Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 03:04:28 -0400
Subject: Re: Gharlane of Eddore remembered
Status: RO

In alt.religion.kibology, Kibo wrote:

I've been informed by various people that "Gharlane of Eddore"
(a prolific Usenet poster, a friend of mine, and an occasional
visitor to alt.religion.kibology) has passed away.  I'm still hoping
the rumors of his demise are premature or inaccurate (or better yet,
both) but for the meantime I'd better eulogize him just in case
he's not dead so he can read this to complain about my grammar
so I can fix it so it'll be right when he does die.  But, sad to
say, I have reliable information that Gharlane is no more.

You may recall that he only posted under his pen name.  This was
because he did not want to reveal that his real name was (a) Douglas Adams,
(b) Barry B. Longyear, (c) J. Michael Straczynski, or (d) Majel Barrett,
especially because it wasn't any of those four.  Incidentally, in the olden
days he actually requested and received permission from E. E. "Doc" Smith
to use the name of his Gharlane character.  (He would never borrow anyone
else's idea, or even a character name, without such acknowledgement
to its creator.)

He was big in the science fiction writers' community -- he had written
a few stories which had been published quite a while ago, but he was
most prominent as a critic of written, filmed, and televised entertainment,
always complaining about the bad stuff in ways which were far more
entertaining than the bad stuff.  Unfortunately, he did not manage to
eliminate stupidity in science fiction, but he did help show people
that there is good SF and there is bad "skiffy" (his term, from
Forrest Ackerman's "sci-fi", for stuff which is too stupid to even
be called "sci-fi".)  He was an expert (and an insider) and would
often tell me juicy pieces of gossip from the set of some obscure
movie he'd wandered onto the set of in the 1970s.  He knew more about
the making of any given production than was in the "making of" documentaries.

He had an opinion on just about everything, and some endearing personal
quirks (such as his refusal to send E-mail messages with a "Subject:"
filled in) and had been everywhere and seen everything.  We conversed
(via E-mail) about just about everything from obscure 1950s TV shows
to the proper handling of semi-automatic weapons in movies.  (He was
big on guns.  And, because he was big on movies, you can imagine how
he would react when confronted with a movie where someone fires seven
bullets from a six-shooter, or hoists a bazooka that goes "RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT".)
He was a believer in quality, effort, and originality.

When he complained that a bad movie cost some ungodly number of
millions of dollars, it wasn't because he was one of those elitists
who believed that high-budget movies were inherently bad, it was
because he loved both movies and TV, and knew that the $183,000,000
spent on "Waterworld" could have been spent on several other movies
or ten years' worth of a good TV show.  (And hey, I agree with him
that if they spread the money around on a lot of things, probably
at least one of them wouldn't have been as bad as "Waterworld".)

Gharlane will be missed.

                                           -- K.

                                              And now who will they
                                              find to refuse to write
                                              for "Stargate: The Series"?

In rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.sf.written, rec.arts.startrek.current,
and alt.fan.mike-jittlov, David Silberstein (davids@kithrup.com) wrote:
>
>  Subject: Re: Gharlane of Eddore
>
>  ...is dead, alas.
>  Let's all queue up and kick God's ass.
>  
>  I noticed the silence on Sunday, which continued on ominously into Monday,
>  and up until today. I did wonder where Gharlane was, but I realized that
>  the television season was over, and he did have other interests. Perhaps
>  he went on vacation somewhere - I had it in the back of my mind to look
>  for Science Fiction conventions going on at this time. 
>  
>  Then I got the notice from Sean.
>  
>  Sean owns the kithrup.com domain, and is the System Admin for the computer
>  itself.  He's got the touch of paranoia in him that is a virtue for that
>  role, and monitors log files and user activity patterns very carefully.  I
>  trust his knowledge and judgment, and also his sobriety.  He isn't the
>  sort to play practical jokes or rush to conclusions.
>  
>  It's possible there's just been a terrible mistake, but that seems less
>  and less likely at this point. 
>  
>  And I found that I seem to have this uncontrollable urge to eulogize. 
>  What the hell, here goes: 
>  
>  -----------------------------------------
>  
>  So what should we say about Gharlane?  Well, we can always point
>  to the obvious: that out of the many thousands of posts that he
>  made to USENET (Google archives 8000+, but he's been posting stuff
>  since long before that), virtually all of those posts were well
>  written, showing a genuine care for clear language, proper syntax,
>  and clarity of style.  Many were genuinely informative, and showed
>  a deep respect for competence - good writing, good engineering,
>  good acting, good production values.  Most have at least a smattering
>  of humor, or at least wit, and some are even gut-bustingly funny. 
>  
>  He wasn't all milk and roses, of course.  He often was viciously,
>  venomously, vituperative when ranting about things he felt a deep
>  contempt for - bad writing, bad acting, fuzzy thinking in general,
>  a lack of competence and care for details.  I think he overdid the
>  harshness in his denigration of certain posters (e.g. Dan Tropea),
>  and sometimes even those criticisms that I agreed with seemed
>  overly repetitive. 
>  
>  Yet his arrogant attitude often seemed justified -- he just knew
>  so *much* about SF writing, movies and television, as well as
>  writing in general, general science and engineering, computers
>  and USENET history and culture, and so on and on.  That, on top of
>  everything else, made it seem like a genuine honor when he
>  actually complimented someone or something -- he'd seen so much,
>  and had such high standards... 
>  
>  I couldn't agree with all of his opinions, of course.  I think
>  he had a higher tolerance for certain kinds of Silliness, and
>  less tolerance for certain other things, but he could, sometimes
>  grudgingly, admit that personal taste played a role in these things. 
>  
>  My own personal sense of loss is largely selfish - I found his
>  postings to be a source of entertainment in themselves.  USENET
>  is diminished by his death.  For that matter, assuming he did
>  write for other venues (SF mags and TV scripts), the world of
>  entertainment is diminished as well.
>  
>  As long as I'm writing, I suppose I should at least make mention of
>  his political outlook: He was an ardent Libertarian and supporter
>  of the 2nd amendment and of the NRA.  Some people were uncomfortable
>  or annoyed with the vehemence with which he advocated gun ownership
>  and denigrated the Democratic party and the Canadian and U.K gov'ts
>  as being irredeemably evil - I know I was.  But you know, he did at
>  least make me think about these issues, and make me aware of their
>  opposing viewpoints. 
>  
>  Oh well.  I have the feeling I'm preaching to the choir here - those
>  who agree already know what I mean, and those who do not are not
>  likely to change their minds.  On the off chance that some newbie is
>  reading this: do a web/newsgroup search on "Gharlane of Eddore", and
>  make up your own mind. 
>  
>  I don't know if there is an afterlife, but some part of me hopes that
>  his spirit will haunt the perpetrators of Bad Skiffy, making them
>  repent their ways and create something with *quality*.
>  
>  He wasn't always lovable, or even likeable, but he was always admirable.
>  
>  He will be missed.