LABOURS OF LOVE

As predicted, it has been a while since the last Mumblings -- three and a half years, in fact. Numerous factors have conspired to delay this issue and most of these will become evident as you read. One which will not occurred late last year and caused me to consider rewriting much of what I had ready by then. But labours of love cannot be denied and I've decided to save the bad news for the next issue. For now, without further ado, I give you...a brief aside.

If you get a feeling of deja vu whilst reading this issue, don't be surprised. The issue before last (#12) opened with the birth of a baby, continued with a trip report (of sorts) featuring an On-line conference in Sydney, included material on early Aussie fanhistory, ran some letters, and ended with scenes of Thylacon, the sf convention in Hobart. Over the past few years, all of the above has happened again, as you will see. In order of importance, we begin with a real labour of love.

The new baby, Lauren Aphra Nelson-Lee, was born on October 8, 1998. That's her on the cover, of course, and opposite*. Cute, ain't she? She's a great kid and Ella is chuffed to be a big sister. The circumstances of their births were quite different. Lauren's actually occurred pretty much according to the "plan" we'd had in mind for Ella's -- inasmuch as these things can be planned.

We did plan the support crew for the birth. We had to, since (1) it included my mum and (2) my mum lives on the other side of Australia. Choosing the dates for her stay thus became a bit problematic. If we waited until Megan went into labour, it would likely be all over before my mum was half way across the continent. The airlines aren't terribly sympathetic to situations like this; they wanted firm dates. So we took a guess, allowing for the fact that Ella had been late, but knowing that second births are usually easier, and consequently quicker, than first births.

Lauren, demonstrating a remarkable independence of mind at an age yet to be measurable in positive numbers, had ideas of her own. She held on, and held on. Mom had lots of fun entertaining Ella -- and less fun helping around the house, probably -- but we all started to wonder if she was going to miss the birth itself. The morning of her booked departure date, the travel agent rang to say she had been able to push back the date by calling in a favour. Whew!

This was such a relief that it may have affected Megan's biological clock. Whatever the reason, I was up a plum tree trimming branches later that day when Megan stepped out to say things were happening. I put our bags in the car, we rang our midwives Elaine and Jean to say we were on the way and then everyone piled in for the short drive to the Launceston Birth Centre.

In the years since Ella's birth, the Queen Victoria Hospital had been closed and the birth centre in the same building transferred to a renovated home across the street from the Launceston General Hospital. The logistics involved mean that the birth centre has become a less attractive option for many, since it's a slightly longer, and exposed, trip to the hospital maternity wing if anything goes wrong during the birth. We still preferred the birth centre, though, and all of the signs were good so we met Jean there. Elaine was detained at another birth in the LGH.

Megan hopped into the bath as soon as we arrived since she recalled during her labour with Ella, that this provided greater comfort than either the pethidine or nitrous oxide gas. As it turned out, xxxxxxx * See note on bottom of p.l5 - 2 ------

THE FACE OF THE FUTURE

NELSON-LEE; Lauren Aphra - Megan and Chris. are delighted to -apnounce the birth of a sister for Ella, October 8, 1998 at the Launc ceston Birth Centre. -Many thanks to Doris, Elaine, Jean and Gerard. - she didn't need any drugs this time. After just a few hours, she was fully dilated and ready to push. I hopped in the bath to give her what help I could. Before long we were startled to see a mass of dark hair which just grew larger and larger with Megan's exertions. Jean eventually stopped her to check that the umbilical cord was not wrapped around the baby's neck -- about the only intervention in the whole procedure. And then, with a last mighty effort from Megan...we had another baby!

The contrast in births could not have been much greater. Distressed by a knotted umbilical cord and long labour, Ella Frances had had a forceps delivery in a hospital maternity ward and spent two days there. Lauren Aphra entered the world in a warm bath and came home the next day.

And her name? We chose Lauren, in part, after the actor Lauren Bacall and because it sounds nice with her middle name. Aphra came first, at Megan's suggestion. Aphra Behn was a fascinating character who lived in the 17th century. Raised in the West Indies, she married in London at the age of 18 but her husband died eight years later. She became a spy for Charles II in The Netherlands, but he never rewarded her for her services and she wound up being jailed for debt. She began to write -- poetry, novels and plays -- to support herself and in so doing she become the first English woman to earn her living as a writer. Her wit and talent, not to mention her association with many scandals of the time, gained her great popularity. A perfect role model for any young woman!

Lauren has been the biggest change to our lives over the past few years, but there have been others. Before her arrival, the circumstances of my employment changed considerably, for several reasons.

Early in 1996 my boss retired. I had known that she was thinking about this but the timing still had an element of surprise in it. Knowing that she would be retiring at some time in the future, I had decided to increase my chances of succeeding her by gaining a management qualification. She encouraged me in this, but then, before the first unit of my course began, she handed in her notice.

Her position was advertised, I applied and was fortunate enough to land it. Despite the appointment being made on a 1-year contract basis (a point only revealed at interview) and at a considerable drop in salary, I was quite happy with this result. Not least because, quite frankly, I felt I'd been making a reasonable contribution to our work for a while. My new boss was quite happy, too, no doubt in part because she was gaining quite a budget saving (as well as a first class librarian, of course). More importantly, to me, was that the library staff seemed genuinely pleased, which made it easier to implement a number of changes which we all felt were overdue.

No sooner was I in the job, however, when I was told to plan for its demise. Senior management had become enamoured with the possibility of merging our library with that of the adjacent University of Tasmania and I was directed to cooperate fully with UTas staff preparing estimates of how much this would cost. In truth, this did not come as a big surprise. The suggestion had been made several times in the past and the limited nature of my contract forewarned me that something like this was brewing. I dutifully provided all of the facts and figures required, attended numerous meetings to discuss options, and then left the matter in the hands of whatever gods there be.

In the meantime I also had to find someone to do my former job. This proved easier said than done. To cut a long story short, we did eventually find a library graduate who was not completely adverse to cataloguing, but only after three months of searching. It was a busy time.

- 4 - So, the rest of 1996 was spent training Andrew in my old job, learning a new job myself, and planning to do away with both. At the same time I was studying the management units I had already committed myself to. Rank doth have some privileges, though. For one thing, it was now easier to justify attendance at professional conferences. The next one I attended was early in 1997, in Sydney.

I can't remember many details of the presentations made at Online 97. I enjoyed the conference and trade exhibition, but it seemed to lack the energy and excitement of the 1995 conference. Perhaps I was preoccupied with other things. One of these would have been study. One of my management units was taken over that summer semester and I had an exam to sit a few days after returning from the conference. I was finding it hard to keep up with my reading at home, so I hauled all of the texts, guides and readers to Sydney in the hope of catching up. I purposely booked into the lowest grade hotel I could find, one devoid of televisions, telephones and any other things which might distract me. The room I had was just large enough to contain a single bed, a side table and a chair. It was a real cell, but my strategy worked extremely well. With nothing else to do, I hit the books each night for as long as I could and, later, I managed a distinction for the unit.

An element of leisure I did allow myself was a meeting with Bill Veney. Bill and I had been corresponding for over a year and when I mentioned that I would be in Sydney, he suggested we meet. Eric Lindsay was to have joined us, but his mum (I learned later) had died the week before. I almost missed Bill as well, since I had to check-out from the flophouse and run my bags down to a locker at Central Station just before our agreed meeting time.

Bill greeted me heartily and suggested we proceed to a nearby cafe where, over a cup of coffee, he related events of up to 60 years earlier as though they'd happened the day before. He talked about events at Randwick Intermediate High School in 1937 including production of Spacehounds and how it intrigued even some of the teachers, about making contact with overseas fans by writing letters to the pulp magazines, and, in 1939, of the formation of the Futurian Society of Sydney. Like most of the other fans of the day, Bill didn't know that Vol Molesworth had completed a history of these times. Vol had actually shown him a draft years before, but Bill had made so many criticisms that he did not think Vol would proceed with publishing it. (He was scathing in his comments when I sent him a copy -- for an example, see the letters column, p.13.)

We wandered around the streets of Sydney for a while and chatted further about this and that. He would not be drawn much on the feuds within the early FSS. I think he considered it all water under the bridge, though he was interested, and a little surprised, I think, to learn that copies of some of the fanzines they had produced were held in Fisher Library at Sydney University.

Eventually it was time for me to head for the airport and it was my turn to be surprised when he said he'd ride along. He did live in that general direction, but I think he was keen to talk longer. On the bus out to the airport he talked about his war service. He, Bert Castellari and others all enlisted in the Army (see pp.8-9 for some photographs Bill sent later). Bill became a sergeant but seemed to have a slight guilt complex about this, mentioning how Bert and the others had had a rougher time of it during the war. After the war, he was stationed in Japan and enjoyed a variety of tasks involved in education and public relations.

Over lunch at the airport he told me about his civilian work back in Australia, his falling out with fandom in the early 50s, and his failed marriage. He had married a British woman who later went back to the UK after taking a punt on the stock market and making a killing. Bill had advised her against it. They parted and formally divorced in the early 1970s.

- 5 - Back in Launceston, I gave Megan and Ella big hugs before my thoughts had to return to study and work. Much of 1997 is actually a blur of these elements, spiced by house renovations, enterprise bargaining wrangles at work and the occasional holiday. I managed to take Ella with me to Perth for another library conference later in the year, and it was great to see the folks at this time, but the time was over all too soon.

By late in the year, it was clear that UTas were not really all that keen on merging libraries, so we had to think about updating our software -- a decision which had been on hold pending the results of the merger talks. One of the reasons I'd gone to the Online conference was to see all of the latest whiz-bang library packages on offer. There were some remarkable systems on show, but all of them had price tags which I knew management would baulk at.

The DOS-based software originally installed when the library first automated was still in use, in a later version, but was having difficulties with the size of our database. The manufacturer had a Windows version available now which looked reasonable in price and had the advantage of allowing us to retain all of our database structures, so we went with that. Unfortunately, it did mean rewriting or modifying a number of report formats we had written for the DOS version.

This was enough of a project to keep me occupied, but of course life's not like that, is it? The boss decided to change the arrangements in place for students requiring additional tutorial assistance. She called me in and started explaining the problems they were having with the system and how someone with a clear and logical mind was needed to design a better way of providing this service. Alarm bells started ringing in my head. All of her line managers had had to do a "behavioural style evaluation" not long before which labelled us as "relaters", "socializers", "thinkers" or "directors". I had been categorised as a thinker, which suited me (it sounds better than "anal-retentive") but I quickly saw which direction the conversation was moving in. To cut another long story short, I was saddled with the job despite my best efforts. The silver lining to this cloud emerged later in the year (see opposite).

Another event of 1998 was Thylacon II. I've read mixed reviews about this convention and have to confess to having mixed feelings about it myself. Cheryl Morgan's comments in Emerald City 34 come closest to expressing my overall opinion of the con. But I had some involvement with the organising committee, so my views are biased -- both for and against different aspects of the con.

During my management studies I had investigated the pros and cons of communication and problem solving via electronic mail. In early 1998 this still intrigued me, so when Robin Johnson asked if I would be a member of the Thylacon II committee, I suggested I be a "virtual" committee member, making contributions via e-mail. Given the distance between Launceston and Hobart, where all of the other members lived, this seemed like a reasonable experiment. And it started out fine.

One of the major challenges of the committee became evident quite soon (and can be deduced from a few wry comments in the committee members' blurbs in the final programme book). Namely, the two most experienced con organisers on the committee were either absent or committed to more weighty matters during the months leading up to the convention.

The members left to do the work had a number of brilliant ideas, but collectively they seemed to be too ambitious for the resources we had, such as an 80-page con book and a live-via-the-Internet interview with the creator of Babylon 5. At the same time, guests of honour, honoured guests and special guests were multiplying at a great rate, while the count of paid-up ordinary bums on seats remained vague. My e-comments along these lines began to be perceived (I suspect) as sniping, so

- 6 - Change in system led to award for excellence Australian Maritime College librarian Chris Nelson has won the 1998 Administrative Excel­ lence Award from the Association for Tertiary Education Manage- ment. - The association is an organis­ ation to promote professionalism and career enhancement among tertiary education administrative staff. Association State president Garry Hulme said that the award recognised an administrator who, by virtue of their own initiative and dedication, had improved service to students. Mr Hulme said the influence of administrative staff in a higher education institution was often underestimated. Mr Nelson won the award by helping to change the system of out-of-class tutorial help for students. Previously, tutors lived in the same on-campus residential blocks as students and were on call to them. He said that the system made it difficult to record how often the tutorial service was being used and whether or not it was having an effect. Mr Nelson said the system had now been formalised with tutors and students meeting in the AMC WINNER: Australian Maritime College librarian Chris Nelson. library where staff and resources Mr Nelson said the tutorial AMC for five years. "I'd heard of were on hand. service was also available to its reputation and it was an ''We can now record a bit more University ofTasmania students. interesting position to apply for," accurately who is using the ser­ Born in Chicago and raised in he said. vice and the result ofthe service," Perth, Western Australia, Mr Mr Nelson received $500 from he said. Nelson has been librarian at the the association.

I concentrated on more pragmatic things: producing and distributing a flyer to bookstores, checking with publishers to see what sf-related worked were due for release in June. This led to Melbourne University Press offering to launch their Encyclopedia ofAustralian Science Fiction at the con.

A more serious matter, I felt, was the possible conflict ofinterest posed by one committee member being employed at a local bookstore. My concern solidified when I learned that the bookstore was going to sponsor an introductory "event" featuring Neil Gaiman and wanted sole selling rights on the night. This, and the possible affront to the two "official" (or at least original) Guests ofHonour at being pipped by an "Honoured Guest" on the first night of the con, worried me. When it didn't seem to bother the others, I decided to drop out ofthe committee. [continued on p.15] - 7 - ECHOES OF THE PAST: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE COLLECTION OF WILLIAM VENEY

t 1939: Eric Russell, Bill Veney and Bert Castellari in Sydney t 1944: Bruce Sawyer, Bill Veney and Bert Castellari in the Army

J, 1946: Warwick Hockley and Bill Veney in Melbourne J, 1952: Don Tuck and Bill Veney in Hobart GOING BATTY: AN ARTISTIC PLAGIARISM FROM 1941

Ifyou're going to borrow, you might as well borrow from the best. That appears to have been the philosophy ofThorp, the artist credited for the work reproduced at right, which first appeared in Super Science Novels Magazine, March 1941, illustrating "Genus Homo" by L. Sprague deCamp and P. Schuyler Miller. The bat bears an uncanny resemblance to one which Edd Cartier drew (at left) for L. Ron Hubbard's "Fear" (Unknown, July 1940). I wonder ifanyone noticed at the time?

Apologies to our worthy correspondents for the delay in getting their comments on the last issue into print; we trust they will not mind a little exercise in time travel...

Bob Nelson, Mt Pleasant, W.A. 31 December 1995

Thank you for the promotion to Ghost of Fandom Present. Enjoyed the latest issue and was sorry to read that the next really will be a while in coming. [Only about 3 years. But who's counting?]

There was a small (but important) error of omission in my piece -- the point was that machines are built to do a certain job (or jobs) and they will do that job exceedingly well. The underlined was not, I believe, on your copy. It is a point of which Mr Baum was apparently well aware. One of his creations, the Giant with the Hammer, really says it all. Like any well-designed machine, the Giant "is only made to pound the road...but he pounds very well".

The error itself illustrates the point magnificently. In WordStar, using a full stop as the first character of a line will cause that line to be non-printing. The full stop should be followed by another character to make a complete instruction and, if not, a question mark will appear in the margin. In this case, the full stop appeared at the start of the line by pure chance, the question mark dutifully appeared -- and I failed to notice it. In a thousand similar situations the cry of "computer error" can be heard, in a tone of righteous indignation. But the error was mine. Machines don't make errors. True, they do at times malfunction, but that is a result of wear, misuse, poor design or some other human action.

Have some crottled greeps. Nada zip? Whatever happened to plain old Gadzooks?

======

Teddy Harvia, Hurst, Tx. 17 January 1996

Diana and I are coming to Australia in 1999 whether the bid wins or not. But we want the bid to win! I'm drawing ads for Thyme and Ethel the Aardvark. I'm taking a boring telephony class at the moment. It is required for my technical writer position. Cartooning is what keeps me, er, sane.

======

Harry Andruschak, Torrance, Ca. 26 January 1996

I have been quite busy with life and I suppose I will be doomed to a sad existence as a ghost of fandom when I die, since I am certainly gafia as far as most of fandom goes. Instead of spending money on going to sci-fi cons I spend it on overseas vacations. Maybe in 1999 I can combine a worldcon with a longer vacation in Australia.

- 11 - Harry Warner Jr, Hagerstown, Md. 29 January 1996

The 13th Mumblings shows no evidence of suffering the bad fortune sometimes associated with that numeral. On the contrary, it's an ingenious method of gathering together diverse matters dealing with Australian fan history. It also had a sort of resuscitating effect on me, in this instance recalling a lot of titles and names and events from my first years in fandom. Even though those youthful Australian fans in 1939 and 1940 may have thought of me as an experienced veteran, I'd been publishing fanzines only since 1938 so I was only slightly less neoish than they were.

The material in this issue contained some matters that are new to me, or at least matters that I had forgotten with such complete thoroughness that they seem to impact on me for the very first time. I hadn't known that Bert and Bill had leftist leanings, for example, or about the trouble that arose from an effort to get prozines into hospitals for wounded soldiers to read.

Your father's contribution reminds me of a major regret. Maybe I shouldn't admit it in an era when conformism is so strong in fandom. But I've never read The Wizard of Oz or any of the other Oz books. If I'd come across it in childhood or a few years later, I might be able to wallow in yet another variety of nostalgia. But for no apparent reason Oz books weren't among the many I owned or borrowed when I was a boy and when I got into fandom there was little or nothing in fanzines to impel me to hunt up the books. Oz books were almost never mentioned in fanzines until perhaps the 1950s. Not even the movie has the power over me that it possesses for so many people, probably because of my lack of familiarity with the written Oz.

Of course, you cheered me up near the end with this theory that I'll become even older than I am now. I'd been thinking all along that I really should try to live another five years because the start of 2001 might represent my only chance to see a new century arrive.

I can't remember having seen previously the illustration that serves you for a back cover. It's gorgeous. I suppose fairies were permitted to be undressed in publications 150 years ago.

By coincidence I recently wrote an article for an apazine on the same story that inspired your creation of this Mumblings. There hasn't been time yet to know if there will be convincing answers to some questions I have asked about Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and you didn't help to clear up the things that puzzle me when you did this pastiche.

There are three things, mainly, that baffle me. One is: what was wrong with Tiny Tim? Dickens tells us he walked with one crutch and he was destined to die if he didn't get medical attention. I can't think of any accident or illness or disease that could have created Tim's trouble and could not have been cured by the best physicians available in the first part of the 19th century. Secondly, did the Spirit of Christmas to Come cheat? He shows Scrooge a gravestone with Ebenezer Scrooge as its inscription. But who would have arranged and paid for this memorial to the miser? Scrooge had no real friends, only a nephew whom he scorned as family, and Scrooge was apparently so heedless of his mortality that he was shocked at seeing this stone, so he obviously hadn't arranged for it during his lifetime. Did the spirit fake this stone to shake up Scrooge? Finally, why do artists and actors always depict Scrooge as an extremely old man? My calculations, based on various references to the past events in the story, tell me that Scrooge couldn't have been older than his middle fifties and might have been in his late forties on the Christmas in question.

[Well, your readers have had several years to ponder upon these questions by now, Harry. Has anyone come up with convincing explanations?]

- 12 - Leigh Edmonds, Palmyra, W.A. 30 January 1996

It was good to see some of the thoughts of the elder fans in print. The thing that comes out of this is that the society in which the fans lived had a great deal to do with what they did and how they thought. In particular, even those of us with memories which stretch back to the 1950s have really forgotten the cultural milieu of the era.

======

Bill Veney, Sydney, NSW 5 February 1996

Thanks for Vol's "History". It is, of course, not a history. It is only Vol's memoirs.

As stated in his preface, Vol's father was a member of the United Australia Party (the Conservatives) in the NSW Upper House. What was not stated: he was also associated with the "New Guard", the quasi-Fascist organisation that existed in New South Wales in the early thirties. Vol embraced his father's authoritarian ideals. My parents were also in the UAP but they had strong doubts about the "New Guard".

Vol's antagonism to most Sydney fans was understandable. In 1938 and 1939 young people everywhere were supporting the various "popular fronts against Fascism". All of us were in varying degrees left of centre without actually going over the edge into outright Communism. Coming from a privileged family and having had a private school education and a brilliant scholastic career he naturally felt superior. He had a much better command of the English language, thought more quickly, was an experienced debater and was a very self-confident person all round. He was, however, volatile (!) and lacked the ability to complete a project without help. His Easter 1941 Sydney convention plan was the greatest fiasco in pre-war fandom. That, of course, does not get a mention in his history.

After he married Laura he became more stable. After his "coup" of September 1948 when he had me tipped out of the directorate of the FSS only Laura's intervention stopped a Draconian reprisal. I packed my bags and left fandom until early 1951 when Stirling Macoboy asked for my help in organising the first Australian convention. I turned up several times a month at the Thursday night gatherings. That's all. My sole contribution to fan activity was to request people not to eat their dinners during the reading of the club minutes. I was not a member, by the way, but a guest. This was of such import that it was recorded for posterity in Vol's history. My later organising of a theatre party that attracted over 80 people hardly gets a mention. My organising of a sf weekend at Wentworth Falls, which just "happened", gets a passing mention.

I'd better stop. I'm getting all bitter and twisted.

======

Eric Lindsay, Ryde, NSW 9 February 1996

I like the idea of trying to contact early fans like Bert Castellari and having them at some con.

[Me too. The Worldcon falls in the 60th anniversary year of both the first Aussie fanzine and the oldest surviving sf club in Oz. How more appropriate could you get?]

- 13 - Thylacon II (Hobart, 1998) I ' Key to Thylacon II photographs:

1: Australian GoH Leanne Frahm receives her Best Fan Writer Ditmar from Master of Ceremonies Peter Nicholls. 2: Overseas GoH George R.R. Martin. 3: Nick Stathopoulos and Parris McBride (left) and Craig Wellington (right, background) watch as Justin Ackroyd, continuing a tradition begun at Thylacon, boldly points where no fan has pointed before -- in this case, past Catherine Smyth-McMullen, towards... 4: Overseas HG Neil Gaiman with the Thylacon mascot. 5: Award collectors (background, from left to right): Peter Nicholls (for Damien Broderick, Best Long Fiction Ditmar), and (Best Short Fiction), Nick Stathopoulos (Best Artist), Steven Paulsen and Sean McMullen (Atheling Awards: Sean also holds the Best Dramatic Presentation Ditmar. Foreground: (for Eidolon, Best Fanzine). 6: At the banquet. Front table: Cheryl Morgan, Alicia and Robin Johnson. Back table: Russell Blackford, Sara Douglass, Jenny Blackford, Jonathan Strahan, Marianne Jablon, Claire Coney, Jack Dann.

======[continued from p.7] In the end, Thylacon II was an enjoyable con to attend: small but friendly. As another labour of love, it had its flaws but it also had its triumphs. They did produce an 80-page programme book, complete with material from a number of the guests (and committee members). And the "Good Science Week" item was a brilliant highlight. Tasmanian fandom has a collective wealth of talent which can only become more evident in years to come.

======

Air Wonder Stories, the model for this issue's cover, merged with its sister title Science Wonder to form plain old Wonder Stories in 1930. Frank R. Paul was the chief illustrator for all three. The cover pic appeared in a 1932 Wonder Stories whilst the header on page 11 is from Air Wonder.

A common criticism of Paul was that he couldn't draw human figures very well. Such a charge was never laid against Erte, whose fabulous fashions graced Harper's Bazaar between 1915 and 1936. Two small examples from Designs by Erte (Dover, 1976) appear on page 2 and below. Some of his cover artwork would not have been out of place on a magazine and may well have inspired the art nouveau covers on Amazing Stories of this period. On the back cover, Erte meets Paul.

W. W. Denslow's lion from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz watches over Lauren on page 3 and Aphra Behn on page 4 comes courtesy of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The article & my ugly mug on page 7 are reproduced from the local newspaper, The Examiner. Thanks to a trainee operating the colour photocopier, some of you will have pages 3 and 14 reversed. Think yourselves lucky! Latecomers will have the right order, but in plain old black and white. LoCs, please, to:

Chris Nelson, 23 Henty St., Invermay, Tas. 7248 AUSTRALIA (e-mail: [email protected])

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