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I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream At People Who Wear Their Baseball Caps Backwards

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Sat, 02/26/2011 - 00:00 — Ginrummy

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 8/19/09

Our own GinRummy put this online and pointed it out to me. It's a video interview that Harlan Ellison did back in 1995, talking about a video game version of "I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream." (Which was, coincidentally, the first Ellison story I ever read back when I was about 13. Scared hell out of me, and I couldn't sleep for two nights afterwards.

Once he gets past talking about the game, there's some interesting stuff about why he doesn't write on a computer, and, of course, I love his bit about "Parent's groups exist only to be alarmed."
What completely sells it, however, is at 8:55 when he comments on baseball caps.
Mad props to GinRummy for unearthing this, and bringing it to my attention.

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Sat, 02/26/2011 - 12:22
#1
neorandomizer
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@R3

>>What I *DO* miss, and this was basically gone long before Typewriters were, is the smell of machinery: the machine oil and dust smell you got from a good 1960s stereo system, or an old manual typewriter (I always hated manuals, BTW), or the machine oil and ozone smell you got from something that had been running too long.<<

Yes machines and electronics today seem to have no character or life they are cold and efficient. Now in a car or piece of electronics if you smell something it means it's breaking down or burning out.

Being a ex-Navy Machinist Mate I miss the smells and feel of a ship's engine room. It had a smell of hot oil and grease but clean not like an auto repair garage. You could feel the power through the deck plates when the main turbines were spinning, that is when a ship felt like a living thing.

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Sat, 02/26/2011 - 08:17
#2
Republibot 3.0
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smell

The only thing I really miss typewriters for is filling out forms. They were just perfect for that: Line up with a box, tab to the side, fill it out, off to the next. Filling out physical forms on a printer was always needlessly complicated.

What I *DO* miss, and this was basically gone long before Typewriters were, is the smell of machinery: the machine oil and dust smell you got from a good 1960s stereo system, or an old manual typewriter (I always hated manuals, BTW), or the machine oil and ozone smell you got from something that had been running too long.

Love that!

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

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Sat, 02/26/2011 - 03:06
#3
neorandomizer
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Anger and art

Good old Harlan Ellison the angry man of sci-fi is always fun to watch and even read. The part where he said that if there is no pain there is no art (I paraphrase)reminds me of a quote from a William F Buckley interview where he said writing was like bleeding on to the page, I sometimes feel that way when I am writing a story.

I have to tell the truth even though I spent many a year as a system administrator and computer programmer I miss manual typewriters. Their is an emotional satisfaction in pounding away on a manual which is why I go through keyboards so fast I beat the hell out of them when I really get cruising writing a story or an article.

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Wed, 08/19/2009 - 08:34
#4
Republibot 3.0
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Foibles

Not that I've had much contact with him, but he's always been super-nice to me. He's uncompromising, principled, passionate about his work, hyper-talented, hyper-intelligent, and will not suffer fools - in short, he's everything the entertainment industry can't stand. It makes sense, given all that, that he'd be perceived as a bit angry on occasion. The man may be given to occasional bursts of articulately spastic rage - which are generally hillarious, by the way - but he knows his sh!t, he's great at what he does, and love him or hate him, you can't ignore him.

The Artist Formerly Known As Republibot 3.0

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Wed, 08/19/2009 - 01:05
#5
neorandomizer
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Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison is brilliant but he is also an ass but hey that's the breaks. You could say that about many artists and writers.

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