CAPTAIN FLASHBACK

A fanzine composed for the 406th distribution of the All the Pretty Brothers: Turbo-Charged Party-Animal Amateur Press ’s turns 40 Association, from the joint membership of Andy Hooper and Carrie Root, residing at 11032 30th Ave. As the Corona virus quarantine stretches into its NE Seattle, WA 98125. E-mail Andy at second month, and most everyone is obliged to [email protected], and you may reach Carrie at remain at home, I find that one of the things I’m [email protected]. This is a Drag Bunt Press missing most is going out to the movies. This is Production, completed on 4/19/2020. not exactly a rational longing, since I have been to a genuine theater to see a movie only twice CAPTAIN FLASHBACK is devoted to old fanzines, since last September (Midway and The Rise of Horse and Space Opera, surf guitar and other Skywalker). But as the world has shrunk to what fascinating phenomena of the 20th Century. All we can see from behind a face mask, one of the written material is by Andy Hooper unless indicated. many things I really miss is sitting through Contents of Issue #17: trailers and munching on movie theater popcorn. Page 1: All the Pretty Brothers: Walter Hill’s The Long Riders turns 40 But I’ve always watched most of the movies I Page 2: A Key to Interlineations in Issue #16 see on television ever since I was a tiny child. Page 8: Comments on Turbo-Apa #405 One of my earliest memories is eating instant Page 12: Fanmail from some Flounder: Letters to CF chicken soup and watching the Ray Harry- Page 14: Northwest by Northwest hausen-animated giant cephalopod crawl up the Page 15: I Remember Entropy Department: side of the Golden Gate Bridge in It Came From “Whatever Happened to Faanfiction?” by Beneath the Sea. Throughout the virus crisis rich brown, from BSFAN #17, Fall 1988. we’ve remained loyal viewers of

Svengoolie’s Saturday night monster movie on the MeTV network and have hardly noticed that the jokes are all recycled from pre-viral times. I’ve also been watching a lot of programming on the Turner Classic Movies network; they too had to sadly cancel their annual film festival in Los Angeles and must instead present a “virtual celebration.” This was supposed to include a 35th Anniversary party for Back to the Future, and a benefit for Parkinson’s Disease in honor of actor Michael J. Fox. And Jim & as Jesse & , other pictures which were to have The Long Riders, 1980. been exhibited on a full-size screen, will be enjoyed on smaller screens at home. The fact that Back to the Future was made 35 years ago doesn’t hit me so hard; somehow the mid-eighties continue to seem like a very recent period to me. But as I tied a bandana around my face in order to go for [Continued Next Page] ------Issue #17, April 2020 ------

1 ------A Key to Linos published in March in CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #16: Page 2: “Son, let this be a lesson. Never work hard and don’t form emotional attachments.” & Page 3: “Also, don’t be a cow.” Fatherly advice from Homer Simpson; S19, Ep17, “Apocalypse Cow.” Page 4: “This is how you know it’s live – you can actually hear piano in the drums.” & Page 5: “Most of the times, you hear drums in the piano.” Todd Rungren describes the recording of “You Took the Words Right Out of my Mouth” by Meat Loaf. Page 7 “Man, there’s no dope in this town – just these vile foamy liquids.” Jeff the Bass Player (Martin Lickert) confronts life on tour in North America in Frank Zappa’s 200 Motels (1971). Page 8: “Where’s dinner? I’m thirsty.” Line delivered by William Powell as Detective Nick Charles in After the Thin Man (1936). Page 8: “And the fenceposts in the moonlight look like bones.” Lyric from the 1992 song “Black Wings” by Tom Waits ------All the Pretty Brothers audience, no amount of authentic horse tack and [continued from page 1] Canadian prairie scenery will keep them awake. a walk in the neighborhood, another great film I wrote about this a bit in “The Fan Who from the 1980s flashed across my memory, and I Watched Liberty Valance” in FLAG #22. John really did feel old. The Long Riders, Walter Ford’s delightfully cynical 1962 feature The Hill’s “Revisionist ” about the James- Man Who Shot Liberty Valance ends with an Younger gang, was released 40 years ago! explicit instruction to the screen writer: “This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, Films about the United States’ western print the legend.” But Ford’s film gives us both expansion and people that lived it provided an the legend and the true story behind it; he important percentage of Hollywood’s annual th doesn’t follow his own advice. Both fact and income for much of the 20 Century. But it is fantasy can provide the basis for a great safe to say that Sturgeon’s Law applied, and Western, and maybe the best use both freely. something north of 90% of all the Westerns ever Sergio Leone’s irresistible saga The Good, The made were formulaic crap, bearing very little Bad and The Ugly uses events in the real New resemblance to anything or anyone “real.” Mexico campaign from the American Civil War Although the events portrayed were just barely as its take-off point – but then it strides firmly fifty years in the past, the pictures showed into fantasy, with anachronistic weapons and ten cowboys and rustlers duded up as if they were or twenty times the number of troops involved in ready to perform in a Western Swing band. And the historical event. And it features the the morality plays they presented took place in a Brooklyn-born Eli Herschel Wallach as a rich fairyland of imagination, where no one was Mexican bandit named Tuco. As I said, ever confronted with the choice between murder irresistible. and starvation. (Except for native Americans, who gamely died by the thousands under Lives of the Cowboys cinematic cowboy bullets. In real life, of course, In the 1960s and early 1970s, there were yet we used smallpox to get the job done.) enough Westerns being made that some American actors were still known as “cowboy But that remaining 2% to 10%, depending on stars” – the enduring John Wayne of course, but which version of Sturgeon’s Law you embrace, also Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, Paul included some pretty spectacular movies. And Newman, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and even a bad Western can look Good – look at any Lee Marvin appeared in a lot of Westerns in the Western movie starring Kevin Costner, for first half of their careers. But gradually, example. But great Western pictures tell great Westerns began to stand out in the sea of movies stories. They do not have to be true stories, by about cops and spies and even a few people who any means, but if the story does not engage the didn’t carry guns. A Western that could be cut for TV broadcast was something of an event

2 (and you could hardly do that with Sam Peckinpaugh’s The Wild Bunch or The Ballad of Cable Hogue or Arthur Penn’s The Breaks) and I recall later works by the Duke including True Grit and The Cowboys with some affection. Clint Eastwood’s post-Leone Westerns were eccentric; Hang ‘em High, Joe Kidd (script by Elmore Leonard), High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales all appeared between 1968 and 1976 and are often referred to as “Revisionist Westerns.” He summarized his career as a Man with No Name in Pale Rider, which was the top grossing Western of the 1980s. Arthur Penn also made the movie I think of as the ultimate “Revisionist” Western saga, the 1970 adaptation of Thomas Berger’s novel Little Big Man. It was a film that completed a kind of Circle of Hokum personified by General George Armstrong Custer; from the charming paragon Go ahead – skin that smoke wagon and see what happens. portrayed by Errol Flynn in They Died With Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone (1993) Their Boots On to the curly-haired clown There are three figures from the American west presented by Richard Mulligan in Little Big that have been particularly fascinating to Man. Neither actor looked anything like Custer, Hollywood: Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid and Jesse who had mad, clear eyes that told you he was James. There is a wide cast of historic characters trouble at first sight. But Mulligan’s satirical just behind them, from Wild Bill Hickock to Bat character represented the evolving image of Masterson to Calamity Jane Cannary and they Custer from martyred hero to justly thwarted continue to appear in films and TV series too. genocidal bungler. Custer’s actual character is But Hollywood really can’t quit any of the “big probably missing from either version, but both three.” Wyatt Earp (1857-1929) was most movies reflect the way that their audiences felt memorably played by Kurt Russell in about him. Tombstone in 1993, and Kevin Costner had his One might conclude that America was working turn a year later. Earp was largely known as the through something traumatic in the medium of possible aggressor of the gunfight at the OK these movies, and eventually, we came to terms Corral and as an incompetent boxing referee with the 19th Century and original Westerns until a glowing biography of him was published became quite rare. Since the turn of the 21st in 1931. Thereafter, he became the hero of his Century, most major budget Westerns have been story, and appeared as such in pictures like John remakes of classic pictures, including True Grit, Ford’s My Darling Clementine (where he was The Magnificent Seven, 3:10 to Yuma (another played by Henry Fonda) and in John Sturges’ Elmore Leonard script!) and even High Noon. Gunfight at the OK Corral (Burt Lancaster). He The nostalgia for the frontier which audiences has been part of a wide variety of TV series, once felt has been replaced by a nostalgia for from The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp to Star movies about the frontier, and remakes fit that Trek; and most recently, Melanie Scrofano demand perfectly. portrayed his fictional descendent on Wynonna Earp. ------Something in the wind has learned my name ------

3 ------We had to come down in this flea-bitten border town. ------All the Pretty Brothers as Sheriff Pat Garrett. [continued from page 3] The third of these real-life archetypes is the If Wyatt Earp’s life and career invite a variety of Missouri outlaw (1847-1882), and if interpretations, the short, violent life of Henry the number of on-screen appearances is our McCarty, alias William H. Bonney, also known criteria, he is the most important of the three. as Billy the Kid (1859-1881), could provide the Remarkably, he was first portrayed on film by basis of a doctoral dissertation in psychology. his son, Jesse James Jr., who appeared as his His was a household name decades before Wyatt father in Jesse James under the Black Flag and Earp became really famous, and the first movie Jesse James as The Outlaw, both released in about the Kid was made in 1911. Bob Steele 1921. From that year to the present, we’ve never portrayed him in a series of pictures in the gone more than 8 years without a feature film or 1940s, and Howard Hughes’ notorious feature TV series portraying Jesse James. He has been The Outlaw was ostensibly based on the life of played by Tyrone Power, Red Barry, Roy Billy the Kid. Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay Rogers, Clayton Moore, war hero Audie Murphy for Arthur Penn’s 1958 feature The Left-Handed (twice), Robert Wagner, Robert Duvall, Kris Gun, which began the long process of trying to Kristofferson, Colin Farrell and Brad Pitt. psychoanalyze the Kid from afar; Peckinpaugh’s There are a lot of compelling elements in Jesse Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was the other James’ story, but one might also reasonably significant entry in this effort, although the define him as a pro-slavery terrorist whose gleefully unhinged Billy played by Emilio career extended more than a decade after the end Estevez in the Young Guns series definitely had of the Civil War. Those looking for more something wrong with him as well. Gore Vidal redeeming motives than his sectional wanted another bite at the apple too; Val Kilmer partisanship have made him into a socialist folk played Billy in a 1979 TV movie based on hero, but there is no evidence that he ever shared Vidal’s biography. As recently as 2019, Vincent the proceeds of his raids with anyone outside of D’Onofrio directed a new feature titled The Kid his extended family. But all that being said, he starring Dane DeHaan as Billy and Ethan Hawke was the most successful outlaw of his era, and managed to evade being killed or captured for 15 years, even when every other member of his outfit suffered one of those fates. His eventual murder by a Missouri acquaintance put a startling end to his story, but rumors that he had survived persisted for decades. He is just the kind of legendary figure that Hollywood loves. A Family Picture This brings us, at last, to Walter Hill’s 1980 movie The Long Riders. Hill and stars Jim and Stacy Keach wanted to tell the story of the entire James-Younger outlaw gang, and found a unique way of selling the movie. They would cast real- life brothers as the several groups of brothers who were important to the story. Jesse and Frank James were played by the Keaches. The Younger brothers were represented by three Carradines, David as , Keith as Pamela Reed as , Jim and Robert as the youngest, . The Long Riders (1980).

4 This was particularly satisfying as their Father circulating at studios, but the idea of casting the John Carradine had played Bob Younger real-life brothers was considered unworkable. opposite Tyrone Power as Jesse James in 1939. To show that they were serious, the Keaches and He was to have appeared in The Long Riders as Carradines arranged a group photo in costume at well, but his scenes were ultimately cut from the a studio where was recording. movie. Producer Tim Zinnemann became attached to the movie after he and James Keach spent many Bob and Charley Ford, the brothers who hours fishing together in Bora Bora, during the assassinated Jesse in Tennessee in 1882, were to making of the 1979 feature The Hurricane. It have been played by Jeff and , but began to seem as if James and Stacy would they were not available when the picture was finally get to play on film. finally shot. Instead, the Fords were depicted by Nicholas and Christopher Guest. The Guests are The last element required was a Director. James actually surnamed Haden-Guest, and would have been happy to direct the film, but no Christopher, best known for creating guitarist one would give a novice director the kind of Nigel Tufnel in This is Spinal Tap (“These go budget he was looking for. George Roy Hill (no up to 11”) is actually the 4th Baron Haden-Guest. relation), director of Butch Cassidy & the And finally, longtime gang member Sundance Kid and The Sting was approached, and his less-reputable brother Ed were but he scoffed at the “family casting” idea and represented by the young Randy and Dennis wanted to bring in his own principle actors. Tim Quaid. Other notables in the cast included Zinneman showed the script to Walter Hill, who Pamela Reed as the notorious Belle Starr, James had at that time directed three features, and Remar as her one-time husband Sam Star and written scripts for several more, including The as a craven stagecoach passenger. Getaway (Peckinpaugh again) and The Drowning Pool. Hill later said that he had been The film was a longstanding labor of love for the longing to shoot a Western, and The Long Keach Brothers. The two were cast as Orville Riders felt like a perfect match. He embraced the and Wilbur in the 1971 TV movie The Wright idea of creating “a family feeling” by casting Brothers. This got James thinking about other real brothers, and the film was shot in North historic brothers whom the two actors might Carolina and Georgia in the autumn of 1979. recreate, and Jesse and Frank James immediately came to mind. The two wrote a play about the Hard Times and Sledgehammer Fights James brothers, which they financed and Walter Hill is not an A-List name like a Scorsese presented at the Bucks County Playhouse, and or even a Tarantino, but he is well known to later took on a tour of public schools in New movie goers, with several big successes on his Jersey! This was followed by a musical filmography. His first feature was the 1975 adaptation titled The Bandit Kings; again, James Depression-era boxing drama Hard Times, with financed the show, and it ran off Broadway at James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland and the Bowery Lane Theater. By 1974, the Keaches Strother Martin. He also wrote and directed the had a screen play which they had written in Ryan O’Neal crime thriller , in 1978. collaboration with Bill Bryden and began The same year, he also scripted and directed The looking for a way to produce it. Warriors, a New York street gang fantasia that was a surprise box office success and a minor That same year, Stacy was cast opposite Robert cult film that is echoed every time a villain Carradine in another historical TV movie, The menacingly clinks three beer bottles together. Hatfields and the McCoys. When Keach talked about the Jesse James project, Robert suggested After The Long Riders, Hill made 17 more feature that he and his brothers would be a natural films, including major box office hits like 48 choice to play the Youngers. The script began Hours and Brewster’s Millions, as well as some ------And you would drag me to this dive. This un-upholstered sewer. ------

5 ------A crisis can serve to expand our moral imagination. ------All the Pretty Brothers [continued from page 5] that defy description, like , in which several more films for Hill, including the blues- Michael Parė and Willem Dafoe have a climatic themed Crossroads in 1985. fight with sledgehammers. He has made two more We Should Never Have Left Missouri “Westerns,” including : An American There are two elements in The Long Riders which Legend (1993) and Wild Bill (1995). And in attracted the most comment from critics, the very addition to testosterone-infused features like bloody gunfight scenes, and the use of slow Southern Comfort and Trespass, Hill has been motion, both of which drew comparisons to the associated with the Alien franchise from its work of Sam Peckinpaugh. Hill felt that beginning, contributing story elements or Peckinpaugh used slow motion to elongate pivotal producing every chapter from Alien (1978) to moments and underline their significance, while he Alien Covenant in 2017. He also directed three wanted to convey a dream-like quality, or the episodes of HBO’s classic series Tales From The impotence of being trapped in a nightmarish event Crypt, and produced the immortal Bordello of with no way of escaping. Most of the slow-motion Blood. This is someone who understands the needs sequences occur during the fatal raid on of the fanboy audience. His most recent venture is Northfield, Minnesota, which brought the gang to The Cowboy Iliad, a spoken word recording based grief in 1876. This also included the film’s most on events in Newton, Kansas in the 1870s. challenging stunt sequences, in which several of The Long Riders looks very different from any of the gang jump their horses through a set of tall Hill’s earlier projects. Cinematographer Ric White glass windows. The horses could only be induced did a fantastic job of shooting many scenes in low to jump through the stage glass once; a second take and natural light, and rural locations in North required a second set of carefully trained horses. Carolina provided a green analog to 19th Century Hill was clearly familiar with Philip Kaufman’s Missouri. Several of the actors, including David 1972 cinema verité feature The Great Northfield Carradine and both of the Keaches, gave up profit Minnesota Raid, which cast Robert Duvall as Jesse percentages in order to make up for budget and Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger. The overruns (originally set at a quaint 7.5 million antagonism between the two regarding the dollars). There was a true sense of camaraderie leadership of the gang is a much bigger part of that between the cast and their families, reinforced by story, but perhaps more importantly, Kaufman playing music together after filming was dressed the gang in long gray “duster” riding coats. completed for the day. Some of the children of the Hill and costume designer Bobbie Mannix largely Keaches and the Carradines appeared in the duplicated this look for The Long Riders, and picture, including Jim’s son Kalen Keach, who slow-motion shots of the gang riding with their played Jesse James Jr. The Guest brothers kept long coats flapping behind them are some of the themselves apart from much of this good most beautiful images in the film. fellowship, as they were playing villains, and wanted to continue to feel like outsiders. Visually, The Long Riders is a great movie. Its flaws generally lie with the story, which doesn’t For the soundtrack, Hill hired American roots- present any particular conflict for the characters to rocker after listening to several of his resolve, and just ambles along until the very bad record albums. Cooder had never composed a decision to go to Minnesota. In Hill and the soundtrack and probably did the work at a bargain th screenwriters’ defense, a number of scenes rate. But his recreation of 19 Century standards providing more background and development of like “The Battle Cry of Freedom” and “The Ballad the relationships between the gang members, of Jesse James” fit the movie perfectly and it is particularly Clell Miller and Jesse James, were impossible to imagine it without his music. The removed at the request of , who lyrics of songs like “I’m a Good Old Rebel” wanted to emphasize the action elements of the provide background on the gang’s members movie. Most of the female roles in the movie were outside of the dialogue. Cooder would score played by relatively little-known actors, including

6 Savannah Smith, Amy Stryker, Shelby before. The idea of casting all those brothers Leverington, and the veteran character worked well with those brothers at that moment, actress Fran Ryan. She does a memorable job as and it might have been impossible to find another Jesse’s mother Zerelda Elizabeth Cole James time when three or four sets of acting siblings Simms Samuels. Zerelda was married four times could be brought together for a single project, no and outlived her most famous son by 28 years. The matter how much they were willing to forfeit in women had a limited amount of screen time, but salary and credit to get there. made the most of it. The scenes of family With the passage of four decades, historians of gatherings, a memorable wedding, an excruciating both film and the frontier have as many questions funeral for a child accidentally killed by a about the Keach brothers’ version of Frank and Pinkerton smoke bomb, are amazingly heartfelt, Jesse James as they would about a dime novel or a and it’s the women in those scenes which make silent picture from a century ago. The Long Riders them so affecting. inevitably tells us a little more about 1980 than it Although this version of the lives of Frank and does about the 1870s, in spite of all the lovingly Jesse includes many actual incidents, it omits crafted period detail in both the script and the many others, and evades any discussion of their design. People all have very good skin and hair, participation in atrocities against Union soldiers and keep remarkably clean, even when on the run during the Civil War. In the case of Jesse James, from the law. And this version of Missouri in the the legend and the truth have become so 1870s is generally free of anyone of color, which intertwined that trying to separate them is more serves to distance us even further from the than we can ask from a movie. As Jesse, James brothers’ secessionist animus. A similar survey of Keach is strikingly handsome but distant. He ejects the James-Younger gang’s criminal career would Ed Miller from the gang for needlessly killing a probably look very different if shot today. bank teller but shows no mercy toward the In sum: Many flaws, but still great fun. I have been Pinkerton agents and others sent to hunt him. listening to selections from Ry Cooder’s Perhaps his most damning flaw is that unnatural soundtrack while composing this essay, and I find coolness – even in the wake of the Minnesota it still makes me feel curiously cheerful, just as it disaster, he wants to put a new gang together, and did 40 years ago. For one thing, it includes music plans to recruit the Ford brothers to ride along with that I can hear my Grandfather humming him. In real life, Jesse James seems to have largely somewhere in the dusty corners of my memory. retired to farming by the time of his death, but no Listening to the main title theme, I couldn’t help one would believe that he could ever give up his comparing it to the music from Ken Burns’ outlawry and bushwhacking for good. After twenty documentary series The Civil War, and wondering years as a guerilla, it seems likely he didn’t know if he or his musical director were familiar with Ry what to with himself if he was not riding Cooder’s take on these Civil-war era songs. somewhere with a gun at his side. There are scenes in The Long Riders that I can The film was well-received by many critics but watch any time. Keith Carradine’s shy courtship was considered a financial disappointment. It scene with Shelby Leverington; any part of the grossed a mere 15.1 million dollars in box office wedding scene, especially ’s sales worldwide, and United Artists claimed that it exchange with Pamela Reed. Or Cole Younger’s barely “broke even.” There were plans to make a response to Sam Starr’s offer to fight with Bowie prequel to The Long Riders, which would show knives: “Well, I’m glad I caught you in a good the James and Younger brothers during the Civil mood.” It’s just a pleasure to watch people having War years, but nothing came of this, which might so much fun making a movie. And I still regard it be just as well. It would have been frustrating to as an important lesson: There is a big difference bring together all the same elements as were between authenticity and historical accuracy. But present in the first picture and then fail to capture either of them can inspire a good picture. the same chemistry that had worked so well

------Some get spiritual ‘cause they see the light, and some ‘cause they feel the heat. ------

7 ------What am I going to do in a submarine? ------Mailing Comments on Turbo-Apa #405: international disgrace was not one of the options you had in mind for the state. Although the fact Cover (Catie Pfeifer) Colorful, to say the least! that the election was held as scheduled was a Oddly enough, I thought that the individual disastrous mistake, it seems to have had a knotwork squares on the back pages suffered largely benign outcome. The State Supreme from being so closely juxtaposed – I covered Court will soon be split 5-4 in the direction of them so I could see one at a time and found them rational thought; and like 100,000 more far more striking that way. That’s some kind of Democrats than Republicans were willing to risk funny psychological phenomenon at work – but the virus in order to vote. And this was with six it was a delight to have all that color fall out of polling places for the entire city of Milwaukee! the envelope when I opened it. If I were a Wisconsin Republican running for AN WISCONZINE, Greg Rihn: It can be hard office, I’d seriously give some thought to to see any difference between radical change and whether I want to sell Life or General Casualty outright doom. I feel like you are probably right insurance after the election. The image of the that there has been sufficient insult to the Earth’s gowned and masked majority leader assuring mechanisms that a major correction of the people that it was safe to vote is one of the human population is inevitable, and a significant signature images of the year, and I think you ecological collapse is happening right in front of may be seeing it in Democratic political ads later us. The shortages that we have seen in this year. Honestly, there ain’t no Freude like supermarkets through the early months of the Schadenfreude. pandemic are certainly just the beginning; the Thank you for the intriguing details on the golden age of the food industry is probably just Geneva Steam Con. Both of the pieces which about over now, and people will no longer be you and Greg presented sound like they were able to cook with imported and exotic great fun. I hope the group that gathered for the ingredients in the way that we have enjoyed for con was as lucky as the group that went to Texas the past forty years. I don’t know if we’ll for Corflu – so far, only Pablo Vasquez has complain about it that much, as people will reported getting the virus, and he thinks it likely actually be starving in Africa and Oklahoma. he got it at home in Austin. Will it rise to the level of actual Doom? I guess it depends on whether you die from a virus or in MADISON FOURSQUARE #41, Scott Custis a wildfire or drown in a hurricane surge & Jeanne Gomoll: Jeanne, have I told you how yourself. Anything short of that is more in the much I appreciate your mailing comments? I category of inconvenience – although the loss of often compose my comments on your niceties such as electricity and sanitation would contributions last, because I know I’ll spend be very, very inconvenient indeed. long enough that I won’t feel like going on to another correspondent by the time I’m done. You had a nice backlog of live experiences to refer to for this issue, but I find myself I’m not sure if there was so much to understand wondering what will fill the pages of An in the lettercol “Quatrains” I composed for Wisconzine now that you and Georgie are CAPTAIN FLASHBACK #15; the only real largely compelled to stay home. Will we see a “answer” is to attach the names of the fans that selection of movies enjoyed on television, or lived at and sent out fanzines from those possibly some book reviews? I’m sure your locations. You had a head start over most impressions will make for entertaining reading, readers, as one of the addresses included was whatever the subject. your own; how many more of them could you match to their residents? OCCAM’S WHISKERS, Georgie Schnobrich: You wondered in this issue about the upcoming TAFForsensics is a remarkable thing, whatever Wisconsin primary election; curiously, you would like to call it: a book, a fanzine, a

8 commemorative album. I’ve read nearly the entire thing now, but I could not force myself to read it from front to back. Approached it like I used to the Guinness Book of World Records or the Bill James Baseball Abstract – I’d open it at a random location, and follow the photos and captions to a likely spot and then read from that point until I got tired. The “narrative” of the book is also very appealing, but I keep getting distracted by the endless gallery of pictures and sub-stories. I put it right alongside the best works by and about fandom, with Brialey and Plummer’s SLOW TRAIN TO IMMORTALITY and Lake and Edwards’ TIME BYTES. Or Earl Kemp’s great works WHO KILLED SCIENCE FICTION? and WHAT IS manufacture the glass tubes, swabs and chemical A FAN?, neither of which dropped as many agents needed to make Coronavirus testing kits names as TAFForensics. It makes me reassess right here in the U.S.A. The loss in potential what an editor can accomplish within the profits is absolutely staggering – and that’s framework of a fanzine (or a book about something that would theoretically be important fanzines), and I hope that dozens of fans will try to Republicans, rather than trivialities like to imitate you. human life. But since Trump has never known any way to make money other than stealing it, Jerry Kaufman, a faithful CAPTAIN opportunities to make an honest buck never FLASHBACK reader, also needs a knee appeal or even occur to him. replacement procedure, but it too has been put into limbo by the virus. Being able to test people Anyway, I’m curious if you and your before they come in for that kind of “elective” compromised immune system decided to procedure seems like an essential element of “re- struggle out and vote in the primary, or if you opening the country,” whatever that means…. managed to get an absentee ballot in time. I had to shudder and count myself so lucky to live in a I’m just a tiny bit confused by “Nancy Drew state that has had voting by mail for nearly five Finds Out About Sex” – no, not that part – the years. But if the situation changed, I think I’d be fact the you titled it “From the Vault,” while it willing to go out in a pandemic, a forest fire or a appears to be a new piece dated March 2020. If zombie attack in order to vote against Trump, or it is a completely new piece, you have to let a someone or something he endorses. Not even slightly larger audience see it! The Leif Erickson Nixon ever got me this worked up. angle is particularly attractive – as you know, Vikings are hawt right now…. TAGALONG, Darlene Coltrane: Beautiful paper flowers, Darlene; thank you for sharing them in SONOVA QUARK, Steven Vincent Johnson: such a bright color photo. You guys are never You wrote about the incredible shrinking stock shy about paying for color in your contributions, market. One of the many things I was muttering which is something we all benefit from. about earlier today was how the weeks and months of inaction by Trump and his gang had AFTERWords SCVR-A, Lisa Freitag: This was denied American companies an amazing a remarkable composition; I’m not really sure economic opportunity. If American companies what to call it. It is in some absolute sense had gotten a warning from someone in January, fiction, and you take considerable effort to they might have been able to find a way to [Continued next page] ------Why do you drive on parkways and park on driveways? ------

9 ------Why, we could dance if there wasn’t so much blood around. ------Comments on Turbo-Apa #405, continued: [AFTERWords SCVR-A, Lisa Freitag, THE HOUSE ON THORNTON CREEK, Carrie continued:] point that out; on the other hand, Root: You wrote a comment to me about The D nothing very fictional happens in the story. The & D Game of the Month show on WYOU and item by rich brown reprinted later in this issue Dick Russell’s generosity in buying us giant has some of the same virtues. You make the Rocky Rococo pizzas during each broadcast. point that even if we can be patient as a nation, a That made Dick’s show much better than the culture or a species, certain things will be lost to OTHER Role-Playing Game show – although this moment in time when nothing can happen as we played lots of interesting games, I think we it should. The year without a Prom. I hope that usually had to buy our own food. It was a someone will see fit to keep Sing Street in the challenge trying to grab bites of that deep-dish wings until the crowds are able to return – once pizza when we were off camera, and harder still this long interruption is over, I suspect everyone telling the GM what we wanted to do with a will be longing for something new. mouthful of it. I bet there were more calories in one slice of that pizza than in one of the The “Moonlight Sonata” received that name complete pies that we share for lunch now. But after Beethoven had died; he apparently referred Rocky’s pizza was made on Gilman Street, to it as the “Arbor” Sonata. He dedicated it to a rather than being imported from Germany. As I young aristocratic piano student but was almost said to Greg Rihn above, we probably ought to surely thinking of someone else when he be prepared for the end of the golden age of food composed it. My favorite story around the piece service. But it has been a great time eating our is that John Lennon listened to Yoko playing it way across the world together. on the piano, then asked her to play the chord progression backwards, and this became the LETTER FROM THE FARM, Marilyn Holt: bones of the song “Because” on the Beatles’ My grandparents managed to dodge the Spanish Abbey Road album. I’m sure you already knew Flu. My Dad’s parents were still living in that, but it was nice of you to give me a chance England and Scotland, and there was no to tell the story anyway. reference to losing members to the Flu in that family’s lore. My Mother’s parents were both under the age of 12 and living in Madison in 1919. They were fortunate enough that no one in their nuclear families died from the illness. My grandmother was an only child, but my Grandfather had five siblings and a half-brother, and happily none of them seem to have been seriously threatened if they got the flu. But in his extended family, the Great War and the Great Flu both took a toll. My Grandfather’s 2nd cousin Howard G. Oakey was a much- admired young officer in the Wisconsin National Guard, and died when a shell landed in the middle of the Headquarters’ Company to which he was assigned. He was buried in France, then disinterred and returned to Madison several years later. His death seemed to complete the process of unraveling that began when his Father had died of Cholera in the late 1890s, and deepened when his brother Albert accidentally

10 shot his first wife Sylvia Dunston on the 4th of unlikely to open on time, most must be July 1909. The surviving siblings wandered to wondering what to do with what they grow. distant places like Idaho, Hawaii and Rockford, Carrie is trying her hand at growing turnips in Illinois. His mother relocated to California and one of our tubs, and broccoli seeds also went in seems to have avoided further misery there, until this afternoon. We’ll see how they turn out. she passed away in 1935. Accordion-themed mystery is a sub-sub-genre Meanwhile, my Grandfather’s 1st Cousin that has never been given its due. One Madelein Oakey died of the flu on November immediately adds James Ellroy’s novella Dick 10th, 1919. She was unmarried, 25 years old, and Contino’s Blues to the catalog, then sits and still lived at home with her parents Edward and stares quietly into space trying to think of Pearl Oakey. Edward was an editor, proofreader another example. and typesetter, renowned for his fine singing FLUFF and JIMMY, Jim and Ruth Nichols: voice. He had returned to the family to Madison Well, some of this sounded familiar; my weight a decade before, after spending some years in has been slowly drifting downward for the past Minnesota, where both of Pearl and Edward’s year and more; I’m well under 260 pounds for children were born. But within a few months of the first time since 2014. At the same time, my Madelein’s death, Edward had relocated to St. A1C has crept upward into rather ugly Louis, while Pearl remained in Madison. Their surroundings. A lack of regularity on all of the son Allen Ellsworth Oakey left his studies at the medications is the most likely reason, but a new University of Wisconsin to join the United mealtime supplement was approved, and we States Navy, which would be his career through shall see what results. I feel like eating nearly all the end of the Second World War. He became a my meals with Carrie is tending to reinforce my well-known amateur historian of the American control over portion size. But who knows when Civil War but died unexpectedly on the eve of I’ll be able to return to the clinic for an the war’s centennial in 1960. appointment? I’ve been enjoying the novel that you sent me; Congratulations on getting your work room back but it may take me a while to work through all again. We had some nebulous plans to host one 100,000 words. of my nieces for a college visit or something like SAM DRUCKER’S GENERAL STORE, that later this year; but at the moment, they Clifford Wind: It always seems futile groveling would be trapped in the house with us. I don’t or apologizing for not contributing to an APA find that I’m terribly depressed by staying at more frequently. Apa-hacking has to arise from home, as I am usually here anyway. The thing some organic desire to communicate with which is disorienting is the absence of motor and people, or write something clever for their air traffic, replaced by a fairly steady stream of amusement; we certainly miss you when you people walking or bicycling or pushing baby don’t submit something, but I can’t say I ever strollers along our street. Foot traffic was think of it as something you or anyone needs to traditionally restricted to the times when kids apologize for. were walking to or from the nearby high school. But now, it’s like a day-long parade of kids, I have to wonder how often the Farm Bureau dogs, joggers, cyclists and old people tottering will be able to get together for the rest of this around with face masks. It’s a bit like a year; maybe that’s one decision that has been disturbing Dr. Seuss book – “Oh, the Things made for you. I assume many farmers have been That Will Walk by You!” able to continue working without risking infection this Spring, but with Farmer’s Markets [Comments Concluded next page]

------How do you think I communicated with Venus in the first place, Curt? ------

11 ------What kind of a man are you anyway? Makes love to my wife and doesn’t even talk to me. ------

Comments on Turbo-Apa #405, concluded: THINGS THAT BEGIN WITH C, Jim Hudson ALPHABET OBSESSION, Jae Leslie Adams: & Diane Martin: Carrie and I have both had You needn’t apologize for using crudsheets a individual days where we felt glum, anxious and few months back; I always find it like stepping even depressed as you describe in your fanzine. I back in time for a moment. It’s like reading a think it has helped us that we have had an fanzine by Brian Earl Brown. usually dry and sunny spring, so much so that it is definitely starting look like drought conditions I hope that you and Jon stay well, of course; but might prevail this summer. We really don’t need it is Matt and his partner that I am more worried that – forest fire smoke on top of COVID-19 about, since they are inevitably going to be distress! But it has been wonderful seeing huge exposed many times. There seems to be some bursts of yellow forsythia everywhere, and all indication that the babies are not in particular the many flowering trees have had a famous danger from the virus, but it could easily season this year (achoo!). compromise their parents’ ability to work and care for them. So…I know that drive to Duluth I think another way we have been lucky is that is getting to be more punishing all the time, but I life changed dramatically at the beginning of the desperately hope you don’t end up with year for us, independent of the pandemic. When permanent houseguests. Carrie retired, we both had to adapt to a completely new pattern of spending just about We have managed to avoid contracting any every day in the same house. When the order st colds since the 1 of the year. But pollen has came from the Governor to stay at home, we been so lavishly sprinkled on us by all these were already doing that most days. Losing the spring flowers that we feel like we’re swimming pool and the yoga studio was a drag, perpetually catching something anyway. but at least Carrie has been doing remote yoga Coupled with an inevitable hypochondria that classes here. I don’t think we have reached the everyone feels, I’ve gone to bed convinced I’m point of being “sick of each other” so far, but it coming down with the plague a dozen times, but helps that we have learned to ignore one another always wake up with nothing but the familiar for hours at a time. runny nose. It would be ever so lovely to be tested one day and see if one of these alarms was      not so false, but I suppose all of us must be content to dream. ------Well, there’s a lot to clean up, but it’s not like there’s a big mess. ------Fanmail from Some Flounder Department: Letters to CAPTAIN FLASHBACK Dallas... But the golden of it for me was the lifespan of VOID, ending with #28 in 1962 & a Greg Benford zombie #29 in 1969. The fanwriting of that era [email protected] was good, carrying on our USA variant on the “...the passing of Earl Kemp had people talking Wheels of Irish Fandom, the pinnacle of the 50s about the sequence of World Conventions from methinks. 1960 to 1962, which bounced from Pittsburgh to I like Worldcon fan lounges etc. and hope for a Seattle to Earl’s Chicon III in ’62. It seemed good one at DC in 2021. See you there! to represent some form of Golden Age.” [Greg, I put VOID pretty high in my personal It was for me, before ever seeing a Worldcon, pantheon of fanzines too. I have gingerly read tho I had put on two pioneer cons in Germany & copies that belonged to other indulgent fanzine

12 collectors, and quite rejoiced when scanned files website later - nocturnal urban culture, how noir. were posted at Fanac.org. The ability to “blow up” the text to two or three times its original size Thanks for reprinting Terry's Corflu remarks. is a Wonderful Thing! Even so, more exposure Why didn't we keep having official for some of that fun stuff couldn’t hurt – let me Toastmasters? By the way, Pascal's "translator" know if you’d like to nominate something for the was Lynn Kuehl. I Remember Entropy Department. Thanks for another entertaining issue. It was also quite sublime that in that the span [And thank you for treating CAPTAIN from 1960 to 1962, the chairs of the Worldcon FLASHBACK like a “real” fanzine by writing included two people involved in the production letters of comment. It’s a skill that most of of great big fanzines; and the third was Dirce fandom under the age of 70 seems to have lost. Archer, who did most everything else. I would so love to have attended too, but I was a Hershey I suppose the confusion over the categories in the bar in my Father’s pocket at the time.] FAAn Awards would get me more worked up if more than 25 people voted; at this point, they Jerry Kaufman seem just as imaginary as the Past Presidency of jakaufman@aol,com fwa, even though we have these cute little I plucked Captain Flashback from efanzines plaques to remember them by. yesterday, I've been exchanging notes with Nic I also appreciate the effort to watch “Liberty Farey about the FAAN Awards, but haven't yet Campbell.” Given a chance to do a second commented on his most recent issue. My performance, I think there a lot of things I thoughts regarding his comments on zines being would change in order to enhance the coherence voted for in the "wrong" categories and on John of the presentation, including possibly moving P's decision not to add votes for the same zines the internet camera to point at the actors who and apply them all to one category or another were currently speaking. There is now enough interest in performing in these plays that the have some relevance to your zine. Captain process deserves a bit more effort, including Flashback, like most apazines, includes material sending the script out to people in advance. It of a more general appeal, and material of would be fun to do a few of them again as a sort greatest interest to other members of that limited of podcast or spoken-word performance. As is group, the apa's membership. Unlike most often the case, we had a really good rehearsal, apazines, it is available to a much wider with a lot of energy and laughter. It would have readership via efanzines. So does it fit under been great to capture that reading, and let the perzine or under whatchamacallit? performers listen to it – I think it would reveal problems far more effectively than my notes! I think I flipped a fourth-dimensional coin and gave it a vote for Best Perzine. Further on in this issue, you’ll find “Whatever Happened to Faanfiction?” a piece written by We watched "The Fan Who Shot Liberty rich brown, which manages to be, at least Campbell" on YouTube and enjoyed it. But I arguably, fiction, but also decries the decline if think I would have enjoyed it more if I'd been not outright disappearance of the form. I think there. I had some trouble following some scenes the fannish radio play has become the most because I wasn't sure who the characters were, popular vehicle for faan fiction in the recent era and not always clear about who was speaking. – my impression is that Corflu has presented This was probably due to my hearing getting a some sort of play by me or Graham Charnock or bit worse, and to the stationary camera (I can't maybe Ian Sorenson, at a most of the cons since articulate why that was a problem for me.) 2000. I’m not sure if I can think of a dozen pieces of faan fiction published outside of that The talk by Will Straw that Steve Johnson points context, especially if you exclude the work of us to sounds fascinating. I'll have look at his Gordon Eklund, who has done his best to dominate the field. ------Of course it’s fresh, it’s still frozen. ------

13 ------For some reason, when you said that all I could think of were the words “orthopedic dildo.” ------Northwest by Northwest: Wolfenbarger/Bill Breiding territory where Some Thoughts on Regional Fanzines fanzines begin to resemble “Little Magazines.” And then, I delayed this response for some [Why look, here’s another message from Jerry months, trying to get a handle on some of Loren Kaufman that I have been sitting on since MacGregor’s output beyond TALKING STOCK January:] and QUOTA, because I know he was involved in publishing or co-publishing several other titles… Jerry Kaufman And now you have very kindly dug down into the jakaufman@aol,com file box with the actual copies, and presented me I'm catching up on back issues of Carport with a folder full of issues of both TS and Q. Flapjacks, and have a couple of quick comments There are plenty of fanzines left for me to on issue #13. discover, including some of the better examples, for the simple reason that no one ever sells them First, regarding Pacific Northwest fanzines in or gives them away. I’ve only seen isolated copies the late 1960s and 1970s, prior to the arrival of of TALKING STOCK before, so I’m delighted to all of us immigrants, in addition to Frank riffle through a pile containing issues 3, 4, 11, Denton, you can add Loren MacGregor, who 12, 113. 14. 15 (the big one), 15 (the small one), published first Talking Stock and later Quota. 17 and Vol 2, No. 1, which was either whole Our box of zines that would include these is at number 18 or 19. Packed in with them are six the bottom of a stack, so I looked these up in issues of the slightly larger QUOTA. All of this Fancyclopedia rather than shifting the stack, and fanac was completed between the fall of 1972 and found it includes only a couple of issues each in August of 1976. listings, and none scanned. So I will have to do TALKING STOCK felt immediately something about that sometime. recognizable to me as part of that tradition of smaller personal fanzines that sometimes Paul Novitski, under his one-time nom d'plume balloon up into a larger page counts as of Alpajpuri, also published a zine with notably correspondents and contributors add their innovative layout and design, called Carandaith. reactions. Several fanzines like this were coming Fancy says it started as a Tolkien zine. from Seattle as I became interested in fanzine [And having auctioned several issues of fandom, but I have never had a chance to see CARANDAITH, I can attest that it had a kind these before. And the fact that they date from of mystic crystal quality even after it stopped 1972 to 1976 puts them perfectly into the post- being primarily about Tolkien and LOTR. Paul CRY, pre-IZZARD era we’ve been talking about. was pretty prolific in APAs as well as doing a lot Well done, Jerry, you’ve earned a CAPTAIN of physically impressive genzines that, in FLASHBACK No-Prize! ] memory at least, seem to have been in the Billy

------Original Art: Pages 9 & 10 by Bill Rotsler ------I REMEMBER ENTROPY DEPARTMENT: his depth of commitment to fandom perfectly. He wrote about fandom at greater length than [After teasing you for 14 pages, it’s time to any other writer I can name, and his summaries present this month’s offering. From the late rich of hundreds of topics were the first building brown (1942-2006), also known as Dr. Gafia, blocks of FANCYCLOPEDIA 3. His fanzines comes “Whatever Happened to Faanfiction?” included BEARMUTTERINGS, FOCAL first published in issue #17 of BSFAN, the POINT, CALIFAN and CLIMBING ON AIR, Baltimore club fanzine edited by Elaine Stiles. I and he was one of the most prolific letter-writers thought this curious story, which is both fiction in a field with plenty of competition.] and analysis of fiction, captured rich’s style and

14 WHATEVER HAPPENED not more than five years) back, if Morgan Botts TO FAAAANFICTION? would have liked light beer. I remembered reading by rich brown it in one of Redd’s fanzines. “Would Morgan Botts like light beer?” he wondered? (It was an aside but Faaanfiction, he said. Doesn’t it bother you it would have made a good lino.) Well the thing is, sometimes? I mean, don’t you ever wonder you see, this fellow, whoever he was, had said whatever happened to faaanfiction? somewhat earlier that he didn’t drink light beer He was an Old Fan and Tired. I’d never met him, because it was like making love in a canoe – but I thought I knew who he was. Or, at least – for fucking close to water, y’know. That sounded like it’s not always the same thing, you can be sure – the sort of thing Morgan Botts might say. But I who he had to be. But since I wasn’t certain I only digress.] wondered, as we walked down the hallway of that I should say that since this fan (whether or not he particular convention hotel, if there might be was the famed stf-fan inventor Morgan Botts) had someone at the con who might be an old and tired been speaking to us with his mouth, he made the enough fan to recognize him on sight. extra effort necessary to bleat the “a”s in “faaan”, Sometimes (he went on), when I have no fanzines which in turn is part of the word “faaanfiction”, so to read, or cons to go to, or club meetings to that none of us might confuse it with the amateur attend, I sit and listen to my beanie-prop twirling sf which is (even in this supposedly enlightened in the breeze … and then I have time to wonder day and age) all too frequently to be found in the about it: Whatever happened to faaanfiction? pages of fanzines [and which, of course, is only fanfiction – with a single “a”]). I mean, precisely when and, more important, why did it disappear from our fanzines? What does it Not, considering how wistful he spoke, that any of mean to the microcosm now that it has? us were likely to have even the slightest confusion about his intended meaning. Are we doomed or better off without it? And, you know, since this involves me thinking about it for a As for his question, since no one else replied, I while, I suddenly get this overwhelming feeling of stepped forward to opine as how faaanfiction [I loss and realize how much I miss it – faaanfiction, carefully bleated my “a”s] had not actually I mean. disappeared or anything. I mean, it was not as though it has completely disappeared – we still got Had there been some polite way to come right out an occasional piece every now and then. We just and ask his name, I would have. I’d’ve said, “Hey, didn’t see much of it in fanzines these days unless you’re Morgan Botts – right?” or something like it was Very Well Done. … and then, before that. anyone could interrupt – it didn’t seem anyone But I felt a strange reluctance to do so, which I wanted to, you understand, but before they could – can’t explain even now. Anyway, there was neither I went on for a bit about the faaanfiction I could opportunity nor time to determine who in our recall reading in fanzines in the past five years or group might have been in fandom long enough to so. recognize the famed stf-fan inventor. I mean, we But strangely enough, and contrary to the point I were moving at a pretty fair clip down that hallway had hoped to make, I was surprised by how few because, first of all, we didn’t want to be in the pieces there were to mention. I was as complete as hallway long enough to be noticed and perhaps I could be, racking my brain with a pool rack left followed by a bunch of neos wearing Spock ears, over from an old Walt Willis pun, but except for a and second, waiting for us, just down the hall and passel of excellent reprints in the renewed around the corner, was what was supposed to be HYPHEN, I could only recall Larry Stark’s the best party of the convention. excellent piece in BOONFARK about trufan and a [Who he really was, was, when you come right beautiful costume fan, and of course Jeanne down to it, perhaps not particularly germane to any Gomoll’s reprinting of Terry Carr/Carl Brandon’s of the following – my concern was just that, if he The Catcher of the Rye. I vaguely recalled a few were Botts, I felt I would have to drop Redd Boggs others – Philip K Qwertyuiop in WHISTLESTAR; a poctsarcd. I mean, Boggs had been wondering, in a piece by Eric Mayer, somewhere; maybe another an aside in one of his fanzines not long (certainly

15 piece or two I’ve forgotten by now. But that was “PfEGW quotient”). Anyway, I can now see how about it. they would both tend to teach similar but somewhat different things about writing generally I also went on (at perhaps too great length) about and certain specific aspects of fiction writing in James White’s brilliant, evocative and bittersweet particular, if that’s worth noting. While I can “The Exorcists of IF,” even though it had been certainly quite easily make a case for all this now, reprinted in that HYPHEN, because, to my mind, it I have to admit I didn’t do so then: Two sentences is without question the finest of a genre which has into our “discussion” and we were – or rather, I had many fine pieces, even if you include The was – shouting. Enchanted Duplicator (which is something of as Special Case and you probably shouldn’t use it Yes, I know fandom’s just a goddam hobby and even to compare with other kinds of faaanfiction, that if there’s what’s considered a Proper Attitude but – as Buckaroo Banzai put it – no matter where about things fannish, it’s not to take them so you go, there you are). seriously that you end up shouting at people when you’re discussing them. I guess I can get sercon In reply, the Old Tired fan said it really made him about my fannishness. stop to wonder, because there used to be a lot of faaanfiction in fanzines and now there would seem It started with me shouting at the pro-essayist who, to be very little. “It really makes me stop to once he recovered from surprise at my having wonder, because there used to be a lot of raised my voice at him, parried my angry words faaanfiction in fanzines and now there would seem with a loud disputation of his own. Nothing of to be very little,” is about the way he put it. course, was resolved thereby – but then, in fandom, that’s usually the case. He even pointed out that there was a time, not so long back, when you could tell if it was a As is, frankly, quite usual with my style of debate, “fanzine” or a pale imitation by whether or not it in this instance my argument was complex and contained a piece of faaanfiction – nine times out convoluted. of ten written by the “Irish” (really English) John I made the nasally inflected and politically correct Berry. (Nowadays you can make the same point that, while our excursions into personal distinction, at least after the first issue, by whether journalism might be considered to stand for the or not it has a loc by Harry Warner.) collective fannish intellect, as it were, it would Then someone in our group voiced an idea that have to follow (as certainly as night does day) that perhaps this was because the personal essay was our creation of the genre of faaanfiction must (“of “more durable” than faaanfiction – but in such a necessity”) be seen as a symbolic representation of way, if you know what I mean, that what I heard the fannish heart. After this profundity, I conceded was not just “more durable” but “better”. the oversimplification, in as much as unquestionably both can inspire either laughter or More durable?, the Old Tired fan said. Well, yes, I tears – and some of the best of either could and suppose – rather obviously, rather indisputably – would do both – but even the most gonzo of that is the case. But why? Because it’s in some personal essays (I said) had as its intent the way “better”? (He, it seems, heard implied just conveyance of some Truth – that is, viz., i.e., and what I’d heard implied.) And anyway, he went on, to wit: Myth. Magic. Fantasy. Whimsy. Legend. if that’s actually so, how so? Dreams. I’d like to say we batted this around for a while or Personal essays may convey any kind of Truth, discussed the relative merits of the personal essay either fannish or mundane – and while I suppose vs. faaanfiction in a calm, rational fashion. Just a they remain Truths, nonetheless, I felt (and feel) hallway conversation while we were on our way to faaanfiction is somewhat purer in that it brings us what was supposed to be the best party of the con, face to face with Truths of our own folk mythos. you might say. I’d at least in part like to be able to Personal essays allow us to express our say that because, now that I can step back to personalities, but faaanfiction fires expression to consider the whole matter dispassionately, I have our souls as mythical, paper beings and at the same to admit the two forms seem close to equal in time creatures of fabulous fable. terms of their Potential for Encouraging Good Writing (or what we in the fan trade call the

16 After all, I said, waving my hands excitedly and esoteric, rewarding those who bother to explore for wiping the spittle off the bottom of my chin, a the deeper meaning, referencing in-jokes which personal essay can only mention the Tower of have been heard before by the majority of the Bheer Cans to the Moon, whereas faaanfiction can readers (and which would be newly funny to them, and must evoke it. Oh, to be sure, the T. of B. C. to in this new context and application, as Jack the M. was introduced in an editorial Terry Carr Benny’s sigh got funnier the more times you saw wrote in an early INNUENDO, but other fans him do it), so that this was but one of the charms played with the idea – and the Tower was and not one of the failings of the form. constantly being evoked in the faaanfiction of the But where it exists – in the personal essay, other era, which is really what gave the myth its kinds of fiction or faaanfiction itself – it is simply resonance. Thus, personal essays (I waxed poetic) one of the “givens” or “conventions” of the form. may be prose vehicles to transport our mundane You don’t score a work of that Crazy Buck Rogers realities across the rough road of the light fantastic, Stuff simply because it utilizes, with extensive and of course for that reason are highly valued – “explanations” for the benefit of newcomers, the particularly those which are skillfully cushioned so concept of an ftl drive. As much as any Worldcon, as to absorb the more violent bumps of that well- I deliberately punned, ftl is a science fiction known thoroughfare. But faaanfiction (I waxed convention – but, unless the author has something enthusiastic) is, by comparison, a magic carpet ride new to say about ftl or something relevant to be which takes us high above the clouds to provide us communicated in the story being told, there’s little with the proper vantage point and perspective point in rehashing what nine out of ten readers whim which we may look down upon mundane already know and what nine out of ten of those realities…. remaining can figure out by inference. I probably would have gone on to opine that And then, where, by way of example, I could have faaanfiction could do anything the personal essay cited any of several dozen sf stories, instead I went can do and then some – had the pro-essayist not straight to faaanfiction, making extensive reference brought me up shout with a stinging criticism of to “The Exorcists of IF”. Certainly (I continued) faaanfiction. “The Exorcists of IF” contained references to The thrust of this was that faaanfiction demanded fannish happenings, many of which were first its readers have some prior esoteric knowledge of recorded in the pages of HYPHEN in the early and goings on in the microcosm so as to be perfectly mid-1950s, as well as other fanzines of that period, understood, and in fact was often written simply to and certainly it must be obvious that an be a vehicle for that form of esoterica. Thus, he understanding of these would heighten anyone’s said (with a slightly condescending, superior smirk appreciation of the story. But one could perfectly as we proceeded down the hallway and turned the comprehend the point of the tale with a less-than- corner), not only did faaanfiction have a dishonest perfect understanding of those references – their kind of “short cut” not to be found in the personal complete comprehension was by no means essay, or even other kinds of fiction, but what absolutely necessary to understanding that point. would otherwise be considered poor writing. He Those references conveyed to any perceptive went on to say this sort of thing was intentionally reader that the characters involved had shared divisive, designed to put those In The Know on better, fun-filled times and the story was no less one side and those Not In The Know on the other. poignant if those reference were seen as no more than that …. and, like anything else written, At the time I disputed both the front and the back, regardless of the form, what was derived from it as well as both sides of this argument loudly – and was dependent not merely upon the clarity of the now, here do so again, albeit quietly and writer but the perceptions brought by the reader to (hopefully) more calmly, lucidly and logically. what was to be read. Not, mind you, that faaanfiction has never been By the time we reached this point in the argument, written with deliberate bits of esoterica inserted. we had also reached the end of the hall and the Of course it has. But it was simply absurd to claim door to the room in which The Party was to be that either the personal essay or other forms of held. The first person to reach it from our group fiction are excluded from this supposed “failing”. had already knocked. All three of these forms can be deliberately

17 I turned to “Morgan Botts”, if indeed it were he, not while I was still there, which was throughout only to discover that he had abandoned us (and our most of it. Nor did he make it to the party on the argument) somewhere along the way. roof. Too bad – while I still felt reluctant to ask him his But now that the convention is over. And name, it had occurred to me as I was making my sometimes, when there are no fanzines to read, or points that I could simply say the most recent other cons to go to or club meetings to attend, I sit “esoteric” fannish reference I had seen in a fanzine and listen to my beanie-prop twirling in the breeze had been the one about Morgan Botts, an aside in a … and wonder whatever happened to faaanfiction. personal essay written by Redd Boggs, rather than It’s not, of course, as if it had completely in a piece of faaanfiction … and then observe the disappeared or anything – we still get an reaction of this Old Tired fan to see if that gave me occasional piece every now and again – but it is (I any clue. must concede) exceedingly rare. And what I have The dispute had to be left at the door – there being, more or less decided is that, if faaanfiction had inside the room, things to alter the state of our once been a beacon which shined its effulgence on consciousness and take our minds off the topic every corner of fandom, sometimes casting and, if that were not enough, also a number of fans shadows larger than life itself, then we would have who had not heard any part of the discussion so to conclude that, by comparison, these days, it’s that, in all, it was a much simpler thing to drop little more than a candle guttering in the breeze – than to attempt to rehash. and the shadow it casts is miniscule indeed. Besides which, we entered the room one at a time; I wonder what, if any, light will come to take its the pro-essayist was just before me and, because I place? was to be the last to go in and was certain – and, as Is it, do you think, that our faaanfiction was never it turned out, was correct in my certainty – that no more substantial than a thought or a dream? one would notice, I clipped him behind the right earlobe and left him lying in the hallway because What happens to thoughts, once expressed? he’d pissed me off and I didn’t want any more of Dreams, once dreamt? his lip. Do we lose them forever – or will we, perhaps, But I probably wouldn’t have continued, in any rethink and redream them again a few years down event. Because, as I recall, that was one of the few the road? times when what was supposed to be The Party of When these things occur to me, as I’ve just a convention actually turned out nearly to be The admitted they do at times, I sit and wonder Party of the convention. (The party everyone talks precisely when and, more important, why and writes about was the one on the following faaanfiction may eventually disappear from the night – on the rooftop of the hotel. I lost my 3x5 microcosm, and what it will mean to us once it has, notebook in which I kept room numbers for since faaanfiction gave the breath of life to our forthcoming parties during that walk and myths. I wonder, too, if we have perhaps been too discussion down that hallway, and so all the next intent on keeping our collective intellect intact day, whenever people came up to me asking if I while failing to notice that we may have lost our knew where the really dynamite parties were going collective soul. to be held, I said I’d heard there was supposed to be a real bash up on the rooftop that night. And since this involves me thinking about it for a However, since I have a memory like a cast-iron while, I suddenly get this overwhelming feeling of sieve, in truth I can’t recall what anyone said or loss and realize how much I miss it – faaanfiction, did after we walked through the door; I never was I mean. too good at remembering those kinds of details rich brown anyway. But it was a hell of a fine party, most of Fall, 1988 the con reports saying it was almost as good as the one the following night on the hotel roof, and all I can say for certain is I don’t think I thought too much about the topic during the party, and Morgan      Botts (or whoever he was) didn’t show up again, or

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