Sleepless in California

Harlan Ellison; Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed (E-Reads Ltd. via Webscriptions; ASIN B003XREVCA; cover by Leo & Diane Dillon).

Made up of: Introduction (Marty Clark); You Don't Know Me, I Don't Know You; Stealing Tomorrow (Tom Reamy); Down the Rabbit-Hole to TV-Land; Revealed at Last! What Killed the Dinosaurs! And You Don't Look So Terrific Yourself; Epiphany; Rolling Dat Ole Debbil Electronic Stone; A Love Song to Jerry Falwell (in embryonic form and under assorted titles); Science Fiction: Turning Reality Inside-Out; Defeating the Green Slime; How You Stupidly Blew Fifteen Million Dollars a Week, Avoided Having an Adenoid-Shaped Swimming Pool in Your Backyard, Missed the Opportunity to Have a Mutually Destructive Love Affair with Clint Eastwood and/or Racqel Welch, and Otherwise Pissed Me Off; Fear Not Your Enemies; Face Down in Gloria Swanson's Swimming Pool; From Alabamy, with Hate; Leiber: A Few Too Few Words; Serita Rosenthal Ellison: A Eulogy; Centerpunching; Voe Doe Dee Oh Doe; Robert Silverberg: An Appreciation; Cheap Thrills on the Road to Hell; "True Love": Groping for the Holy Grail.

A relatively brief collection of essays by one of our soon-to-be-retired practioners of the short form in fiction and non-fiction. Sharp, biting, occasionally funny. Might be a tad intense to read one after the other. Ellison pulls no punches when it comes to science fiction, television, culture, education and more. Highly recommended, timeless. Mass media needs more biting, but intelligent spokespersons, not the idiots that currently inhabit it. Mass media needs to bottle or clone Ellison and make him available to counterpunch the spokescritters they currently employ.

Counts as twenty (20) entries in the 2011 Year in Shorts.