Lucius Shepard

Hommages d'amis écrivains - suite :

Andrew Fox

...

Harlan Ellison
(comme c'est au milieu d'autres messages mais que c'est court, je copie-colle) :

"I have just learned of the death in hospital after a protracted illneaa, of the grand and memorable novelist, short story fictioneer and excellent film critic for the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, my friend...

LUCIUS SHEPARD

let me type that again:

LUCIUS SHEPARD

is gone. Stop a moment, go read GREEN EYES or anything else with his name on it, and honor his achievements, IF I can pause you for a moment in your day's activities. He is worth it, and so are you.

Yr. Pal, Harlan"

La grande éditrice Ellen Datlow, qui publia plusieurs textes de l'auteur (et se disputa quelques fois avec lui autour de critiques ciné...^^), annonce une soirée hommage à Lucius Shepard, le 15 juin à New-York.

"Lucius read there a number of times over the years and I think it’s the perfect venue in NYC to celebrate his life with readings from his work and remembrances by his friends."

(Il me plairait que des vidéos de cette commémoration soient mises en ligne par la suite... Wait and see...)

Les critiques cinéma de Lucius Shepard sur le site de son ami Bob Kruger, electricstory, n'étaient pas toutes accessibles aux non-inscrits ; elles le sont désormais (ici).

Une photo de Lucius Shepard au micro avec un de ses groupes
(il n'avait pu en scanner que la moitié, hélas) :



"[...] a photo of me with an early band, the Cathourse Band […] That's Rich Spang on bass (he's the brother of Laurette Spang, who played Cassiospeia on the original Battlestar Galactica) and Piltdown Man on keyboards. This was taken when we were playing at party on a farm somewhere out in the Ann Arbor area."

Lucius imaginant ce que donnerait une suite (trop) tardive du dernier Rocky :

" Rocky, his hair graying, sits in a wooden chair, shirtless and trouserless. He is wearing boxing gloves and a diaper -- the diaper is leaking. He is expressionless, staring listlessly out a window, blinking against the winter light. The room he occupies is sparsely furnished. A bed, a tv set, a throw rug, and the chair. It's clearly an instituitional room. The door opens and a male orderly enters bearing a tray with a glass of water and meds in a tiny paper cup.

Orderly: Aren't you cold, Mr. Balboa?

Rocky: Is it time?

Orderly: Yeah.

The orderly catches a whiff of the diaper, makes a face.
He forces the meds on Rocky, and Rock, dutifully, swallows them down.

Rocky: Gimme my robe.

Orderly: Which one you want?

Rocky hesistates, then: The one with the yellow dragon.

Orderly: Got it right here.

He rips a sheet off the bed and throws it over Rocky's shoulders.

Orderly: Let's go.

Rocky stands, shuffles toward the door, shadow-boxing. His punches are slow, feeble-looking.

Rocky: We got a good crowd, Mitch?

Orderly (opening the door for Rocky): Yeah, Rock.
You sold out the Garden again.


A hydrotherapy room. Orderlies, nurses, patients are ranged along the walls, shouting, making bets, as a blond nurse in bra and panties sashshays around the room, holding up a card on which is stenciled ROUND ONE. One of the patients holds up a metal bedpan and strikes it with a rubber hammer. Bong. Rock, his robe removed, shuffles forward, and from the opposite corner comes an equally diminished Clubber Lang...with a gray mohawk.

Second Orderly: You didn't change his diaper.

First Orderly: Naw, it's nasty, man!

Second Orderly: That gives him an advantage! I'm stoppin' this!

First Orderly (holds knife to throat of Second Orderly): You ain't stopping nothing!

Meanwhile, the two graying warriors have met at the center of the room and, just as we switch to the credits, they launch their first punches...

ROCKY IX:

DEMENTIA "

C'est assez drôle de voir que,j'aime beaucoup...

Une table ronde organisée par le magazine Locus où l’anthologiste et critique Stefan Dziemianowicz pointe bien le mélange de « littérarité » et d’oralité que me plait particulièrement dans l’écriture de Lucius Shepard :

“Shepard was that rare writer who could punctuate dreamy, evocative prose passages that conjured mood and atmosphere with authentic dialogue that sounded as though it was being spoken by the guy sitting on the barstool next to yours.”

Anecdote dévoilée sur le forum du Bélial :

Pierre-Paul Durastanti :
J'ai eu la chance de dîner avec Shepard -- et Jean-Daniel [Brèque], bien sûr, et Olivier [Girard], entre autres -- lors de sa première venue aux Utopiales, et quand il a raconté avoir été figurant de western spaghetti (ou de péplum ?) dans les années 60 en Espagne, je suis resté un peu rêveur, j'avoue. ;)

Jean-Daniel Brèque :
C'est dans La Chute de l'Empire romain, d'Anthony Mann.
Lucius jouait un guerrier goth. Lors d'une pause entre deux prises, il a été pris d'une subite envie et s'est planqué derrière un buisson pour la soulager. Pas de pot, de l'autre côté du buisson se trouvait Alec Guiness (Marc-Aurèle), qui lui a dit quelque chose comme: "Merci, grâce à vous maintenant je sens vraiment comme un Romain!"