Before the rattlesnakes wake up.

March 28, 2008 9:46 AM

I would't kill them if I didn't have grandchildren and dogs.
A walk along a river with dogs, and a poem, with Jim Harrison.
posted by timsteil (17 comments total)

A Good Day to Die and Wolf are two of my favorite books.

Insanely, Harrison wrote the screenplay for Wolf, the shit movie with Nicholson as a werewolf, which has nothing to do with the book Wolf.
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:55 AM on March 28, 2008

I've never read Wolf but I've always wanted to. Mostly because of a reference to it in this NY Times review of a different Harrison book:

In a 1971 “false memoir” called “Wolf,” written while Harrison was convalescing from a fall off a cliff, he suggested curing heartbreak by broiling a two- to three-pound porterhouse, eating it with your hands, followed by a hot bath in which you consume the best bourbon you can buy until the bottle is empty. Then sleep for a day. Ladies and gentlemen, this works.

posted by dersins at 10:07 AM on March 28, 2008 [2 favorites]

what the fuck? First link downloaded something which launched Adobe Go Live on my computer. OP, please don't link to downloadables without making note of them.
posted by dobbs at 10:23 AM on March 28, 2008

what the fuck? First link downloaded something which launched Adobe Go Live on my computer.

I get it as streamable RealAudio, dont know what's going on with yours, but apologize for linky weirdiness. Plus the two typos.
posted by timsteil at 10:32 AM on March 28, 2008

Timstell, RealAudio needs a warning too. Lot's of folks consider RA as essentially spyware/malware and won't have the RA player on their systems (myself included). This probably based more on their previous crappy products then anything they've done recently.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:37 AM on March 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

hey, can someone hip me to what the link is? I don't like downloading realaudio if I can avoid it, but I'd like to know precisely what I'm avoiding in case this is a good time to make an exception.
posted by shmegegge at 10:41 AM on March 28, 2008

Timstell, RealAudio needs a warning too. Lot's of folks consider RA as essentially spyware/malware and won't have the RA player on their systems (myself included).

thanks docneg, seriously,
if the mods just want to delete this, that's fine. Just wish I could find a clean version of this interview/page out there. Nice stuff and all. Same respect, I don't want 50K MeFites pissed at me either for hijacking their computers.
posted by timsteil at 10:43 AM on March 28, 2008

Yeah, a warning would be good....it shut down my browser, for some reason. Shame too, bc I love Jim Harrison.
posted by nevercalm at 10:44 AM on March 28, 2008

Why the hell is realaudio even around any more? It is a crap format, the player IS crapware/spyware/malware and I was hoping it had pretty much gone the way of Pete Best and the Dodo. Apparently not . . . yet.
/bitching
posted by isopraxis at 10:45 AM on March 28, 2008 [1 favorite]

Real Audio issues?
Media Player Classic
posted by psyche7 at 11:00 AM on March 28, 2008

Nitpick, but there's a nuanced difference: "I would never kill 'em if I didn't have grandchildren and dogs." (For those who are having trouble with audio, the poet is talking about rattlesnakes.)

I've been reading Harrison on and off my whole adult life and I realize this is the first time I have heard his speaking voice. So thanks for that. For another datapoint, no trouble playing it, and I do all sorts of other audio work and listening on this pc too. Sounded pretty clean too.
posted by aught at 12:26 PM on March 28, 2008

hey, can someone hip me to what the link is?

The poem link takes you to an actual web page, shmegegge, but (thanks to the public radio people) you still have to hop on a Real link from there to listen.

I've been reading Harrison on and off my whole adult life and I realize this is the first time I have heard his speaking voice. So thanks for that.

Me too. You can really hear his Michigan roots in his accent. (I have a friend from Traverse City who used to visit with him up that way, startled Harrison in a bar one time in fact when he pulled out some kind of wounded animal or bird from under his coat during their conversation.)
posted by LeLiLo at 9:09 PM on March 28, 2008

His book "Sundog" is filled with warmth and light - one of those great under-rated or over looked novels.
posted by Dex Quire at 8:17 AM on March 29, 2008

I have a friend from Traverse City who... startled Harrison in a bar one time....

I couldn't remember this story, so I asked him again about it. He emailed me, "Harrison was coming out of a restaurant in Michigan (the UP) where we had shared some drinks on my previous trips north. I was concealing a raccoon under my jacket and, standing next to his SUV where his hunting dog was waiting, I asked him where was a good place to release it."

So that clears that up.
posted by LeLiLo at 7:52 AM on March 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

Met this guy once. We had this odd, a guy I knew from guitar playing knew a guy he knew from fishing thing. It turned into an interesting conversation.

He slid a signed copy of his latest book across the table to me and asked me what sort of stuff I wrote. Told, him, he says I love that kind of stuff. Turns out we had been on a lot of the same roads, literal blacktop ones in the middle of nowhere, and spiritual ones. For me. this was pretty much like sitting at the feet of Buddha, and he looks over and asks how I like the Cub's chances this year.

By no small circumstance I had a copy of my latest book to give him. I slid it across the table to him, he opens it to the frontis, says "nice picture", and closes it and pushes it back across the table.

At this second, I don't know, the stomach, the throat, one of them jumps into the other,I forget which. Mostly I just felt like my balls were in my socks and I just pissed this guy off and this is going to be one of those moments where you meet one of you idols and they turn out to be a total asshole, which invalidates the last half of your life reading them sort of thing.

"Aren't you going to sign it for me?" he asks, and takes a sip of his coffee.

True freaking genius, and if you go to your grave without having read at least one of his books, you'll be a poorer person for it.
posted by timsteil at 1:49 PM on March 30, 2008 [3 favorites]

timsteil, awesome story, wish I could favorite it more than once.

Went looking for him (kinda) in Patagonia, AZ. Just drove through, stopped in at the bookstore, asked if he ever came around to sign books. They said, "he never signs books for us, barely comes into town. Well, he does come down to the tavern fairly often." That was enough real-world confirmation for me.

There's a good video of him online somewhere.... looking....
posted by salvia at 2:18 PM on March 30, 2008

Hmm, no luck with that video interview, sorry.
posted by salvia at 2:35 PM on March 30, 2008