trespassing" on the 
>>>> back
>>>> and on the front, "By invitation only." It can show a picture of a 
>>>> mountain
>>>> grandmother with a shotgun.
>>>
>>> What HAPPENED?  And what are the details of the sentiment?  Is the
>>> idea to prevent groping?
>>>
>>     Short version: while on stage getting an award, Harlan squeezed 
>> Connie Willis's breast. This was not a pre-arranged stunt.
>>
>> This is apparently video of the event (What can I say? What I do involves 
>> text so I am on dial up):
>>
>> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4653991510586546104
>>
>> This is Harlan's first pass at an apology, as copied to my live journal:
>>
>> http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/451927.html
>>
>> And later, after four days of harsh words, he amended this slightly:
>>
>> http://james-nicoll.livejournal.com/453649.html
>>
>> Sorry for pointing people to my LJ but I do link to Harlan's site. It's 
>> just that it's a badly designed site from the POV of pointing out 
>> specific sections.
> Thanks James
>
> That certainly cleared up my confusion. All I can say after watching the 
> video clip you included is he must have been drunk  or  he has too many 
> kangaroos loose in his top paddock due to his age (or both)

Some people have thought of a different reason--over at 
http://pnh.livejournal.com someone, it may have been Patrick Nielsen Hayden 
or not, pointed out that Harlan was up on stage with Connie Willis, and that 
rather than using language as tool, was engaged in physical actions of 
swallowing the microphone (yes, he DID do that, he opened his mouth and 
leaned forward and got the entire microphone in his mouth, and closed his 
lips on the rod of the microphone stand, the microphone in his mouth) and 
groping Connie Willis, as opposed to competing on a verbal with and flair 
basis with her--the conclusion reached was that Harlan chose to compete for 
attention not by verbal wit but by physical action to get the audience 
focusing on him, rather than show as less scintillating and witty and able 
to be the main focus of the audience over Connie Willis, by verbal facility.

That is, the proposition was that Harlan rather than competing for audience 
attention by verbal wit and cleverness, chose to be the center of attention 
when Connie Willis was on stage with him, employing physical actions--and de 
facto showed he was unable to unwilling to compete against her verbally lest 
it show that her ability outshone his.

Put that way it was a de facto contest, and he chose foul rather than fair 
methods to hold the audience attention focused primarily on him and get the 
limelight off Connie Willis and onto himself in primacy.


> So ..... do you think the cafepress T shirt company could come up with a 
> semi-formal and a formal version of their anti Ellison Tshirt for a 
> certain female GoH to be at Denver 2008.

Er,  that doesn't seem reasonable to me--tee shirts celebrating Lois 
shouldn't be things based on a spin off Ellison gorfish behavior!   Lois is 
one of the sweetest, nicest. most gracious people in the SF community, a tee 
shirt concept inspired by the oldest enfant terrible author around whose 
grand anthology third volume got sold three times and never delivered and 
after 35 years of being overdue,  is to all intents and purposes dead and 
buried and its time long past, whose fame rests on past endeavors and on a 
personality with more than a half-century of boorish offensive behavior 
stories with a few leavenings of generosity and kindness for occasions of 
redeeming social merit, is not anything I consider appropriate to 
select/choose/use as inspiration for graphics and text lauding Lois!