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Danse Macabre :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 188 из 359After that has been determined, it becomes, I think, actively dangerous to hold on to these bad films . . . and they must be discarded. **
*The one exception is Judith Crist, who seems to genuinely like horror movies and who is often able to look past a poverty-row budget to whatever is working there-I've always wondered what she made of Night of the Living Dead .
** If you are interested in my own determination of the best horror movies of the last thirty years, see Appendix I.
CHAPTER VIII
The Glass Teat, or, This Monster Was Brought to You by Gainesburgers
ALL THOSE OF YOU out there among the great unwashed who ever believed that TV sucks were dead wrong, you see; as Harlan Ellison pointed out in his sometimes amusing, sometimes scathing essays on television, TV does not suck; it is sucked. Ellison called his two-volume diatribe on the subject The Glass Teat , and if you've not read it, be aware that it comes recommended as a kind of compass with this particular stretch of the territory. I read the book with amazed absorption three years ago, the fact that Ellison had devoted valuable time and space to such forgettable series of yesteryear as Alias Smith and Jones barely obtruding on a total volcanic effect that made me suspect I was experiencing something roughly similar to a six-hour rant delivered by Fidel Castro. Always assuming that Fidel was really on that day.
Ellison circles back and back to television in his work, like a man held in thrall by a snake he knows to be ultimately deadly. For no apparent reason, the longish introduction to Strange Wine (a book we'll discuss at some length next chapter), Ellison's 1978 collection of short stories, is a diatribe on TV titled "Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself.” When you strip Ellison's TV-rap to its core, it is simple enough and not blazingly original (for blazing originality, you have to read how he says it) : TV is a spoiler, Ellison says. It spoils story; it spoils those who make the stories; eventually it spoils those who watch the stories; the milk from this particular teat is poisoned. This is a thesis I would agree with completely, but let me point out two facts.
Harlan has a TV. A big one.
I have a TV which is even bigger than Harlan's. It is, in fact, a Panasonic CinemaVision which dominates one whole corner of my living room.
Mea culpa , all right.
*The one exception is Judith Crist, who seems to genuinely like horror movies and who is often able to look past a poverty-row budget to whatever is working there-I've always wondered what she made of Night of the Living Dead .
** If you are interested in my own determination of the best horror movies of the last thirty years, see Appendix I.
CHAPTER VIII
The Glass Teat, or, This Monster Was Brought to You by Gainesburgers
ALL THOSE OF YOU out there among the great unwashed who ever believed that TV sucks were dead wrong, you see; as Harlan Ellison pointed out in his sometimes amusing, sometimes scathing essays on television, TV does not suck; it is sucked. Ellison called his two-volume diatribe on the subject The Glass Teat , and if you've not read it, be aware that it comes recommended as a kind of compass with this particular stretch of the territory. I read the book with amazed absorption three years ago, the fact that Ellison had devoted valuable time and space to such forgettable series of yesteryear as Alias Smith and Jones barely obtruding on a total volcanic effect that made me suspect I was experiencing something roughly similar to a six-hour rant delivered by Fidel Castro. Always assuming that Fidel was really on that day.
Ellison circles back and back to television in his work, like a man held in thrall by a snake he knows to be ultimately deadly. For no apparent reason, the longish introduction to Strange Wine (a book we'll discuss at some length next chapter), Ellison's 1978 collection of short stories, is a diatribe on TV titled "Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself.” When you strip Ellison's TV-rap to its core, it is simple enough and not blazingly original (for blazing originality, you have to read how he says it) : TV is a spoiler, Ellison says. It spoils story; it spoils those who make the stories; eventually it spoils those who watch the stories; the milk from this particular teat is poisoned. This is a thesis I would agree with completely, but let me point out two facts.
Harlan has a TV. A big one.
I have a TV which is even bigger than Harlan's. It is, in fact, a Panasonic CinemaVision which dominates one whole corner of my living room.
Mea culpa , all right.