San Francisco Chronicle: “One year, San Francisco novelist Herb Gold said he was offered an associate membership if he would help write the Grove play. Gold took fellow writer Earnest Gaines (‘A Lesson Before Dying’), an African American, to a Wednesday night entertainment at the six-story downtown club. Five members, he said, were in blackface. One member clapped Gaines on the back. ‘Looks like you’ve played a little football,’ Gold heard him say. Shortly thereafter, the writers took their leave. ‘I guess I’m not clubbable,’ Gold said wryly.”

John Leonard: “Think of it: with a whole world of worthy targets — Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, Donald Trump, Conrad Black, Eli Manning, Shell Oil, Clear Channel, Conde Nast — he mugs a man who has spent the last quarter of a century staying poor by reviewing other people’s books, who has read more widely, warmly and deeply than the vampire bat fastened to his carotid, who should be commended rather than ridiculed for a willingness to take on a review of a new translation of Mandelstam’s journals, and who, even though he wrote a regrettably mixed review of a book of mine in these pages, deserves far better from the community of letters, if there is one, than Peck’s bumptious heehaw: ”With friends like this, literature needs an enema.””

After hearing early notice that the film version of I, Robot was nothing less than a crapfest (hardly the stuff of Asimov; the new version had killer robots, no less), and being plagued by lack of time, I avoided the sucker, despite Alex Proyas’ involvement. NPR has gone to the trouble of tracking down the players behind Harlan Ellison’s original script, interviewing Ellison, director Irvin Kershner (who was at one point slated to direct the Ellison version), as well as Proyas. The Jeff Vintar script that I, Robot was based on was originally another script, but later fused with the Asimov label once the I, Robot rights became available. (Amazingly, Vintar is also adapting Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.)

Among some of the more interesting revelations:

• Ellison used the Citizen Kane template to frame four of Asimov’s stories into a script.
• Kershner claims that, despite its strengths, Ellison’s script was too expensive and too driven by ideas.
• The executive behind the production hadn’t read Ellison’s script and Ellison claims (in addition to learning judo from Bruce Lee) that he forcefully grabbed the executive and let loose a farrago of expletives. He was, predictably enough, ejected from the production. Strangely, Ellison boasts about his violence in the NPR interview, as if physically gripping a dumb studio executive were some grand act of bravado.
• Proyas read Ellison’s script, but states that it wasn’t the movie he wanted to make. This is an interesting revelation, given how much he was attracted to Dark City, arguably just as intricate as Ellison’s script.

In addition, NPR also has two online audio exclusives: one of Ellison reading portions of the screenplay and another, with Ellison relating more of his perspective in a seven minute segment. Whatever the merits of Ellison’s script (or his Sticking It to The Man argument), one is struck by Ellison’s hubris. (“The script was very long and very good.”) He boldly states that he will “write you a screenplay that will win you awards.” There is also a good amount of inexplicable justification in the online interview. (At one point, Ellison states that Asimov had his blessing. But stating this isn’t enough. He also notes that he has “letters to prove it.”)

Was Ellison’s script a hodgepodge of ideas too intricate to be digested for mass consumption? Could the project have been set back on track if Ellison had simply dismissed the ignorant executive and talked with the right people? I remain a fan of Ellison’s stories, but I find it sad that a seventy year old man, who had no problem compromising with AOL, would look back upon a unilateral act of physical violence with such feverish gusto. The tragic possibility is that, in a single moment, Ellison may have derailed one of the greatest science fiction films never made.

Mark’s recovering from “unpleasant matters.” In lieu of nothing here, please visit the man and check out his back entries. Despite all this, Mark’s been maintaining a fantastic literary blog. We’ll be back here on Monday.

We’re operating on about one thruster right now to get us to O’Hare, so it’s possible we’ve taken leave of our senses. But this Laura Miller essay comparing Dale Peck and James Wood offers, to our muddled fume-impaired vision, some very compelling cases that they’re cut from the same cloth. As much as we appreciate his wares, Wood’s comment that a novel that “engages with the culture” could never be any good is about as pretentious and myopic about the novel’s future as Dale Peck’s infamous first line. We can only reply, skating dangerously close to the Julavits line: What’s wrong with ambition?

(UPDATE: Aw, fuggit. We have no brain. Stephany pretty much nails it.)

Toodle-oo until Monday.