I created a Technorati Profile for this blog. I thought it might help some of the Emerson LaSalle fans out there find us. It would be nice to have a wider community of fans be able to communicate with each other.
I am putting together a trivia/fun fact thing that will live on the right side of the page and randomly show unique facts about Emerson LaSalle and his novels. If you would like to suggest anything for it, please email me at ahammerston@gmail.com. Or if you just want to suggest something about the site or if you just need to vent your frustration, you can email me, too.
I tried to take photos with the camera in my telephone of some covers from a few LaSalle novels, but they are too blurry to be any good. I hope to purchase a picture-scanner for our computer here at the office and maybe create a small gallery of covers. Do any of you have any? Send them on if you do and we'll post them.
Well, this was really all just a bit of house-cleaning I suppose. I will post something more interesting over the weekend. Oh, and I asked the trading card people to send us a sample of one of the cards so we know what they might look like. They are sending me a George Orwell card in the mail. I'll try to find a way to put a picture on the website when it gets up here.
-Jim
Friday, May 16, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Emerson LaSalle Meme
The folks that run a blog that I read every once in a while posted a fun little game that I thought some of you might enjoy.
I sort of adapted it to feature only Emerson LaSalle novels, make it a little more relevant to our purpose here. Anyway, here's how it works:
1) Pick up the nearest Emerson LaSalle novel.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences here or on your own blog.
Should be fun, yeah?
Can anyone tell me why it's called a meme?
-Jim
I sort of adapted it to feature only Emerson LaSalle novels, make it a little more relevant to our purpose here. Anyway, here's how it works:
1) Pick up the nearest Emerson LaSalle novel.
2) Open to page 123.
3) Locate the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences here or on your own blog.
Should be fun, yeah?
Can anyone tell me why it's called a meme?
-Jim
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Science Fiction Trading Cards
We recently got a letter here at the downtown office from a trading card company. It seems they are putting together a set of trading cards featuring the greatest science fiction writers of all-time and they would like to include Mr. LaSalle. We of course agreed and sent them the required photo and biographical information, but on the form they wanted to include a quote from Mr. LaSalle or his work. With there being so many wonderful quotes from his 174 published novels and then volumes of quotable passages from his speeches and lectures, I am asking you the LaSalle fan-body to suggest your favorite quote for inclusion on his card. It looks as though space will be limited for quotes, so try to keep them under four lines or so. Oh and please cite the work it's from. If it is a quote from Mr. LaSalle, please give the context and date of the quote if known. So, hop to it, lads, let's hear your favorites!
-Jim
-Jim
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Surprise Visitor
I went to the LaSalle house yesterday to retrieve some more boxes and to pick up some documents for the estate. When I pulled on the driveway I saw this fella poking around the workshop in the back. This is not "the bear"...you can see he still had both ears. It was still a little scary. Marie has refused to even set foot near the house anymore because of all the bear activity, and I honestly can't blame her. I apologize for the fuzzy picture, it was taken with the camera that is in my telephone from inside my truck. Thankfully he left right away and I was able to go inside without incident. Might need to do something about these rascals soon. It's obviously a problem. I'll have the shotgun with me from now on, not sure how much good it will do though.-Jim
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Convention Story
I was going through some boxes last night and I came upon a couple of paperpacks that each had a hole through the center. It reminded me of going with Mr. LaSalle to a science fiction convention in the mid-80's in California...maybe San Diego?
Anyway, Mr. LaSalle was always getting requests to come to conventions. He would usually be on a panel about "the state of science-fiction" or something else pretentious and appropriately pompus for a big room full of man-boobs and home-made Star Trek uniforms. At this particular convention they asked that he also spend an hour at a booth signing autographs...never his favorite thing to do. In all the years I had known Mr. LaSalle I think I had seen him sign four, maybe five autographs, period. It made his hand tired, and since that was also his drinking hand, he wanted to be sure that it could perform when called upon.
Well, after about fifteen minutes of signing books (and one slightly overweight young man's chest) and snarkily answering questions about details of some of his long-forgotten works ("Mr. LaSalle, in Harvest of the Timewhores was the psychic computer's death caused by the radioactive corn or was the Slutician's atomic shotgun really loaded the whole time?"), he was at what you might call "the breaking point." It was then that a kid laid down a copy of Never Again, Forever and said that it read a bit like a Harlan Ellison story. I like to think that the young lad meant that to be a compliment.
*Now I don't imagine that I need to go into any of the history between Emerson LaSalle and Harlan Ellison on this page. If you are a fan of Mr. LaSalle then you are well aware of his feelings about Mr. Ellison and a certain pop singer. I only know Mr. LaSalle's side of things, and he only told them to me when he was truly, truly, self-soilingly drunk. But if even half of it was true then it would be hard not to side with our beloved Mr. LaSalle. I mean, seriously, an entire barrel of snake urine? I hardly think that was necessary.
At the instant the boy mentioned Ellison, Mr. LaSalle bellowed about suffering fools no more and he stabbed his hook down on the kid's book. "There's your *explative* autograph, you *explative* sucking little *explative*!" I thought for a moment I might have to tackle Mr. LaSalle to save the kid from some horrible mutilation. The kid was able to get free of Mr. LaSalle's grasp and he ran crying from the room. From that point on, for the rest of the hour, he refused to speak to any the fans in attendance and would merely stab whatever was placed in front of him, including a couple TV show props, a sandwich, and one fat kid's hand.
That was the beginning of the LaStabbe (his preferred method of autograph for the last 20 or so years). And in case you are wondering, he stabbed every single book himself. No handing a hook to a staffer or a secretary to stab for him. Nope, he personally stabbed each and every book that was sent to him right up until he passed. He would ususally stab right through the center, but he occaisionally would stab it in a character's butt or a woman's breast as a joke. Oh, and he always stabbed copies of Peel My Death in Fire through Captain Thundersteele's left eye (an obvious pun).
Just thought you might like to know that.
-Jim
Anyway, Mr. LaSalle was always getting requests to come to conventions. He would usually be on a panel about "the state of science-fiction" or something else pretentious and appropriately pompus for a big room full of man-boobs and home-made Star Trek uniforms. At this particular convention they asked that he also spend an hour at a booth signing autographs...never his favorite thing to do. In all the years I had known Mr. LaSalle I think I had seen him sign four, maybe five autographs, period. It made his hand tired, and since that was also his drinking hand, he wanted to be sure that it could perform when called upon.
Well, after about fifteen minutes of signing books (and one slightly overweight young man's chest) and snarkily answering questions about details of some of his long-forgotten works ("Mr. LaSalle, in Harvest of the Timewhores was the psychic computer's death caused by the radioactive corn or was the Slutician's atomic shotgun really loaded the whole time?"), he was at what you might call "the breaking point." It was then that a kid laid down a copy of Never Again, Forever and said that it read a bit like a Harlan Ellison story. I like to think that the young lad meant that to be a compliment.
*Now I don't imagine that I need to go into any of the history between Emerson LaSalle and Harlan Ellison on this page. If you are a fan of Mr. LaSalle then you are well aware of his feelings about Mr. Ellison and a certain pop singer. I only know Mr. LaSalle's side of things, and he only told them to me when he was truly, truly, self-soilingly drunk. But if even half of it was true then it would be hard not to side with our beloved Mr. LaSalle. I mean, seriously, an entire barrel of snake urine? I hardly think that was necessary.
At the instant the boy mentioned Ellison, Mr. LaSalle bellowed about suffering fools no more and he stabbed his hook down on the kid's book. "There's your *explative* autograph, you *explative* sucking little *explative*!" I thought for a moment I might have to tackle Mr. LaSalle to save the kid from some horrible mutilation. The kid was able to get free of Mr. LaSalle's grasp and he ran crying from the room. From that point on, for the rest of the hour, he refused to speak to any the fans in attendance and would merely stab whatever was placed in front of him, including a couple TV show props, a sandwich, and one fat kid's hand.
That was the beginning of the LaStabbe (his preferred method of autograph for the last 20 or so years). And in case you are wondering, he stabbed every single book himself. No handing a hook to a staffer or a secretary to stab for him. Nope, he personally stabbed each and every book that was sent to him right up until he passed. He would ususally stab right through the center, but he occaisionally would stab it in a character's butt or a woman's breast as a joke. Oh, and he always stabbed copies of Peel My Death in Fire through Captain Thundersteele's left eye (an obvious pun).
Just thought you might like to know that.
-Jim
Friday, April 25, 2008
Thanks to You All
I just wanted to post on behalf of the staff and everyone how much we appreciate all of your support over the last couple of months. As you probably noticed, I changed the title picture on this page. "The Tickle of Doom's Tendrils" was always my favorite LaSalle novel and as much as I loved that picture...it just seemed a bit obscene given the context of Mr. LaSalle's untimely end. And since we had a computer wreck (Marie says the correct term is a "server crash," but that doesn't express the scope of how mangled all these computer files got!), I figured I would give the site a new picture. We sort of let this blog expire after the computer wreck and Mr. LaSalle's passing, and I am in the process of reposting as much of his online posts as I can recover. Thank you in advance to anyone who saved any of those posts. You can contact me here and we'll get info and all for you to email or post them. As many of you know, since he began this blog in August of 2006, Mr. LaSalle didn't actually "post" his blog entries, he wrote them out on a legal pad and gave them to staffers to post for him. I have located a few of those pads, and most of them are undated. I'll do my best to get them in order, but please bear with us. (God, he would've laughed at that choice of words!)
We are in the process of going through the extensive archives here and at Mr. LaSalle's home office. There is really quite a lot of great material, many unfinished or unpublished manuscripts...even a few drawings and photos. It will take time, but we are working on possibly printing some of this material as a tribute to the man that gave us all so much joy.
If you have any photos or favorite stories, please post them here. We are all friends and we all share the pain of his passing. I won't go into detail on the site, but needless to say this was a traumatic experience for us all. The letters and remembrances here at the office and at Mr. LaSalle's home have truly touched us all.
Thank you?
We are in the process of going through the extensive archives here and at Mr. LaSalle's home office. There is really quite a lot of great material, many unfinished or unpublished manuscripts...even a few drawings and photos. It will take time, but we are working on possibly printing some of this material as a tribute to the man that gave us all so much joy.
If you have any photos or favorite stories, please post them here. We are all friends and we all share the pain of his passing. I won't go into detail on the site, but needless to say this was a traumatic experience for us all. The letters and remembrances here at the office and at Mr. LaSalle's home have truly touched us all.
Thank you?
-Jim
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