Year: 2010

Don’t waste your time rooting around on ebay for Harlan Ellison stuff. Download the brochure below to make Harlan himself your one-stop shopping destination for Ellison collectibles. Check out some of the material Harlan is selling that spans the entirety of a remarkable career. Feel free to spread the word as much as possible.

Downloadable Brochure here

Also, here’s the man himself to discuss the scope of the endeavor, reprinted from his website with permission. Ladies and gentleman, attend Mr. Ellison:

Twice, in the past 25 years, my wife has gone through the vast, extensive vaults, spaces, nooks, storage bins, drawers, cubbies and subterranean chambers here at Ellison Wonderland; and she has offered up for sale or auction, books and assorted memorabilia of my career. PURGE III is apparently underway. It will be the last, if I have anything to say about it.

First of all, thanks to all of you for the kind words and well-wishing you’ve extended thus far. I have continued to improve exponentially; I feel so much better one day than I did the day before that it’s amazing to chart the progress. At this point I’m reduced to feeling some mild discomfort from the incision whenever I stand or sit, and that’s the extent of it. The pain in my hips is completely gone. Beginning tomorrow I’m going to see if the discomfort is tolerable while cutting back on the Percoset. The last thing I need is to turn into Rush Limbaugh and get addicted to this stuff (although I think it would take a bit more than that to turn me into Rush Limbaugh.)

I also appreciate all the folks who have written me privately about their own medical conditions and history of fighting difficulties. I have to say, with everything that can go wrong with the human body, it seems a miracle that anyone is ever in good health at any time

And last of all, thanks to my good friend, Mel Gibson, who took the time to call me and scream profanities and blame my people for being the cause of all wars.

PAD

Nearly three weeks ago, for no discernible reason, I started developing pain in my right hip. I was fine once I started walking or if I was sitting or lying down; but the transition from sitting to standing was agonizing. (And if that doesn’t seem a problem, then keep track of the number of times you go from sitting to standing and vice versa in the course of a day). They took X-rays and found nothing relevant to hip pain. So they put me on some heavy-duty pain killers and recommended, just as a precaution, that I see an orthopedist.

By the time I saw the orthopedist, it had gotten worse. Walking no longer kick started my hip; now I couldn’t walk without a cane (although to assuage my new found sense of vulnerability, I was using my sword cane.) The orthopedist believed that it could be a pinched nerve and put me on a prescription of pregnazone, but also slated me for an MRI. And I was on the clock, because this was happening on Wednesday and I was slated to get on an airplane the following Monday for a business trip.

The MRI was barely 24 hours later. By that point, it had spread to both my hips and my thighs down to my knees (although not into them, thankfully). I couldn’t believe how fast I was degenerating. I was now in pain 24/7. There was no comfortable position for me; at most, I could become so exhausted that I would pass out for an hour here or there before the pain awoke me. That was my equivalent of sleep.

They got back the MRI results and that’s when it pretty much went right off the rails.

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