BEAM THE OCCASIONAL UNOFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS ISSUE #15 : FEBRUARY 2020

May Tucker’s Ghost be Smiling Upon Us

WAKE UP (IT’S 1984) NIC FAREY

First, a not so minor housekeeping note, of the kind my esteemed co-editor is so adept at recognizing the need for. Lastish’s immediately infamous “Fuck Scalzi” editorial was misattributed more than once to myself, since some outraged and yet lackadaisical readers evidently didn’t get to the byline at the “I have a very end and thus credited its authorship wrongly. Not that I’m at all put out that anyone would tag me as the writer of such an aggressively fine diatribe, but I jaundiced view would have (as naively as usual) thought that stylistically at least the identity of of life. From the writer should have been evident from the off, and since it was the sole editorial piece in that ish, it’s not like there should have been any confusion. what I see most However, people being as thick and/or lazy as they’re apparently wont to be of it is corrupt, we’re taking out that end-of-editorial byline in favor of an upfront designation venal and vile.” of source, which you may have already noticed (unless you are thick and/or lazy - yes Nic, insult the readership, that’s always good). Provenance of the piece notwithstanding, it gained a wider readership, Scalzi having been clued to it and blogging that it was all water off the proverbial duck’s back as far as he was concerned, and there was no need at all for any of his acolytes to make any fuss about it at all, oh no [nudge nudge wink wink]. The predictable shitstorm erupted over at File770 (Oh Mike, what hast thou wrought?) with an unfortunate lack of umbrellas. Andy Porter valiantly attempted to hold up the end of the old school, with negligible results and an equally predictable theme that anything more than five minutes older than

This issue of BEAM is edited by Nic Farey and Ulrika O’Brien. 2657 Rungsted St, Las Vegas, NV 89142, USA, email : [email protected]

418 Hazel Avenue N., Kent, WA 98030, USA, email : [email protected] any of the commenters was automatically Savage) in Dark Angel was a former alcoholic (and beneath contempt. It’s telling, at least from this I use that descriptor deliberately, knowing it goes end of the Faniverse, that not a one of the against received wisdom). There’s a powerful outraged trigger victims over there thought it scene where (and this is implied that it’s appropriate to send us a loc, although we do have something he does regularly) he goes to an AA some comment from others which is somewhat of meeting, and after a typical AA-approved intro, an echo chamber, admittedly, giving credence to, berates the attendees for being weak and needing if nothing else, the Balkanization of the the crutch of the meetings as an excuse for lack Faniverse. And for any of you sad and offended of actual self-improvement. Disclaimer: I know Gen-Fs who may be reading this, however people who have benefitted from their program, unlikely that may seem, of course we’d have including one with 30 years (and counting) of printed your locs, should you have chosen to send sobriety, yet in my own experience of enforced any, yet I wonder whether the prospect of being AA as part of DWI judgements, I found it cultish challenged and commented upon may have been and rigid. My point is that there is a group of too much risk for your tender souls. people who obsess on “triggers”, but have to have someone else to solve their issues for them rather We’re entering an era of NewFanSpeak which, as than having the strength to take care of it another correspondent remarked elsewhere, themselves. I do not say this to denigrate the suggests that we’re in a phase of imposing the genuinely weak and vulnerable, those who need ethical standards of today and perhaps even next the protection of a caring society. My j’accuse goes week on history, and context be damned. I think to the laziness of too many people who seem to that rich brown (as an example of someone I demand that their self-perceived victimhood consider a major personal influence) would be should be met with a lot of “There, there, my utterly horrified by what our ostensibly fun little dear, we shall make the bad person go away” and hobby has become in this respect. not a bit of “Here is how you can stand up and Permit me a small aside: the character of Colonel be self-sufficiently sane”. Donald Lydecker (played by the excellent John I’m sure it’s going to be controversial, if not actually unpopular to suggest that conventions, some time ago now, having started to impose behavioral standards on their attendees (which have been interpreted in some frankly sketchy ways) was the start of the downfall and a sop to people who apparently need to be hand-held cradle to grave, and Gawd forbid they should get upset by others who may have the propensity to act like non-perfect humans. I tend to cringe at the use of “in my day” in any argument, but nevertheless back before everyone was so fragile, if you acted out of order you got whacked in the bollocks, comprehensively slapped up the head, or were subjected to a serious glare or worse, a talking-to from someone resembling Bernie Evans or Eve Harvey. I have been the recipient of all of the above, and at least to an extent it learned me, though some might think that not obvious (to which I reply: you should have seen me in my twenties and early thirties, when I had the capacity and ability to be remarkably unpleasant). I contend that when you’re dependent on policies for protection, you learn nothing. Gimme Shelter.

3 California Institute of Technology came to a WE CLOSE OUR EYES screeching halt, to look at a rainbow. ULRIKA O’BRIEN Oh, but what a rainbow. You never saw the like. It was double, and not just a little, not fading in “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack and out. Both arcs glowed vibrant and unbroken ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C- from end to end. It was intense, too – the clouds beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All shrouding the San Gabriel mountains were inky those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” black; against them the sun-dazzle lit the saturated Roy Batty / Rutger Hauer air like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. All of us This must have happened in the fall of 1987 or so. standing on the roofs of Caltech bore fleeting I can’t be sure; I didn’t write it up at the time. witness to a pair of converging Mardi Gras What’s worse, I didn’t have a camera when it bridges to Asgard, or the biggest, gayest Pride happened, so I have no pictures. It’s a real shame parade McDonald’s sign imaginable. Yes, unlikely about the pictures. It would be nice to have proof as it sounds, that absurd rainbow was a mirror that I didn’t just confabulate it up out of faded image of itself: a titanic M in the sky. I have never memory. Pix or it didn’t happen, as the kids say. seen another like it, before or since. I can’t even find pictures of one like it. Sometimes I wonder if It was a quiet, gloomy afternoon. I was alone in I invented the memory. After all, memory is my office. I worked as assistant to the Executive fallible – necessarily so. Officer for Physics, at Caltech. David, my boss, had already left for the day, gone to pick up his son Neurologically speaking, memory is a destructive from kindergarten. The faculty offices at my end process. Each time we call up a memory, our of the building stood dark behind locked doors. brains forge neuronal pathways slightly different Most of them belonged to superannuated emeriti from those along which the memory was created. who never came to campus; the active physicists We are actually overwriting what we “remember” were all housed in a different wing, with separate with something similar the brain creates in order support staff. I may have been the only living to recall it. The more often we remember, the person still left on the floor. It certainly felt like it. greater the net change, until, in principle, every plank of Theseus’ ship has been replaced without It had been raining on and off all afternoon, but us noticing a thing. The act of remembering the sun had finally slipped below the inky clouds, literally destroys memory. Not only are the events turning the sky neon orange and silhouetting the we don’t remember lost; even those we do palms along California Boulevard. If I squinted a remember are lost, changed by the iterated act of bit, the view out my window became a Monet. remembering. And of course we can’t tell, Through my open door, I heard the syncopated because we no longer have the overwritten original slap of rubber-soled feet on institutional linoleum, to compare to. pelting down the corridor. One of the secretaries Every moment of our lives, our culture, and our from the other end of the building burst in and history is thus abjectly ephemeral – gone when the gasped, “Run up to the roof! And look North! memory is overwritten . The act of preserving Right NOW!” Then she was gone in a flurry of moments by other means, by setting them down – black All Stars and flying hair. I sat staring after on paper, on film, on something – is therefore utterly her for a beat, stunned at the unprecedented invaluable. It’s timebinding, and timebinding is frenzy. I dithered for another two seconds. Then key to what makes us human. It’s how we create a I pelted out into the hall and up two echoing less mutable way of remembering. concrete flights to the roof, my door hanging wide behind me. Nic and I got into that a while back. In one of our editorial chats, I observed to Nic that the I was late to the party. All along the northern virtue in introducing Andy Hooper’s play by parapet people crowded together, gaping up at the placing it at the particular convention, with the San Gabriel mountains. And all over campus, on particular cast, of its first performance, was that every other roof I could see, it was the same. we were committing timebinding. Nic grumped Faculty and students, scientists and technicians, that he’d never understood what “timebinding” groundsmen and administrators, all dropped was even supposed to mean. “It always seemed whatever they were doing to climb the tallest like some term invented by bearded craft brewers available lookout and gaze North. The entire in Portland and ridiculously poncy.” Now, as you

4 might guess, I think timebinding is pretty time. I was thus amused to learn that important. I resolved to enlighten my esteemed “timebinding” was yet another meme bestowed on co-editor, in the gentle manner we usually adopt fandom thanks to Campbell’s (and Heinlein’s) when talking just amongst ourselves: broadly influential love affair with Korzybski and “Timebinding,” I explained, “you smug troglodyte, General Semantics. is the business of remembering in print or other I’d picked up Astounding on the recommendation of media the otherwise ephemeral cultural moments Alexei Panshin. Shortly after the 2019 Hugo of our microcosm so that they are preserved across Awards were announced, he mentioned it as an space and time for those who were not there. It is interesting and important contribution to the the act of lovingly encasing in amber the little history of the genre, unjustly passed over for the events of the culture that we inhabit, like when year’s Related Work rocket. Given Panshin has Simon Ounsley writes about a dinner outing of written a thing or two about Robert Heinlein I the Leeds mob, or you about your times getting figured he might be a good judge. And since involved in TAFF races. So don't come all working Lee’s primary subject is John W. Campbell, in the class snob about the term “timebinding,” to me, wake of Jeannette Ng’s bombshell acceptance my lad, ‘cause you're soaking in it. Timebinding is speech at the Hugos I thought it was a good time the reason that fandom is a self-aware culture. It’s to get acquainted with the figure at the center of the glue that holds us together.” the furor. “This smug troglodyte had never seen the term And it’s a heck of a book. Nevala-Lee has done actually defined, actually… Does seem a bit posh, an astounding job (no, really) of research and though...” documentation, poring over news accounts, “Oh, posh my Aunt Saga. I don’t recall ever seeing interviews, correspondence, and memoirs of the “timebinding” defined either, but it’s perfectly principals, their friends, acquaintances, and family. possible to infer the Over 20% of the final volume is bibliography and meaning from context, end notes. and it is, AFAICT, a The Campbell who emerges is a flawed human useful thing to have a being. Very flawed. By modern standards likely a term for - precisely bigot, occasionally a dick, and certainly a casual because, as I say, it’s key sexist. He was clearly in love with the idea of a to what makes fandom humanity evolved into supermen, and devoted to a what it is and not just a lot of ideas we’d now call pseudoscience, with our bunch of yobs babbling, benefit of half a century of hindsight and ‘I like Star Wars, me.’” discovery. (I used to wonder when it was that ESP The discussion reverted to migrated from the pages of science fiction stories more directly editorial to the exclusive purview of fantasy. Having read questions, but afterwards Astounding, I’d say it happened when John W. I decided to actually look it up, just to check my Campbell died, and ESP-as-science lost its most inferences, and passed on what I found: dogged champion.) Even with his fascination with Apparently “time binding” (two words) was coined the notion of homo superior, I don’t think there’s by Alfred Korzybski (above) in his General sufficient evidence to call Campbell a fucking Semantics, in the 1930s. Robert Heinlein fascist, though. Except in that loosest, hippy- subsequently used it in his 1941 GoH speech at dippiest sense of “fascist,” in which Barry Denvention, the 3rd Worldcon, saying that time Goldwater was one, too. binding was something fans were particularly good But Ng can be excused for a moment of verbal at. The Fancyclopedia page on it is here: laziness; her speech was extemporized on her phone at the last minute. What’s less excusable is http://fancyclopedia.org/timebinding the post-Hugo stampede to erase Campbell’s name Our conversation was perfectly timed. I had only from every award and honor it previously just recently finished Alec Nevala-Lee’s four- adorned, and consequently dump his legacy down headed biography, Astounding: John W. Campbell, the memory hole. While we were at it, we Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and dropped James Tiptree from the Tiptree award, the Golden Age of Science Fiction around the same and not that long ago, H.P. Lovecraft’s image was

5 similarly jettisoned from the World Fantasy Award, attractive as it is to suppose ourselves on the sides all to appease the heart burnings of keyboard of the angels, the facts suggest otherwise. We’re all warrior outrage addicts. And so the process of assholes sometimes. And in parlous times, which forgetting the legacies of our predecessors begins these very much are, I think it behooves rational in earnest. One hesitates to speculate who or what people to seek out and embrace the complexity, will next fall victim to our neo-Stalinist purges. the difficulty, and boring mundanity of facts, What was that epigram about those who cannot because facts don’t have an agenda, and myths remember the past …? most certainly do, an agenda that may not be what Maybe I’m overly pessimistic. Maybe younger we think. So let us fact check ourselves. Let’s do fans will not choose to forget entirely what they our homework. Let us remember people whole, or might owe to John W. Campbell, as whole as we can. Let’s do more work like Alec or Alice Sheldon, or any other Nevala-Lee’s book, acts of jiants with feet (and even knees) remembering the good and the of clay, by rejecting the need to bad together, and less like learn it. Maybe. But the taking John W. Campbell’s current trend infecting society name off the award that in general, and our little corner encourages new voices in of it in particular, does not give Science Fiction. me much hope. The underlying We Can Remember It for assumption of the cancel mob You Wholesale seems to be that objectionable And in the spirit of failings negate all value from achievements of the remembering things by writing them down, I’ll offender. Whatever meaning we might have found mention that while we drew our editorial titles for in a given human life is blotted out by deviance this issue from songs by Oingo Boingo, I from contemporary orthodoxies. One stain considered and discarded a number of other titles blackens all it touches, leaving no room for for framing my thoughts, which, when collected redemption or forgiveness. It’s like Original Sin, into a gestalt may offer the reader a different angle without Jesus, and we’re all going to Hell. on my point: I am not suggesting that we turn a blind eye to the failings of others, past or present. I just don’t ‘All You Zombies’ - The Hooters think the only alternative to flushing people down ‘The Wretches Gone Awry’ - Happy Rhodes the toilet when they offend us is simply ignoring the offense. I’m suggesting we remember both. I ‘Not Fade Away’ - Buddy Holly & the Crickets think it’s important to remember that George ‘Not One of Us’ - Peter Gabriel Washington’s dentures were made, not of wood, but of the human teeth of living slaves whom he ‘Something's Always Wrong’ -Toad the Wet paid individually to give up a tooth. All the while Sprocket also remembering that he was a brilliant general ‘When Heroes Go Down’ - Suzanne Vega who was key to securing the independence of the nascent United States and thus kick starting this ‘Jacob Marley's Chain’ - Aimee Mann grand experiment in rule by the people, rather ‘Chasing What's Already Gone’ - Mary-Chapin than by kings. He was a mixed bag. We all are. Carpenter What I am suggesting is that we resist the impulse Also, Nic says, “I don't entirely recall whether I to mythologize and demonize people, to magnify had mentioned (during our timebinding convo) either their accomplishments or their failings, but how fuckin’ daft I felt not knowing the provenance to remember all of it, as it is or was. I know the of the term, devotee of Van Vogt that I am, power of myth is deeply compelling; Sigmund although I don’t recall Van ever using it (as always, Freud built the greatest hoax of the 20th Century willing to be corrected) despite his fawning over on the power of myth. There may even be those Korzybski.” I don’t entirely recall either, but among you who will refuse to believe that luckily, I have the original conversation saved in e- Washington’s dentures weren’t made of wood, let mail... alone that they were made of human teeth – such is the vitality of long held false belief. But

6 UNUSUALLY IN THIS ISSUE...

It wouldn’t be at all unusual to have a Hugo-nominated artist on the front, would it? Much thanks, and welcome to the World’s Finest Fanzine, SARA FELIX. COVER/BACOVER

We asked PAT McMURRAY why he hadn’t attended the Dublin Worldcon, which he might have been expected to do. Unexpectedly, the reasons hark back to an unusual badge name, placing Dr Mengele at Octocon. PAGE 9

We do like a conrep from a more unusual location, if Melbourne can be described as such, and at the annual Continuum convention, LEIGH EDMONDS apparently had A Fair Day Out. PAGE 15

Noted playwright ANDY HOOPER submits his Saturday Night Special which originally premiered, and possibly derriered at Cor31u in Richmond, an unusually dystopian tale of Sock Puppets in Love. PAGE 20

Unusual surprise and joy emanated from STEVE JEFFERY when he was chosen as the Corflu 50 delegate for 2019, leading him to ponder whether FIAWOL, FIJAGH or FIAGAYMI in this trip report. PAGE 30

Most people we know (of some certain age) were introduced to sf by the likes of Asimov, Clarke, Van Vogt, Heinlein et al. More unusually perhaps, ROY HESSINGER was finally drawn to the genre by a different route: Gentley Does It. PAGE 40

JOHN WESLEY HARDIN and JACQUELINE MONAHAN are, perhaps, not so unusually valedictory in reviewing one of Vegas’ own, the typical explosion in the grafix factory that might distract from the noble words contained in Alan White’s Skyliner #6 PAGE 43

7 UNUSUALLY IN THIS ISSUE...

It’s definitely unusual that the best-selling American author of the 20th century at the time of his death (1970) should fall out of print shortly thereafter. NIC FAREY considers the oeuvre and legacy of the creator of Perry Mason, observing the Juke of Erle. PAGE 47

THE READERSHIP : Suscipe Verbum.

LOCS : PAGE 49

ON OTHER PAGES...

Uncredited text by Nic Farey and/or Ulrika O’Brien. We asked a number of people to supply their best and/or worst memories of the Dublin Worldcon, and these are festooned within. Thanks to Claire Brialey (p29), Cardinal Cox (p29), Cuddles (p13), Tommy Ferguson (p19), Jerry Kaufman (p42) and Ian Sales (p38). Guest lyricists: Glenn Glazer (p14); Andy Hooper (p39) Art: Jay Kinney : BEAM label logo (p2); Sara Felix Dublin dragon logo (various pp); Ulrika O’Brien (with Jae Leslie Adams and carl juarez) : Thy Life’s A Miracle cover (p35); Denny Marshall : ‘Sn(O)wman’ (p55); Jeff Schalles : Loccol illos (pp49, 51, 58); Craig Smith (p53); Pat Virzi : Corflu FIAWOL logo (p30); Alan White : Skyliner #6 cover (p44) Photography: Bill Burns : Corflu 36 (p32, 37); Cuddles : Lego Star Wars (p14); John Dallman : Mary Gentle (p41); J L Farey : Nic Farey (p8); Gary Mattingly : Sock Puppets in Love cast (pp22-30); Genaro Molina/LA Times : Eurydice (p62); Cath Ortlieb : Leigh Edmonds (p7), Continuum (p15-18); Steve Stiles : Andy Hooper (p7), Steve Jeffery (p7), Icarus (p33) ; Other photographs/illos, predictably nicked off the internet, selfies or unknown credit. Or FBF profile pics.

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS...

...is the name devised to describe the late-night fangatherings, surprisingly often in the environs of N Farey, which are mostly laid-back affairs, tending to involve the consumption of Jim Beam and other fine liquors, and a whole lot of bullshit amenable conversation on whatever topic might arise. If you think you might be or might have been an Unusual Suspect at any point in time, then you probably are. Wherever two or more may be gathered in the spirit of Tucker, we encourage you to raise a glass to the Suspects’ Toast: “Absent Friends”.

"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria."

8 DR MENGELE AT OCTOCON

PAT MCMURRAY

Two minutes later, while the gang still giggled and Like a lot of people in our community I’m weird grinned, I got my convention badge and a “Have and a bit damaged. Also like a lot of people in our a nice day. You should learn to take a joke.” community, most of this weirdness is because of stuff buried many decades in the past, as a child I’d had barely any prior interaction with any of or a teenager. these people, knew nothing of them or they of me. However, this is a story of something that happened to me as an adult, a couple of decades My fun weekend at that 1990’s Octocon wasn’t ago, within our community; something that’s over, though. The gang, this mob that thought an made it a struggle to ever feel comfortable or anti-Semitic attack on a stranger was funny, were welcome here. the people organising that weekend; the Dr Mengele “joke” had made it into the member The people who did this are members of our listing in the programme book. There weren’t community, some of them I see at every many people I knew at the convention, and the convention, and they have their own weirdnesses one or two I did talk to about it found the whole to struggle with as well. So even if you feel you episode very weird and unbelievable. could identify who I’m talking about please don’t, this is about me and part of why I am the way I My mistake am and make the decisions I do. Later I decided that I didn’t need any more harassment from Irish people – I had enough of that as a child – I was happy enough going to UK I looked at the Octocon name badge I’d just been conventions and just wouldn’t bother with Irish handed and felt my brain crack and the world tilt conventions in future. Bizarrely I can’t remember around me. if I tried Octocon again later, or if I just gave up The name on the badge read, “Dr Mengele.” immediately. “What’s this?” I asked, though I suspected I hoped to never again see any of the people in something from the giggling gang behind the that little gang and did my best to wipe away all reception desk. memory of the experience. I never talked about it, partly because it seemed from the couple of “It’s your name badge, the one you asked for.” conversations the random anti-Semitism just “I didn’t want a name badge and I would never seemed too weirdly directed at me for people to have asked for this one,” I stammered. find it believable, partly because it really played into my own mental struggles for reasons we’re “Well you did, so you’re going to have to wear this going to discuss. one or leave,” as the background giggling continued. I very much regret not having taken more public steps. Over time, I’ve come to think that my first “If you don’t give me a badge with my name on instinct - taking it to the Israeli embassy and it, I’ll leave, and my next stop will be the Israeli asking their advice - was the right thing to do, and embassy and the Irish Times.” I wish I’d done it at the time. They would have At last the grin vanished: “We didn’t know you probably found it a deeply weird thing to happen were Jewish.” to me, given that I’m not actually Jewish, but I doubt they’d have been amused. Today, this “I’m not, but this is still wrong.” incident would have been on Facebook and “Well, if you can’t take a joke, we’ll do you a Twitter within minutes, but that wasn’t that world. badge.” Whenever anyone complains today about the lack of privacy or the way internet mobs can be

9 PAT MCMURRAY

whipped up or something like that, I just That was very unusual then, in the mid-1960s, remember this and how much easier it would have when most of the traffic was the other way. So, been to manage something like that now. How there’s a little boy with a cut glass English accent much more careful people like this little gang in classes full of boys all born within a few miles of would have to be to hide their opinions and not the school. make these sort of jokes now. And of course, as the world got smaller, a couple I never completely lost my English accent, even of these people have turned up at UK after 17 years in Ireland I still sounded like a conventions. Five years later, explaining that these foreigner, though eventually most of the cut glass people were actually deceptive and vicious anti- quality faded. I made a few friends in college, Semites just seemed an incredible story – I tried to outcasts and foreigners like myself; but once or twice but without much success. afterwards job hunting with Irish firms was a never-ending nightmare – “where are you from, I’ve struggled with the after effects of bullying and how long have you lived here,” that sort of thing. childhood abuse most of my adult life, and most of that took place in Ireland by Irish people. Being Well I thought, let’s try London, and only then subject to that sort of attack in those accents just found that I sounded Irish enough to English brought back a whole lot of crap I didn’t want to people to again suffer discrimination for it. The deal with. This last experience just put me right biggest challenge was getting a job. By now I was off Irish fandom and having anything to do with calling myself Pat, but in my CV I used my it. official name Padruig. I spent 15 years in my first job, a small engineering company which There’s been other nasty effects of this little paid rubbish but was alright to work for and I incident. For example, a decade or so later when I just wasn’t getting interviews when I applied opened an Octocon programme book and found elsewhere. the “Dr Mengele” name in the membership list. I felt I didn’t need that in my life and so disposed of When I realised my name was the problem - it an entire collection of convention memorabilia in was my then wife who said English people reaction. couldn’t pronounce it – I changed it to Pat in my CV, which was a small improvement, though Am I Irish? interviews were still a bit weird. A random I was born in my father’s hometown of Belfast, person, an Irish receptionist at a recruitment but we fled the troubles to London when I was a company somewhere gave me the clue, “We were baby, then eventually went back to my mother’s expecting a girl, Pat’s normally a girl’s name in hometown of Cork when I was aged about five.

10 PAT MCMURRAY

England…” Since then, I’ve been Patrick for I’m actually writing this, sitting at home during work. the Dublin Worldcon. I would have liked to have gone. Most of the people involved seem pretty Discriminated against in Ireland for sounding decent, and it would have been nice to make English, in England for sounding Irish, and then some Irish friends, maybe open up some gender discrimination for having a girl’s name. opportunities for relocating if Brexit goes to hell. Some sort of nightmare trifecta! That’s something that was stolen from me, 20 years ago. So my outsider childhood was not fun. A couple of I just thought, I’m annoyed about this. I’ve been really nasty incidents pushed it from just bullying carrying out a one-person boycott of Irish into actual abuse. I have the usual difficulties you conventions for decades, but hiding my reasons find in adult survivors of childhood abuse: low for fear no-one will believe me, that people will self-confidence, lack of trust, difficulty building believe this lying pack when they claim it’s all my relationships, mild OCD, and bits of PTSD. fault in some way. These are mostly under control by now, in my 50s. I probably wouldn’t have done this even now But there was a certain horror in my realisation, a without being asked to explain by Nic and Ulrika decade or so ago, that this was my life and this was why I wasn’t going to the Dublin Worldcon and about as good as things are going to get. I’m not Belfast Eurocon. The reasons for not bothering looking for pity here. Others have suffered much with the Eurocon in Belfast are very different – worse, and I’m very happy in my life. But there that’s 90% about not having money at the right are reasons I’m the way I am, and most of them time. happened in an Irish accent. But, this, this is why I didn’t go to the Dublin Irish Conventions Worldcon. A single incident of anti-Semitism destroyed what could have been decades of a So, broadly, I decided I didn’t want to go to Irish happy involvement in Irish fandom. It eventually conventions. If Irish fans behaved like this, I even put a bit of a crimp in my involvement with obviously wasn’t welcome and, whatever it may UK fandom. look like, I don’t have the self-confidence to stay where I’m not wanted. Apologies I don’t need the reminder. Pretty much my first I’m sorry to my friends that I’ve kept this to fannish experience in Ireland was this nasty myself for so long, my behaviour must have incident, including the reminder I should learn to seemed really off-kilter on the subject of Irish take a joke… fans and fandom. There is a real reason why I don’t like or trust many Irish fans. I also didn’t want to support or work on any project involving these people – so I haven’t I’m especially, heartfelt sorry, a big regret in my bothered getting involved with their conventions; life sorry, to my Jewish friends and acquaintances, I haven’t written in their fanzines or read their that I didn’t stand up then, or since to say what books. There have been times, in the nature of had happened and to say it was wrong. I was fandom, where I haven’t been able to avoid scared of what would happen if I did, but you working with someone from that little Irish gang, still deserved the chance to hear the story and but I’ve always tried to keep my distance. make your own decisions.

Why now? Twenty years later, an unknown Irish fan in their That’s a really good question. 40s, maybe 50s, turned up at an Eastercon. After half an hour’s chat, they laughed and said you’re not as big a dick as people say at home. I smiled

11 PAT MCMURRAY

I can name two of the people involved with and moved on, but that stung. The problem is absolute certainty, but where’s the benefit to me in that I don’t know who most of that gang was or that? Naming them reduces the chance this gets how widely the “joke” was spread. It could have published – all due respect to the Editors – and been just that Octocon committee, it might have doesn’t add much to the story. If you do identify been their friends, it might have been staff, I have them, they’ll probably deny it, call me a liar or no idea. None of the people involved have ever fantasist, whatever. This is about what happened made any apology or an explanation, even if I had to me and how it affected me – I don’t want it to a copy of the right Octocon programme book I’m become about someone else. only guessing it was a committee conspiracy. I also think it’s right to give the people involved It’s interesting that Irish fandom seems to think some chance to start making amends – to do the of me as a dick. All I did was complain about an “I was young, I was stupid, I wasn’t really the sort anti-Semitic joke 20-odd years ago. So, if you’re of person who made anti-Semitic jokes, I was led Irish in the right age and you’ve found me stand- into a bad decision by others…” As you might offish, that’s because I’m looking at you and guess, I think they’re 20+ years late to explain and wondering, “Was it you?” apologise, and while I wouldn’t be hugely It’s almost impossible to know whether or not I’m impressed if they finally did now, your mileage safe with any Irish fan of the right of age - pretty may vary. much any Boomer or Gen Xer. There are three The ringleader though, the ringleader hasn’t exceptions: two Irish fans I know were involved, forgotten. They regularly tell me I should learn to one I know wasn’t. Everyone else, who can tell? take a joke, and grin at me, like nothing I ever do will make a change: forever me as victim, them as bully. And why haven’t I named them? I reject that. It’s complicated, for several reasons. Coda My expectation even now is that I won’t be believed. It’s so awful that I didn’t expect to be I’ve really struggled with this, now I’ve written it. believed at the time – that the first big lie they’d In addition to the usual night weasels running try was that I’d asked for this badge name, and around my brain - will people think I'm crazy, etc. then that I’d be rubbished for not taking a joke, or - there's this extra special shiny new set of worries for being annoying, or for doing something to to squeak at me all night. deserve to be treated like this. I know how bullies In an attempt to appease those persistent weasels, work. a little night music: 25 years later, I'm mostly OK. I haven’t named the people involved, because I It’s not a nice thing to have happened, even to an don’t know who was or wasn’t, not for certain. I’m adult, but I’ve survived much worse. And why me, not even sure which year this was – a mid-1990s why that “joke”? I have never known, and I no Octocon in the Royal Marine is all I can give you. longer care. Without access to the Octocon programme books If you read this as an attack on anyone, you're of the ‘90s I can’t name the exact convention, or reading it wrong, and you don’t know me as well who the committee were that year. Even if I as you think you do. I’ve found writing this could, I don’t know which of them were involved. therapeutic and though I could happily have It might not have been all the committee. The fact hidden it away forever, I felt I owed the Editors for that it was in the programme book and none of asking me. them since have ever apologised makes me think it probably was all of them, but I don’t know.

12 WORLDCON IN DUBLIN CUDDLES Here be dragons. Honestly. Scotland for Hogmanaycon, a small Millennium SF event in December 1999 that I tried to Being back in Dublin was a delight and to be organise in Glasgow. It was bit emotional for both attending Ireland’s first Worldcon event was an of us as we recalled some of the hilarious additional bonus. The two venues, the new conversations & correspondence we had Dublin Conference Centre, an attractive modern exchanged – blimey, he remembered much more building overlooking the river and the magnificent than me despite his assertions during the concert Samuel Beckett ‘Harp’ Bridge, and the nearby that his memory was “like Emmenthal cheese Point Square, were filled to capacity and James some days!” Bacon & his team put together a spectacular range of programme. Many rooms were packed Martin Hoare, a stalwart of British fandom & and by the Friday, designated queueing areas connoisseur of beers & ales had helped Worldcon became a necessity. Both the to organise real ales for the centre & convention staff con bar. His sudden death, worked hard to keep people just weeks before the con, moving, managed the was a huge shock for many queues and maintained a of us and, in his memory, calm atmosphere. The main the main convention bar problem was bottlenecking was called “Martin’s Bar” at change over, avoiding and I confess, that brought a overloading the escalators lump to my throat. Martin and keeping space at was a dear friend, whom elevators clear for those who I’ve known literally my needed to use them. There entire fandom life (40+ were a lot of scooter and years) and his death was a wheelchair users! terrible blow but seeing everyone in his bar filled me Both the Dealers’ Room with great pride: it was and Art Show were smaller always full of fans, joking than I was expecting, and laughing, meeting old certainly not on par with friends and making new LonCon, but I suspect that ones was probably a reflection of the Brexit madness affecting As always, the Masquerade costs for some traders & was exceptional and exhibitors. Local fans and listening to the live LEGO hobbyists put performance of together some amazing displays including a Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain during the recreation of the attack on the rebel base from Star Worldcon Orchestra concert literally took my Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. Amazing. breath away and I had goosebumps! The concert was a huge success and the musicians that joined One of the highlights for me was Spider fans in Martin’s bar seemed genuinely surprised Robinson’s concert, a small affair in which he and a tad bit overwhelmed by the compliments talked about his music & his enduring love for his and praise. It was well deserved. Cherry on top wife Jeanne, and jammed some songs, other has to be scientist & NASA astronaut Dr. Jeanette musicians being encouraged to join in. He Epps presenting the Hugo for Best Novel to Mary opened his set by singing ‘Michelle’, which caught Robinette Kowal for The Calculating Stars. me by complete surprise, and later we chatted about Jeanne and how much they wanted to be in

13 THE FACEBOOK ALGORITHM

NOT BOILED IN LEAD

In April when I Friended you I liked your content, too Alas, my Facebook Friend, alack A stranger to me since my feed went whack

Chorus: O the Facebook algorithm, O the Facebook algorithm!

Dive in the meme pool, scroll that feed Hunting for updates on friends to read Reset to “most recent” again if you can Still you can’t beat that Facebook algorithm, man!

[Repeat Chorus]

The idiots bloom and the trolls do too Here's advice I'll give to you Read the posts before you strike And never “like” anyone you like

[Repeat Chorus]

Letters, and fanzines, and Argosy, I’m reading print and I’m watching TV Content I can still find reliably The Facebook algorithm won’t beat me!

[Repeat Chorus]

Zuck is good, and Zuck is great, Zuck’s a big invertebrate Zuck made Facebook for you and me To be packaged and sold for the highest fee

[Repeat Chorus]

Original song: https://youtu.be/l83rheFrjiY

Lyrical manipulation by Ulrika O’Brien and Glenn Glazer

14 A FAIR DAY OUT LEIGH EDMONDS

It has been years since I went to conventions is a collection of rooms of various sizes all linked regularly because they haven’t been the to a central reception area where registration is rewarding experience for Valma and I that they located. This is quite a handy arrangement once were. However, for the last three years I’ve because everyone had to pass through the central been running a panel session at the annual area eventually but otherwise it’s a very standard Melbourne convention, Continuum, as part of convention venue and the only thing that might my history of fandom project so I’ve spent a day tip you off that the convention was being held in at the con. This year it also turned out that Australia is the accents of some of its Bruce Gillespie needed interviewing about SF participants. Commentary, which gave me two jobs to do, By the time I arrived, just before 10am when the fortunately one after the other. Additionally, programming for the day started, there was a David Grigg wanted to interview me for the swirl of activity with people bustling around. A podcast that he and Perry Middlemiss have few of them said hello. They must know me but started doing, so that was my memory for faces must three things to occupy my have gone because I didn’t day. recognize them and the usual The convention site is a way out in Australia of traditional one for calling everyone ‘mate’ Melbourne, the Jasper, which doesn’t work at sf is a relatively small hotel up conventions. Even before I’d Elizabeth Street next to the made my way through the Victoria Markets. Valma and throng to the registration I went to a Dr Who desk I bumped into Roman convention there before we Orszanski and Marc Ortlieb. moved from Melbourne to Seeing those two up and Canberra, and that was in about so early made me 1979, so it’s become a wonder what was wrong with venerable convention hotel them. But perhaps it’s a since then. Previously I’ve prerogative of the older fan got there from the train from to miss the room parties Ballarat by caching the tram Roman Orszanski, Jean Weber which means we wake up in from Spencer Street Station the morning feeling better up to Elizabeth Street and then a tram running than we used to, and climb out of bed earlier. up that street past the Jasper. On the June Justin Ackroyd came over a few seconds later holiday long weekend that can mean a lot of time and, after some chit-chat, he took me to his book standing around waiting for the occasional tram stall in what we would once have called the so this time I decided to walk. It wasn’t as far as I Hucksters Room, and I talked him into selling me thought and it only took about half an hour, but a book, a big, fat and expensive Jack Dann-edited the winter wind whistling through the Melbourne anthology of local writing which, Roscoe willing, streets made it a very cold trek (by Australian I will get around to reading one of these days. standards). The hucksters room was not large and there was Conventions at the Jasper happen on two levels. no feverish activity within, only a few distracted On the ground floor is the large meeting hall looking people sitting behind tables selling a few behind the lobby, restaurant and bar where the books and magazines. I assumed these were the big sessions take place, and on the first floor there small press publishers that have become so

15 LEIGH EDMONDS common of late. In previous years I’ve taken mentally defective but all I could offer by way of time to look over their offerings but never found explanation (and aren’t you sometimes amazed anything so interesting that I had to buy it. This by what comes out of your own mouth?) ‘We’re means, of course, that I’ve probably missed out old and we don’t know about things like this’. on the Next Big Thing, but I’ve already got a Robin’s room was on the 27th floor and the full house full of books, one or two by people who length window afforded an extravagant view out became Big Things, but that’s no reason to buy over the cityscape of Melbourne to the north, so books to add to all the other stuff Valma and I I took photos. David set up two recorders for the have by people who never became more than interview, one a flash and expansive microphone well-known. plugged into his laptop and the other was his My first task for the day was to meet up with mobile phone on a little stand. There was a Robin Johnson (the chairman of Aussiecon, reason for this but I’m sure David’s explanation 1975) and David Grigg (chairman of Aussiecon at the time would have confounded Campbell II, 1985). He, along with Perry Middlemiss too. I also turned on my trusty old Zoom (chairman of Aussiecon III and co-chair of recorder, just for my own record and, pausing for Aussiecon IV, do you like the name dropping), a moment to reflect on the profligate use of wanted to interview me for their podcast and technology, away we went. David tells me the needed somewhere quiet to interview came out well but I do it, so Robin offered his thought I just burbled on room, which was not entirely about this and that for the convenient because it was in a next hour. (And if you’re hotel a few blocks away. I somehow reading this Vol wandered about looking for Molesworth, I’m sorry I them but after a few ‘Robin’s couldn’t remember your looking for you’, and one or name.) David edited the two, ‘David’s looking for you’, interview and achieved the I decided to sit in one place, near impossible in making me watch the convention flow sound interesting and almost around me and within a few Huckstering: LynC intelligent. (If fans want to minutes they turned up. make up their own minds After getting the entry card for his room from they can listen to David and Perry’s podcast, Robin, David and I walked there (in the freezing ‘Two Chairmen Talking’, episode 5, I’m in the cold rain). second half.) Robin’s hotel was one of those modern boutique After we talked for an hour or so we turned off glass, concrete and chrome hotels springing up the equipment, stowed it and headed off in our around Melbourne, with modern tech that separate directions because David has no interest confounded David and I before we got to Robin’s in current day conventions. I can understand his room. Inside the lift we couldn’t get the button point of view but these days I have a professional from Robin’s floor to light up when we pushed it. observational (almost anthropological) interest in We both pressed, with increasing vigor, looked at them so I headed back to the Jasper. David and I each other and wondered what John W were close fannish friends in the 1970s but have Campbell would do in this situation. Our drifted apart since then, so we agreed to do the frustration was ended when a young woman fannish thing and do lunch the next time I have a popped into the lift, waved her card at the button few spare hours in Melbourne. panel and pressed the button for her floor. I The bar at the Jasper runs along the front of the looked astounded, David waved Robin’s card in a building, facing onto the street. I looked in to see similar fashion and pressed the floor button, and if there were any familiar fannish faces but it it worked. She looked as us as though we were

16 LEIGH EDMONDS didn’t look like there were many from the important questions; ‘what is the view out your convention there. What is it with Australian fans window?’ ‘Do you do redrafts on-screen or on these days, too intent on being creative, or paper?’ and “who is your agent and what were relevant or something? Back in the day when we your average gross earnings over the past five started holding conventions again they were in years?’ But since I didn’t want to stand out as a venues that didn’t have bars. But we’d read cranky old fan, I restrained myself and stuck my convention reports in British fanzines so we knew nose back in Jack Dann’s book. what to do when we graduated to conventions in When the torment concluded I got out of that hotels with bars. The bar at the Victoria Hotel hall as quickly as I could and found myself a was a very convivial place and I got very well place on the bench in the lobby area outside to acquainted with it on several occasions. There watch the fans spill out. What an inelegant was one convention of which the only solid bunch science fiction fans are these days, even memory I now have is of Perry Middlemiss’s more nerdish than I’d like to think we were back smiling face and a glass of Beam, perhaps more in the day. Of course, in our day looking nerdish than one. The Jasper is far from that standard but was unfashionable whereas, these days, some of at least it sells grog, sometimes. Later in the day I the people spilling out seemed to have gone to heard that the hardened old hands were very some trouble to look like nerds, you couldn’t look upset because they had learned that the bar at like that by accident. the Jasper would be closed for the final day of the convention, which is probably the day when it is There were a few filthy pros floating around most needed. though, with the amount of self and small press publishing going on these days, I reckon half the Back at the convention there were more people to people there might have been able to call talk to. One of them was Eric Lindsay who I themselves ‘published authors’ but probably not convinced to buy me a drink in the bar before the pros? That probably means making money out day was over. I always like to sample at least a of the caper and I doubt that there’s much of little of the program so, coming on for noon it that going on. I had a quick chat to Janeen was time for one of the GoH speeches. It Webb, nodded at Jack Dann and said ‘We pass featured the world famous Ken Liu, a pro I’ve again’ as I saw Cat Sparks coming up the stairs as never heard of, talking about a book he’s written I was going down. There were probably many that I haven’t read. Sometimes these speeches published or aspiring authors around the place can be quite entertaining but this one was a because I saw a bunch of people huddled around disappointment, an hour of unprepared a table with Jack at one stage, perhaps plotting interview in which the interviewer asked the world domination but more likely talking about GoH what his favourite things were and about the views from their windows, how they redraft details of his book. Frankly, I was bored witless and their agents, but probably not their gross and got out the book that Justin had just sold me annual incomes for the past five years. to take my mind off it. Had I been able to get out of the room without everyone seeing me All of you have been to conventions so you know (note to self, ‘up the back, always up the back!’) I what happened next, fans milling around and would have been out of there and into the bar, thinking about lunch. Eventually I ended up and a much happier fan for it too. with Bruce Gillespie and another fan whose name escapes me, led by Roman to the Victoria Towards the end of the session the interviewer Markets where, he assured us, we’d find asked for questions from the floor. There were something good to eat. Being Sunday afternoon the usual fanboy questions about stuff in books the market was very crowded, so crowded that I they had read or what you might call the felt little inclination to go inside (we don’t have romantic side of being a writer. I was possessed crowds in Ballarat). Consequently, Bruce and I of the mad desire to jump up and ask the really

17 LEIGH EDMONDS found our way to an 21st Century is, no flying almost deserted Chinese cars but instead...). So restaurant just over the prepared, at 3pm Bruce, road where our little Rob, Robin and I ascended Chinese host herded us to to our allotted tiny room a table he liked and then and talked about ignored us for as long as he Australian fandom in the could. That didn’t worry early 1970s. We got us for a while as we talked through most of the things about books, records, cats on our list and you will be and other important able to hear it all on things. L-R: Robin Johnson, Bruce Gillespie, Roman Orszanski’s web site Unfortunately we had to be Rob Gerrand, Leigh Edmonds RSN (along with the 1950s back at the Jasper and in and 1960s sessions). the restaurant by 2pm so the group of old time The next session in the same room was me fans I had gathered together could plan what we interviewing Bruce about SF Commentary. This were going to talk about in public at 3pm in our came about when the person who had proposed ‘Australian fandom in the ‘70s’ session. Come the session became alarmed at the enormity of about 1.40 Bruce and I were getting concerned the undertaking and cancelled out, so Bruce that no food had appeared and the staff seemed asked if I could help. Having done a lot of unaware of our presence when we tried to attract interviewing in my other life as an historian, I their attention, as though we had disappeared dreamed up a few generic questions which I into another dimension, just like you see in the asked Bruce, trying to make it look as though I movies. Eventually the food arrived, it was very was dreaming them up spontaneously. It might good, but we had to cram it into ourselves and have worked, people looked interested and Bruce poor Bruce had to leave some of his buns talked for almost an hour about himself and his uneaten as we dashed off. fanzine. That interview will probably also be Back at the hotel I discovered that another of our found on Roman’s website. panelists was absent because he was in hospital. I After that we wandered out into the corridor and had originally asked four old time fans to be on I tracked down Eric for that drink in the bar. On the panel and a couple of weeks earlier Bill the way there we picked up a few others, took Wright was injured in an accident with a taxi and possession of the space around a couple of tables ended up in hospital. Then, at the last minute, and started drinking, chatting and eating bheer Lee Harding had some heart trouble and had battered chips. It would have been the highlight also been admitted to hospital, so that half our of the day and I might still be there had not panel was absent. (This might be a warning to Helena Binns reminded me that I had a train to people I ask to participate in a panel discussion catch. next year.) Robin Johnson agreed to step in to fill On the train home I tried to dip into Jack Dann’s one vacancy but when I asked Eric Lindsay if he would join us he looked very worried and begged book again or read a fanzine, but I was too tired and kept nodding off. When I got home Valma off. wanted to know what had happened. I told her With the help of Rob Gerrand, Roman and a about some of the people I’d met and how the floating congregation of others we devised a long convention program items went. ‘And how was list of great things we wanted to talk about at the day?’ Valma asked. ‘I enjoyed catching up 3pm, and then got diverted onto other topics, with old fannish friends,’ I replied, ‘but do I ending up with Terry Frost teaching us how to sound excited?’ ‘Not really’, she summed up. monetize podcasts (what an amazing world the

18 MY FIRST WORLDCON TOMMY FERGUSON

“Never! Get away - for real? But you’ve been moved. Yes, the queues were too long, and I about for ages…” - all of fandom. missed Jocelyn Bell Burnett and a few other things I wanted to see (“I don’t do no steenking “Yup, this is my first WorldCon…” – Tommy. queues...!”) but I wasn’t annoyed in any sense. Had this conversation, or variations on a theme, a Some of the bitching and moaning I heard was lot at this year’s Dublin WorldCon. Was never was too much; I happily ignored it. too keen on the whole ‘An Irish WorldCon’ thing, The dramatic interpretation of the Enchanted though could see why they flogged it that way. And Duplicator was cheesy beyond belief, some of the I’ve missed all three UK WorldCon, the Dutch singing was suboptimal but hats off to everyone one and those Scandi ones as well - all a bit BBC involved for the effort. Seeing Walt’s duplicator on Four for me. stage at the end added some real poignancy to the So how was it? I enjoyed it - lots of praise, a few whole production, quite moving in counter poise grumbles, but overall with my first WorldCon fee to the production values. Neatly followed by the of 100 euros it was really worth it. What made it Irish Fandom panel (which I did queue for!) and the most fun, and I suppose a key benefit of this was inspirational - I even learned that Walt WorldCons, is meeting the people I haven’t seen Willis was involved in the establishment of the for ages. Whilst not reeling off a bunch of names - Alliance Party in NI - a new one on me. I’m still Eve & John Harvey made my weekend by not only lost on the appeal of Kaffe Klatches and queueing remembering me, but doing so fondly. Briefly to get a ticket at the table, just don’t get it. In my saying hello to Kev McVeigh and Steve Glover day we rocked up to the author, offered to buy was also fun; as was having a few drinks with them a pint and sat and chatted. Except for Ian Doug Bell and Christina Lake. Actually, I could go McDonald - he rocks up to me and asks for a on for a bit longer, there were loads of wonderful pint… encounters; people are what ‘makes’ my fandom, If the goal of a WorldCon (and indeed the not just fanzines, conventions or SF groups - they wonderful EuroCon that happened in Belfast the are all just enablers. weekend after) was to bring like-minded fans And they enabled me to meet new people - Geri together - this one worked. For me it also Sullivan, who’s that auntie you don’t want your reminded me of why I’m involved in my hobby - kids to spend too much time with (but secretly love the people. A close friend once remarked she it when they do.) Rob Jackson, who is still doing never wanted to see another fanzine from me, paper zines and has sent me down a rabbit hole I because I only wrote when things weren’t going may never get out of, but I’ve gone willingly well in my life. I’m now getting my fanac ‘back on’ anyway. Johan Anglemark whose awareness of all again for precisely the opposite reason. Boy won’t things fannish continues to amaze me, even she be surprised! though I’m not sure why… Jukka Halme, who I So, what is next? Well whilst I’m obviously back in had only passing name recognition of, yet who the fannish fold, have plans for a new fanzine remembered some of my fanzines and specific (paper, of course…) of my own and visiting Corflu articles and greeted me like a long-lost friend, Heatwave next year (hat tip to the Corflu 50 fund). which I suppose in fannish terms I am. That’s My However I’m being sensible in my fanac and Fandom – there in a nutshell. commitments I take on. I have a few fan historical Yes, there were some programme highlights. The projects on the go and, as it was going to go under, WorldCon Orchestra and show was - and I I’ve stepped up as treasurer and co-chair of next mentioned this to Brian Nesbitt and James Bacon year’s Belfast SF convention TitanCon. But that’s a number of times - worth the trip to Dublin on its it, I’m not taking on any other fannish own. I’m not a great classical music fan, or a commitments… contemporary dance fan either, but I was certainly A trip report, you say? Oh, okay...

19 SOCK PUPPETS IN LOVE ANDREW P HOOPER

stole and loved and cracked wise and wore hats Dramatis Personae/Original cast: and loved. It was a world full of Bad Things, Winston Bacon, Keystroke Monitor, Ministry of Property and Profit and Gender Confusion, but I Truthiness (Nic Farey) love reading about it. I can close my eyes and imagine a world of Bookmakers and Gin Mills Harmonica Soames, a government MP3jay on and Nesselrode Pies, and it’s so real, I can taste it the Deletion Channel (Aileen Forman) all. Sometimes I think all I’m missing is the dame Colin Twittering, a nervous colleague of – excuse me, a female citizen – to share the Winston (Nigel Rowe) fantasy with. If I could get a family permit, life would presently be perfect. John O’Brain, secretly an interrogator for the Ministry of Frenemies (Michael Dobson) This story begins with a conversation with my workmate Colin Twittering. Colin shares the port Narrator (Sumner Hunnewell) wall of my cubicle (it’s the starboard wall of his), and we often go to lunch at the same time, partly Narration: Welcome to the Treehouse of coz we enjoy it, and partly so neither of us can Fandom, a rickety, ramshackle structure your rifle through the other’s desk while they aren’t mother warned you not to play in. But everyone there. needs a place to light off stink bombs, resent authority, and hide their collection severed Barbie Colin Twittering: Ha. Hum hum. Tum ra tum, doll heads. The first of our three startling tales da dum la dum. Funniest thing isn’t it. tonight takes place in a totalitarian society ruled Winston Bacon: What’s that, Colin? by a charismatic dictator and perpetually monitored by draconian agencies devoted to Colin Twittering: I have a tune stuck inside my enforcing docility and obedience. Does the world head. of Dronestrip One resemble Britain under Winston Bacon: Did you try whistling or singing Thatcher, Russia under Stalin, or America under it out? Obama? When did you stop beating your wife? Even under such paranoid conditions, the human Colin Twittering: I can’t do either of those desire for art and affection remains undimmed, in things, or at least I shouldn’t. And don’t ask me our tale of SOCK PUPPETS IN LOVE…. what it is, because it won’t do you any good to know. Winston Bacon: My name’s Winston Bacon. I live in the Seven Murders District of the Capital Winston Bacon: What’s that mean? City of Dronestrip One. I work for the Ministry of Colin Twittering: It’s a tune I heard on the Truthiness as a keystroke monitor, primarily Deletion Channel out of the Ministry of looking for data entry workers who have fallen Certainty. You should listen some time, it’s quite asleep on the keyboard. (Airily) I love Uncle brilliant. Albert, of course, which is my duty as a citizen, and the least he can expect, really, given all that Winston Bacon: I’ve never heard of it. What he’s done for us. are they deleting? But if I’m honest, my twin passions are Colin Twittering: Songs. They play the songs, interpersonal relations and hardboiled detective and then they delete them. th fiction of the 20 Century. I enjoy a nice Winston Bacon: If the Ministry is deleting government romance as much as any citizen, but them, are you supposed to be listening? my clearance at the Ministry allows me to access files scanned out of Pulp Magazines of the last Colin Twittering: It’s not seditious or counter- Century, when unreconstructed men and the revolutionary. It’s just extra music. women who loved them fought and loved and

20 ANDREW P HOOPER

Colin Twittering: Ta. Think of Uncle. Winston Bacon: Think of Uncle. (a beat) I caught up with those scoff-keys in Swindon, and sent two of them to a re-education camp in Uzbekistan. It was a satisfying day. I felt like I had earned some sort of treat. I spun the dial on my handset to Ministry 66-B, then sat with wide eyes as I listened to Harmonica Soames for the first time. Harmonica Soames: It’s 1640 at the Ministry of Certainty, and therefore, everywhere else as well. We’ll turn our attention now to the Norwegian jazz guitarist Terje Rypdal. The son of Nic Farey, Nigel Rowe an Oslo composer and orchestra leader, Rypdal was classically trained on the piano and trumpet before taking up the guitar in his teens. We’re Winston Bacon: Extra to what? going to listen to a track from his 2002 album Colin Twittering: Oh, you know. There are “Lux Aeterna.” This is the beautiful – and thousands and thousands of songs. It’s confusing. superfluous “First Movement: Luminous Galaxy,” So Uncle asked the Ministry to figure out which Winston Bacon: It was a good afternoon for songs were the best. They chose a huge number – Terje Rypdal, or a bad one, depending on your its more than 4,000 songs on Uncle’s playlist. perspective. Harmonica gave terminal exposure to Winston Bacon: And what happens to deleted his 1968 solo composition “Dead Man’s Tale,” songs? and a song recorded with The Dream in 1967, “Night of the Lonely Organist and His Colin Twittering: They broadcast them once Mysterious Pals.” I could access the show anytime on the Deletion Channel – give them a fair airing as long as I kept my clearance, but those three – then the tape is put on file, in case anyone ever songs would never be broadcast again. No wonder changes their mind. I love it because they never she sounds sort of sad. play anything twice, you know? And then there’s Harmonica. Harmonica Soames: After this three minute message from the Youth Anti-Sex League, we’ll be Winston Bacon: They play a harmonica? listening to Wild Weekend, a track from 1963 by Colin Twittering: Harmonica’s a person. the Rebels of Buffalo, New York. I promise it’s red Harmonica Soames. She’s an MP3jay for the hot and redundant. The time is 1707 in the Ministry of Certainty. You could spread her voice Ministry tower, where we remind all citizens to on toast with a knife. Think of Uncle. Winston Bacon: Sounds good. What Channel is Winston Bacon: Colin was right: her voice was she on? amazing. It seemed to settle over me like a warm fog. She seemed to have real compassion for the Colin Twittering: Ministry 66-B. Not for the artists who were being edited out of the culture, punters. Responsible ears only. the works that were to become Non-Songs. And Winston Bacon: My ears are the most tireless; she never missed a program, appearing six responsible part of me. My mouth, on the other days a week from 12 to 8 pm. She covered every hand, will say reactionary things for chocolate. I’ll kind of music from pop and jazz to field see you back at the Cube. I’m going to catch some recordings made in the highlands of New Guinea. people in Swindon looking at cat videos at work. As I listened to her description, I realized what an

21 ANDREW P HOOPER

enormous amount of music there is in the world, appear. I had my Brown Recluse put down, just in and what a wretchedly small slice 6,000 songs case they nick me. I hated to think of her hanging represents of that Universe of Sound. behind the toilet, waiting to bite a bum that never materializes. Harmonica Soames: As we approach the hour of 1400 in the State Paradise that Uncle Albert Winston Bacon: Aye, you’re a soft touch. You’re has created for all his many nieces and nephews, like the old Viscount of Ghaaaastlywood who let we take a final look at the French vocalist and the cripples and wee beasts eat the leftover crusts actress Claudine Longet, and her debut single, an and turnip tops. Such leniency encourages angelic performance of Antonio Carlos Brasileiro revolutionary thought, you know. de Almeida Jobim’s Bossa Nova composition Colin Twittering: I’d like to see you explain “Meditation.” Her performance of the song on your sense of humor to John O’Brain. You’d be a the NBC TV drama “Run for your life” attracted pit pony by morning. No – ye’d work the attention of Producer Herb Alpert, who soon for a pit pony. Have to call him “Mister Pony.” Get his teas signed her to a record deal. Here is the ethereal and those little digestive biscuits made from and henceforth unnecessary Claudine Longet with “Meditation.” Japanese seaweed. Winston Bacon: Oh, I hate those. Winston Bacon: My business is finding things that people try to hide; the other side is that I Colin Twittering: You’ll be pleading for them know how to hide things that people like me look once O’Brain gets hold of you. Three days in for. It was an open secret in the employee reprisal Detention, you’ll be pleading for one of those section of the Ministry of Truthiness. Everyone biscuits. was tuned in to Harmonica’s musical funeral, and Winston Bacon: You’re acting like we’re already just pretending to go about the business of state on the reeducation train. Have a little faith. You repression and paranoia. It was too good a got six kids to inform on their parents before situation to last, and it didn’t. lunch. They need you, Colin, you make the prison Winston Bacon: Ah, the toast is lovely and soft system profitable. today. Like Mother used to boil. Colin Twittering: Little Chelloveck tells me he Colin Twittering: So I’ve been dying to talk to wants to do his dad because his dad wants him to you. John Glebe in Financial Obsessions says take extra maths and science to be an engineer, we’re getting a new Headman. Fella name of and the little scoundrel wants to spend time with O’Brain. Comes from Toxic Denials, a big smoke his promiscuous girlfriends instead. I put him in over there. for the Albert with Oak Leaves. Winston Bacon: What’s it to do with us? Winston Bacon: He’ll get one pregnant, and it’s the Swindon Gulag for all three of them. Colin Twittering: Numbers are down, but hours are up. The whole section remains at desk Colin Twittering: Too bloody right. Anyway, an average of 26 minutes after filing their last Uncle’s watching, try to look busy. denunciations of the day. “What are they up to in Winston Bacon: Think of Uncle. there?” ask certain creative and dangerous people. Think of Uncle. Winston Bacon: Redundant, by Uncle’s Sunday Colin Twittering: Trousers. Same thing, creative and dangerous. Winston Bacon: John O’Brain was a close- cropped man with a skirt of grey hair at his Colin Twittering: Whiffle while you may, dear temples, and a mustache as black as Carrie boy, but Mr. O’ Brain takes many prisoners. Lots Nation’s bonnet. (Whoever she may be; I got that of new CV’s and applications coming on file this from a writer named Raymond Chandler.) week, like someone knows vacancies are about to O’Brain had intensely dark eyes that looked quite

22 ANDREW P HOOPER

effortlessly through you, and his manners were old entertainments. Thinking always of our Uncle, I school secret police: Everyone was guilty of am, Harmonica Soames. something, they just didn’t know what it was. Two Winston Bacon: I liked it. There was something copy carriers were let go in the first three days, but defiant about the use of the word “genius.” both were stalling in menial Ministry jobs to avoid Genius is officially designated an “excessive the army. O’Brain sent them straight to the State identifier,” and a term we are generally not Artificial Limb service to be fitted for stumps. But allowed to use in Ministry communications. I then…silence. No sackings or long interviews with typed in the phrase “You’re the Genius, Really,” accusing shouts echoing behind the frosted glass of then immediately deleted it. The knowledge that his luxury office. He had been on our floor for a any of my colleagues could have found my month when I wrote my first note to Harmonica irresponsible outburst seemed to make the Soames. contents of my stomach do a dizzying dance. I Harmonica Soames: Time is 1304 in the carefully typed “Appreciated the deletion of the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Utopia. Since 1985, the daring tintinnabulations of the Estonian Arvo Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra has been belting Pärt. We are curious if you have ever considered out Jamaican jazz and ska music for fans from deletion of works by the Italian Instabile Kure to Kagoshima. We’ll dismiss them with a Orchestra on the same grounds, particularly a cover of Donald Fagen’s “Walk Between the track from their recording Litania Sibilante. From Raindrops”, recorded live at Yokohama’s Down an admiring colleague. Two days later, a data Beat Arena on July 7th, 2007 – it’s a charming transfer carton arrived from the Ministry of arrangement, and completely unnecessary to life Certainty. It didn’t have my name – just my in the perfect nation-state. console number. I took the enclosed data stick out of the box, and quaveringly inserted into a data Winston Bacon: There was a section for port. comments by Ministry officials at the bottom of the page that identified each broadcast, but no Harmonica Soames: To the party concerned one had ever used it. It took several days to work with Deleted Music in the Reprisals Section of the up the courage, but I finally broke through: “Dear Ministry of Truthiness: Please use this system to Miss Soames: We in the Popular Reprisals Section communicate with us at Ministry Channel 66-B. of the Ministry of Truthiness appreciate your Sensitive material is best discussed in a secure comments on this deleted material. It is of setting. Your previous inquiry will be addressed at considerable value in identifying decadent approximately 1440 in tomorrow’s Deletion list. tendencies in younger and more imaginative Thank you for recognizing the importance of the citizens. You’ve a special place in Uncle’s heart; Deletion Service’s efforts. keep up the good work!” I went back and looked at what I’d written about thirty times in the next 36 hours; finally, she posted a reply. Harmonica Soames: We in the Ministry of Certainty are always delighted to support the efforts of Truthiness in general, and Reprisals in particular. It is of considerable comfort to know that these dangerously inspirational works of genius will no longer distract citizens from more useful and appropriate Aileen Forman, Nic Farey

23 ANDREW P HOOPER

Winston Bacon: And at 20 minutes after two reproductive parts, but they have a rather the following afternoon, my headphones echoed masculine appearance, with the luxuriant with the glorious sonic chaos of “Scarlattina” by mustache usually attributed to Italian plumbers. the Italian Instabile Orchestra. For 13 and a half John O’Brain: Quite right. You see, I know you minutes, I rolled along with an 18-man audio have considered this problem. But you probably exploration party. Trombones and other horns don’t understand its full scope. I believe there are performed feats of strength, while Umberto an unknown number of Indeterminates – we Petrin’s nimble piano wove in and around the called them “Gender Criminals” in the old days – shifting melody, sometimes skronkful and wild, living and working within the party membership. other times confidently whirling through a fast Pulling the wool over Uncle’s eyes, too, in case you and folksy tarantella. It was like trying to follow a are tempted to see this as a victimless crime. shell game with your ears. When it finished, I had These are people who, when confronted with the one big sloppy tear running down each cheek, and gender box on their voluntary extra taxation form, had to retreat to the restroom to repair myself. either chooses to tick M or F when they haven’t a And when I returned… claim to either status, or tick the wrong box, John O’Brain: Bacon, is it? Winston? Been knowingly and completely on purpose. meaning to have a chat with you. Come along to Winston Bacon: Uncle doesn’t see gender. Sir, the office, more comfortable there. sorry, John. I mean, we learn that in the Nursery Winston Bacon: I nodded wordlessly in his Mines. What’s to be gained from the charade? wake. He smelled of pipe tobacco and gun oil. Seems as if there’s no profit in it. John O’Brain: Very good to meet you, Bacon. John O’Brain: This was my great triumph at Came over from Toxic Denials, don’t you know. Toxic Denials, Winston, the breakthrough that That’s a real trough full of pigs, I don’t mind brought me here to the Ministry. People enjoy saying. Do you smoke a briar? Plenty of old shag lying, Winston. They like to be bad for the sheer here if you want any. pleasure of it. So when the advocate for the Winston Bacon: Sorry sir, I don’t smoke. Sunderland Slurry Victims asks why we suspect the so-called innocent victims of lying, we can John O’Brain: Oh, don’t be sorry. It’s a point to solid, scientific documentation of the fact wretched habit. And don’t worry, I’ll smoke that they ENJOY lying, filthy little wizened enough for both of us. mongrels thinking that Uncle owes them a free Winston Bacon: I’m sure you’re right, Sir. living because they chose to drink the water and breathe the air. John O’Brain: Just John will be fine when we’re off the floor, Winston. I came on during Gender Winston Bacon: I’ve certainly observed the pathology myself. But I hardly think it is universal. Parity, Winston. Do you remember that, or were you still at school? John O’Brain: Oh, but it is, Winston, we Winston Bacon: The Ministry recruited me in demonstrated that mathematically as well. We determined that any phenomenon encompassing 2022. Gender Parity was a Priority Initiative then. 66% or more of the population is mathematically John O’Brain: Right and where has it gotten us? indistinguishable from total involvement. With this Bull Daggers, Winston. Dykes on Trikes. She-men conclusion in hand, we were able to throw out in the moon. Twinks that tuck. And those strange statements by chemists and medical doctors. I little Italian fellows with bare spots where their convinced an inquiry that a woman confined to an equipment should be. oxygen tent by pulmonary damage had chosen to Winston Bacon: I believe you’re thinking of suffer 80% respiratory failure. Because she Mario and Luigi, John. I can’t comment on their thought it made her look cool, Winston

24 ANDREW P HOOPER

Winston Bacon: I might have argued that 80% analyze them as if they were keystroke patterns. I respiratory failure was statistically want to know what she means and who she’s indistinguishable from 100% respiratory failure, talking to. and had her declared legally dead. Winston Bacon: I can start writing immediately. That’s what I like about you, John O’Brain: John O’Brain: I’ve so enjoyed this little chat. I’m Winston. You see a problem, you try to solve it. sure we’ll have a reason to do it again quite soon. Can’t help yourself. So, let’s abandon any pretense Until we do, think of Uncle. of truthiness for the moment – I know all about the Deletion Channel, Winston. Listening to all Winston Bacon: Think of Uncle. It’s been a the lovely music, without a thought for Uncle or pleasure, John. any other obligation in the world. You can be Harmonica Soames: It’s 1550 in Uncle’s naughty yourself when you put your mind to it. Shining Tower of Certainty. Our next terminal Winston Bacon: I – it’s a bit of a hobby, sir. But performance is by the Houston, Texas-born it has let us identify Country Blues vocalist several older, drugs- Elvie Thomas, who using thought criminals. recorded this rendition We can certainly leave of “Motherless Child it out if you prefer. Blues” in March of 1930. Our Uncle Albert John O’Brain: What hears the cries of the about the Channel common people so hostess, Citizen keenly that the Harmonica Soames? lamentations that we Lots of interest in her th call “The Blues” have from the 6 Floor. Any relatively little place in potential for retribution this just society. I hope there? Seems more you enjoy it anyway. “when” than “if ” to me. Michael Dobson, Aileen Forman Winston Bacon: Listening to Winston Bacon: She’s Harmonica’s show full a party member time, I began to admire speaking on a protected channel. Doesn’t her job her even more. The most commonly used words require her to present questionable art and the on her program were Uncle and Albert, closely thought behind it? followed by Time and Certainty. There was no John O’Brain: Of course this is a party member continuity of message in the selection of music. we’re talking about; non-party members can use An artist might be featured for a three-song the words “genius” and “invention” all the way to stretch, but no more. In the end, the only thing the front lines for all we care, Winston. It’s the they all had in common was that they were party that interests us most. That’s where the human beings. Naturally, I wanted to protect her. worst criminals always are. But O’Brain would find an absence of suspicion more suspicious still. And if I could reach her, Winston Bacon: So what is it you would like me what would I tell her to do? Run? Where? Maybe to do, John? she had a plan, and all I had to do was signal her. John O’Brain: I want you on Ministry Channel But selfishly, I also wanted to go on listening. 66-B full time now. I want you to analyze word Harmonica Soames: Think of Uncle, listeners. frequency in Harmonica Soames’ patter – her Roosevelt Grier, Merlin Jay Olsen, Lamar Lundy chatter between the songs. Create an algorithm to

25 ANDREW P HOOPER

and Deacon Jones. Known collectively as “The pseudonymous, but there was no point, since the Fearsome Foursome,” they played gridiron pool of suspects in my Division was only four football for the Los Angeles Rams in the 1960s. deep. Here they appear as vocalists on Capitol Records A reply came the next day. Her note was written 1965 release of “Fly in the Buttermilk.” Although on the inside bottom flaps of the cardboard backed up by Darlene Love and the Blossoms, carton. there should be little question why this recording deserves summary Deletion. Harmonica Soames: I am always happy to make contact with a listener. (Fx: Turn script 90 Winston Bacon: Finally, having decided that degrees) there was no reliable way of contacting her secretly, I decided to do so openly, under the guise I know that I have numerous listeners in the of an Inter-Ministerial Initiative. Colin, are you Ministry of Truthiness, (Fx: Turn script 90 and Puffy and Monaco still listening to our girl on degrees) 66-B? We may be neighbors. Your home address is in Colin Twittering: Well, you know – as work Seven Murders, and my flat is in Burntchapel. (Fx: permits. Turn script 90 degrees) Winston Bacon: I want all three of you to spend Everyone is lonely everywhere. Don’t let it destroy some time finding connections to pieces of music you. in cases from the last 18 months. You want to Winston Bacon: Of course that touched me a argue that the content of the music contributed to little. And made me wonder if lonely hearts all anti-social behavior in people we’ve sent for re-ed. over the Government were writing her Colin Twittering: Feels a bit funny. Asking to conspiratorial notes. hear things, so’s they can delete them. “Dear H. Soames, you beguile me, but it is your Winston Bacon: What’s the difference? You safety which is under threat. I am committing a won’t hear them on the radio or in a state dance crime by informing you of an ongoing inquiry, hall anyway. The point is to make a case for all the and a possible radical change in your situation. hours you – we -- spend listening to Channel 66-B Can you leave? Can I help?” instead of hunting wrongdoers. Make them the Harmonica Soames: Winston, you are gallant. same thing. It is seductive to have a secret admirer. I’m here to Colin Twittering: I’ll get right on that. take care of the music collections. Deletion is a Lie. It criminalizes music, but we don’t destroy Winston Bacon: At the top of the list of songs anything. They can extradite me from Certainty, we were asking to be deleted, I added “Please Mr. but the music will stay here. Postman” by the Marvelettes, “Under the Boardwalk” by The Drifters and “Damn the Winston Bacon: H. Soames I am in love with Flood,” by Black Label Society. Then I wrote the your courage, wondering what I can do in return. following note under the routing label on the front The underground means nothing to me. My of the box: resistance is limited to listening to your voice. Deletion is a Lie. “H. Soames: Your commentary on the Deletion Channel is one of the pleasures of life. Please be Harmonica Soames: Attention W. Bacon: It’s aware that you have the attention of many dangerous to love a voice. Much easier to love a listeners. If I can be of any help to you, please face. If I am detained, another voice will take my contact me. Winston Bacon.” place. I believe I would like to meet you before that happens. Deletion is a Lie. I thought of calling myself “Marion Ravenswood” or something similarly

26 ANDREW P HOOPER

Winston Bacon: By now I knew her real name – Channel. Lisa Soames – and had her home address. The Harmonica Soames: Maybe I sound like what female client is always so grateful to guys like you expect a woman to sound like. But I’ve never Marlowe – was this the beginning of a beautiful said anything about being female. friendship, or something doomed from its beginning? Winston Bacon: It’s all right. I never had any surgery. But I never said I was a man either. They John O’Brain: Winston, I wanted to thank you just heard my voice and saw my boyish good looks for your good work on the Harmonica Soames and assumed I was one of them. I avoid locker file. Lots to get our teeth into there. Reprisals will rooms. Only some doctors know that I’m a pick her up at home tomorrow. Be listening to woman. someone new for the rest of the week – or maybe the Best of Harmonica? Hate to let the channel Harmonica Soames: And me. I’m flattered. go dark. I know it’s a favorite. Winston Bacon: Oh, but there’s no time for Winston Bacon: I made myself wait. I waited this. The Ministry is going to send a van to grab for the end of work hours, and then went directly you tomorrow morning. There has to be someone home. I waited until 8 pm, when her show was you know that can help you, or somewhere you over. I used my home console to spy on hers, and can go. it told me when she had returned to her flat and Harmonica Soames: There might be. In fact, activated it. I walked quickly to her building in if you come inside, there’s someone I’d like you to Burntchapel, and strode up the stairs two at a meet. time. Her apartment was number 3. I knocked at the door. After a moment it swung open to reveal John O’Brain: Hello again, Winnie. Nice to see a stocky middle-age man in trainers, jeans and an you outside of work. Uncle Albert Youth Clinic T-shirt. Winston Bacon: John. Sir. Harmonica Soames: (A little bit huskier): John O’Brain: I think we’ll make it Deputy Hullo? Minister O’Brain from here on out, Winnie. But Winston Bacon: Hello. I’m Winston Bacon. I let’s have no hard feelings; I told you it was was looking for Harmonica Soames. statistically inescapable that everyone is a liar. They’re going to cuff Harmonica you now, so be good. Yes, that’s Soames: Think of Uncle, Mr. actually me. Soames. Winston Bacon: But Harmonica – Lisa Soames? Soames: Uncle Harmonica thinks of us, Deputy Soames: I was Lisa Minister. Soames 20 years ago. Winston Bacon: The state registered There’s often a my reassignment – double-cross at the they provided the end of these stories. doctors. I’m Gender The girl is secretly in Legal. love with the bad guy. Winston Bacon: But as they clicked the You sound completely Andrew P Hooper Aileen Forman black hood over my like a woman on head and hung me

27 ANDREW P HOOPER

from a hook on the ceiling of the van, I had the It’s Time for Community Calendar! WJBK- presence of mind to hiss “Deletion is a Lie” TV Channel 16 is pleased to announce the through the air holes on the side on the hood. I following events of interest to Melonburg and wanted to practice – I’d be saying it a lot more in Greater Clapahoogie County: the future. The Audubon Society of Melonburg will be Narration: Treehouse of Fandom will return hosting their annual shotgun jamboree at dawn on after these important Messages. Saturday, May 10th. The event is an effort to control the population of poison shrikes, which Time-Life Video, producers of such pseudo- are known to attack songbirds, house pets and documentary content as Roswell: Inside the malnourished children. Final Secret Revealed, and Tim Conway and Michael Dorn’s two-man show, Dorf on Worf, Our Lady of Perpetual Longing is presenting their present a collection every fan of classic British monthly neighborhood cleanup, pancake Comedy will enjoy. Each volume in Monty breakfast and fun run, immediately after the Python: The Minor Players features the work meeting of Reverend Lindholm’s of a semi-celebrated quasi-cast members, Methamphetamine Support Group. A donation of including writer Douglas Adams, the young Eddie $600 is requested. Izzard, actresses Connie Booth and Carol The Friends of Botfly Marsh will hold and Cleveland, writer/musician Neil Innes, and informational demonstration in support of the legendary mystic George Harrison. And if you poison shrike, a beneficial, vermin-eating predator order now, we’ll offer you a seventh volume, also starring the ample talents of Carol Cleveland – that plays a critical role in the local ecosystem. Without the poison shrikes to control them, only this time in slow motion. Melonburg would suffer an infestation of Pit Learn little-known facts, including the story of the Owls, Mandarin Ducks and Venemous Grosbeaks. Fred Tomlinson singers, the real-life models for For more information, set your computer’s Doug and Dinsdale Piranha, and a special Internet browser to BotflyBog.org. commentary track, where each cast member’s lawyer details how much money Eric Idle owes them. Available for just three payments of $9.99, or a one-time payment of $14.95, because frankly, who can be bothered? Available on Digital Video Disc and for online digital download. And some other things that involve thumb drives or something. Who are you kidding? All you have is a VHS with a quarter-inch layer of dust on it. And is Time-Life still a real company? No, none of this adds up at all. Don’t send any money until we get this straightened out. Or look for us at the point of purchase at your local grocery store, next to the Sumner Hunnewell, Aileen Forman, Nic Farey 19-year-old copy of Jingle All The Way.

28 WORLDCON IN DUBLIN CLAIRE BRIALEY So we went to Dublin. The Worldcon is on the and all of those are good. other side of a beautiful modern bridge in the We do no proper tourism and thus my impressions shape of an egg slicer (sadly not a fishlifter), in a of Dublin are gained from walking around a few conference centre that looks as though a giant miles of it plus bus rides from the airport and cyclone vacuum cleaner has impacted an office back. It seems like a pleasant city but, being one of block. It’s possible that these impressions are the relatively few people at the convention with no deeply disrespectful to the city, the Worldcon, pretensions to Irish heritage, I have no instant and/or Irish fandom, but they make me well- connection and it could be almost anywhere in disposed to it all nonetheless. Europe. For the moment, anticipating that we Inside the vacuum cleaner it is usually too hot and soon won’t be, that’s a poignant thought which there are many levels – and many, many moves me more than anything specific. programme items in many rooms, some of which It was a Worldcon; it contained multitudes. Some are actually in a different building I never even things worked out and some things didn’t. Most of managed to get to (no, I didn’t see the Point the people involved with the con worked very hard ). It turns out that there are also and some of them will want to do it all again and many, many people and doubtless some of them thus many queues, so I won’t; a few of the people miss quite a few who attended programme items I’d have unfortunately had a bad liked to have seen even if time and many had at least they didn’t clash with some good times (as I did) other items I’d also like to and memorable moments have seen – but I do get to (as I find I don’t, really). It see most of the subset of was a Worldcon; I’ve people I went to the worked on a few and this is Worldcon to see, and the fourteenth I’ve been to sometimes I’m not running in over thirty years, and around dealing with some increasingly I don’t feel I infinitely prolonged aspect have a distinct place there. of fan fund admin so that I can even stop and talk to Nothing beside remains… them. There’s food and drink and conversation with some of those people,

CARDINAL COX

Am I allowed to mention my roommate’s others would disagree with that. Talks by Jim snoring? Lockheed SR-71 came to mind (my Fitzpatrick, one on his work with Thin Lizzy own was, of course, mellifluous like the tinkling (that’s THIN LIZZY folks, proper rock and/or of distant bells or nightingales alighting from a roll!) or the one on his own life, “… and then I meadow) or the shower I could never get warm met Ché Guevara… and then I worked with the water out of so that my ablutions were Black Panthers…” And meeting (however accompanied by the calls of a troop of monkeys briefly) old friends and making new ones. And (oh-oh-oh, ah-ah, oh-oh, etc.). The good parts even the weather was mostly on our side. though, am I allowed to say my show? Perhaps

29 FIAWOL, FIJAGH, OR FIAGAYMI*? STEVE JEFFERY When It Changed comment (I have always been a terrible mimic, in both senses of the phrase) and even worse fan I remember the moment I fell in love with fanzine fiction. Vikki and I produced a dozen or so issues fandom, although at this point in my dotage, I’m of an eclectic semi-sercon fanzine called Inception rather more hazy about the time and place. My and its chattier sibling An Occasional Axolotl. I memory of it is below, although documentary was a member of a bunch of apas, including evidence may differ. Pieces of Eight, The Organisation and Acnestis. I think it must have been Mexicon IV in 1991, Naturally, I burned out. which would have been our third or fourth convention. I was in the middle of a conversation By around 2012 I had cut my fan activity back when Avedon Carol rushed up, grabbed my almost completely to the point where I was only shoulder and hauled me across the room, saying writing letters of comment to just a handful of “There’s someone here you must meet”. It was paper fanzines that still arrived in the post and Vin¢ Clarke, who was presiding over a fan room contributing to one bi-monthly apa. (Given that it which was busy collating the next issue of con was run by my partner, Vikki, there was no way I newsletter. Scurrilous gossip was going to get out of that (not all of it completely made one.) Even that low level of up on the spot) was being activity sometimes felt more gathered, typed up and laid like a necessary chore than a out in a desktop publishing pleasure. I was drifting, slowly package and output to a laser and steadily, partly though printer. After which the apathy and partly by design, pristine laser copy was into gafiation. electro-stencilled and run off When Rob Jackson’s initial on a duplicator before being email arrived in August 2018, distributed to the waiting announcing I had been masses for use as emergency selected by the Corflu 50 as beer mats. someone they would like to It was all wrong and see at Corflu 36 in Rockville completely backwards. In the MD, my initial reaction was space of ten feet it reversed surprise (I had only ever been all the benefits of fifty years to one Corflu, Corflu Cobalt of print technology. It was in Winchester in 2010) and gloriously perverse. I wanted then, I’m ashamed to say, a in. sense of panic. After ten or twelve years, that initial flush of I didn’t reply at first. I closed the email and the fannish enthusiasm definitely started to wane. Like browser, and rather hoped that if I ignored it, it a kid in a candy store I wanted to try everything at might turn out to be a mistake or go away. It the same time. In between the round of didn’t. I didn’t mention it to Vikki. Eastercons, Novacons, Mexicons and then That probably sounds an extraordinary reaction, NewCons, I joined the BSFA and worked my way but from my perspective at the time, it made a through cover artist, magazine editor, book twisted sort of sense. reviewer to reviews editor and committee member. I joined SF Foundation and pulled a stint I probably need to put that into some context. as a judge on the Arthur C Clarke Award. I drew Ghost in the Shell bad and derivative cartoons and wrote letters of I was in a bad place through a lot of 2018. For various reasons, I had pretty much closed down * Fandom Is As Good As You Make It personally and socially from about late 2017 and

30 STEVE JEFFERY locked myself in a routine that revolved almost I had become Prufrock. In short, I was afraid. entirely around work, where I was struggling to And I realized I had to do something about it. deliver an ever-changing project against I had a vague memory from my first and only increasingly-tightening deadlines, followed by a Corflu, Corflu Cobalt in Winchester in 2010, that couple of mindless hours in front of the TV, there were some odd ideas and obligations before going to bed and starting all over again. expected of guests, often sprung as a last minute I hadn’t had a holiday, or more than a couple of surprise, like selecting the convention GOH out of days off at a time, in the last five years. Not only a hat. Rob Jackson and Mark Plummer reassured was I constantly carrying over untaken holiday me that were was no actual obligation, except to allowance but was also stacking up lieu days that I show up, meet people and have a good time. had no hope of taking either. I sent Rob a reply, accepting the invitation. I had stopped going anywhere or seeing anyone Things went quiet for a while. Emails would apart from a single evening a month for our local occasionally come in reporting the state of the ‘first Wednesday’ sf pub meet (in true fannish Corflu 50 fund, hotel booking information, and fashion, we’d talk – or I would sit while other progress reports. It was suggested I should allow people talked - about gardening, films, for a couple of extra days before or after the con wargaming, mad neighbours, Scandiavian TV in case I wanted to join in any of the extramural crime drama, and the trials of ghostwriting. In activities and excursions that were being planned, short, everything but sf.) and Michael swung a generous, if somewhat At home, I withdrew into myself and took every complicated-sounding, deal with the hotel that slight criticism as an excuse to abandon and put meant that it wouldn’t be ruinously expensive away hobbies and activities. I stopped drawing. either. My guitars moved upstairs into the spare room Meanwhile at work I finally delivered the Project where they gathered dust along with a bunch of from Hell, or my part of it anyway, and handed it old analog synths which I never played with over to the mercy of highly trained operators who anymore. I stopped turning my computer on or promptly managed to press all the wrong buttons checking email or social media during the week (or possibly the right buttons, but not necessarily apart for a couple of hours at weekends. At work I in the right order) and break it in a whole number became argumentative, often over trivial details, of ways that I hadn’t anticipated. (And I’m usually while at home I adopted an attitude of sullen pretty good at finding ways to break software apathy where rather than risk rejection or during pre-testing that surprise the developers.) argument about anything I might have wanted, it I booked the first week of May off work for Corflu seemed easier to go along with whatever was and settled down to a seemingly endless round of suggested. bug fixes and software changes. I suspect that for part of that time I was on the By early 2019, the Corflu 50 arrangements were verge of clinical depression. starting to firm up and it was time to start thinking A few days later there was another email from seriously about flight, visas, hotel bookings and the Mark Plummer asking if I’d seen Rob’s email. rest. It was at this point a bit of mild panic set in. Seasoned travellers take all this in their stride. I I reopened Rob’s email and read it again. It didn’t even have a suitcase. I hadn’t been outside hadn’t changed. This time I did mention it to the UK in over twenty years, or to a convention in Vikki. nearly ten years. “Of course you have to go.” she said. “You never I did at least have a passport, but I had no idea go anywhere, see anyone or do things anymore.” how to book my own flights, arrange a visa, The strong unstated message was that I had exchange currency or arrange travel insurance. In become boring, and boring to live with. the past this had all been done for me by work,

31 STEVE JEFFERY and all I had to do was pack and wait for a taxi to of friends. I realise now that as a committed fan, I arrive. should have taken copious notes, if not photographs, of the meals I ate and the people I Rob and Mike were invaluable at leading me dined with, bit I have a memory like a … strainy through this, particularly as everything I thing, wossname ... for names and faces, even remembered had changed and was now electronic with the constant reinforcement of generously and online. sized Corflu name badges. Luckily there were In the end, most of it proved relatively painless, many people who posted a lot on Facebook that I despite the assumption of several sites that I could cheerfully crib from. would confirm bookings through a mobile phone If Corflu was abundantly welcoming, US (I don’t have one), so I made sure I printed copies Immigration proved to be rather less so. At Dulles of everything just in case. arrivals, a seemingly endless line zigzagged round Cut, dissolve, and fade. Images of pages flying off ten cordoned lanes, while from what I could see a calendar until we are in May. Through the only a couple of booths were open at the far end. magic of movie clichés and non-linear con I did a quick count of how fast we were moving reporting, we gloss over the tedium of countless and how many lanes were still left to traverse and hours sitting in buses, departure lounges and came up with an estimate of two hours. I wasn’t aeroplanes, and nearly as many waiting in endless far off. I managed to listen to two podcast short queues. I know patient queueing is meant to be stories and the latest BBC ‘Introducing in Oxford’ almost a British pastime, second only to cricket as line up of new bands on my mp3 player (all the a foretaste of eternity, but I’ve never really got the while being kicked by a fractious child behind me hang of it. (Truth be told, the reason I was put off who I increasingly wanted to kill) before finally Christianity in Sunday school was not the fires of finding myself at the front of the queue where I Hell but the sense of existential terror that was photographed (twice), fingerprinted (several resulted when I tried to wrap my seven year old times), scanned, quizzed and finally welcomed to brain around the concept of eternal life doing the USA. nothing but standing around singing the Lord’s Luckily this time I wasn’t taken aside and detained praises forever. It still gives me the willies.) in a side room for several hours while officials I am standing with Rob Jackson and Grant queried the status of my immigration visa. (That’s Canfield in Steve and Elaine Stiles’ living room, a whole other story, along with the time customs with its throw-covered sofas, walls covered with officers in Copenhagen pulled a bottle of white artwork and shelves overflowing with books, CDs powder out of my luggage.) One up for the and DVDs, and I feel right at home. electronic ESTA system at least. Somewhere between admiring the treasure trove of Steve and Elaine Stiles basement a couple of days before the official start of Corflu 36, and watching Rich Coad effortlessly channel the competitive spirit of Paul Merton in Sandra Bond’s Just a Minac panel on the Saturday, I rediscovered what I missed and loved about fandom. And I very nearly didn’t go. What a mistake that would have been. I had emailed Rob that my flight would arrive at So what was it like? 3.25PM. In the end it was almost 5.30 by the time It was brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I had I hit arrivals, having been told to look for someone a great time, met a lot of people, and made a lot with a trim white beard holding a placard stating

32 STEVE JEFFERY

‘Corflu 36 welcomes Steve Jeffery’, although the wall contained a series of creepily realistic child first two people I saw fitting this description dolls, posed and dressed in outfits that the artist (although without placards) seemed remarkably was painstakingly sewn by hand. It was odd, and uninterested. somehow spooky and sad at the same time. I was We eventually found each other (Rob was older fascinated by large hyperrealistic pencil drawing of than I was expecting, but then again, we all are), a young girl that I spend a long time looking at retrieved Rob’s car, and bundled out the airport close up, but unfortunately, I didn’t make a note of just in time to hit the evening logjam on the the artist’s name at the time and haven’t been able interstate out of Washington. to find it again on Google. I am sure I must have met some people before at By the time we had made it through the equally Corflu Cobalt, but my memory of that con, as eclectic gift shop it was time to head back, and with many things, is decidedly hazy. while the more footsore elected for an Uber back to the station, Andy impatiently strode off into the Things I do remember: distance while Grant and I followed at a more The glorious treasure trove of the Stiles’ sedate pace, and then waited for him to catch up basement, filled with things both strange and when Andy got stuck at the crossing back into the familiar (and sometimes the strangely familiar, harbour. (Unlike the UK, it appears a serious when I discovered we both shared a liking for UK offense to ignore crossing signals and jaywalk, prog rock band Porcupine Tree and comedy series even on an otherwise empty road. Had Vikki been Black Books) and the pre-con expedition to with me, we’d have been bailing her out of jail Baltimore harbour and the wonderfully eclectic most of the week. Also unlike the UK, drivers Museum of Visionary Arts with Rob Jackson, actually stop when the lights are against them, Grant Canfield, Andy Hooper and Carrie Root, bravely led by Steve and Elaine Stiles. (We saw the Stiles’ cat. Or at least we saw a brief flash of marmalade fur as it shot from a hiding place under one of the sofas towards the back door. The Stiles were amazed. Even this brief glimpse is apparently unheard of, both their cats being notoriously shy of visitors and semi-feral.) I was disappointed there were no takers for my “Last one to the top of Federal Hill buys the drinks” (I wanted to see if the cannon still worked – apparently not, or it could have done severe damage to the TransAmerica tower it seemed to be lined up on across the harbour) but I think most of us were pretty knackered by the time we’d walked around three sides of the harbour and found the museum at the far end. The Museum of Visionary Arts houses a strange and sometimes arresting range of ‘outsider art’, from Andrew Logan’s Black Icarus, suspended tumbling head over heels (or should that be the other way around?) over the spiral staircase, to Wayne Kusy’s obsessively detailed model of the Lusitania, constructed from quarter of a million toothpicks. Another exhibit that took up a whole

33 STEVE JEFFERY rather than taking an amber light as a challenge to mention that the top of my head was also starting put their foot down and race the lights before it to peel off. It seemed fine as long as I didn’t move turned red. I never failed to be surprised by this by my face. this the whole time I was there.) There seemed to be some post-apocalyptic hippy The next day, Thursday, I consulted my aching gathering pitching tents and stalls at one end of feet and wondered if I should give the sightseeing the park, with someone erecting a mast on what trip to the Washington Mall a miss, but common looked like a Mad Max cross between a boat and sense kicked in with “You’re in a place you’ve not a car, plus what looked like a painted metal been before and may never have the chance to dinosaur. It looked like cross between a mini come back to. If you don’t, you’re almost certain Glastonbury and Burning Man festival. If so, I to regret it as soon as you get back home.” would have liked to have seen some of it, but we needed to be back in time for pre-con collating Burning Man party hosted by Michael Dobson that evening. So Grant Canfield and I convened in the lobby before negotiating the complexities of the Metro At the collating party, between frequent trips to a (as it turned out it was a straight run) into central table overflowing with a very palatable tikka DC. Despite the (surprisingly small) White House masala and some equally palatable wines, plus at one end, and the imposing edifice of the enough fruit, crisps, snacks and cheeses to feed a Lincoln memorial at the other, the park itself small army (or several dozen fans), Mike co-opted (actually parks, plural, the National Mall including a small assembly line to unpick some 90 picture Constitution Gardens and West Potomac Park) frames, insert signed and numbered pieces of was almost familiar if you’ve ever tried to cross artwork from Dan Steffan and reassemble and bag London using only the green bits. Despite a notice them for the convention packages. It all went on the Vietnam Memorial information booth surprisingly smoothly, showing that sometimes you warning us not to feed the wildlife, the thing that I can organise fans, as long as you keep them well noticed most was the almost complete absence of fed and watered. Mike’s split level house is squirrels, whereas in London they’d be half a enviable, from the spacesuit in its glass case in the dozen swarming round your feet begging at the den to the decking out back looking down on the drop of a peanut. (Brits tend to be suckers for garden and wooded hill behind the house. anything cute and furry, and blissfully ignore the I was presented with my official Corflu FIAWOL Do Not Feed notices, or are less fastidious about t-shirt and convention pack, which contained, dropping food crumbs. Or any sort of litter for along with Dan’s picture (now sitting atop of my that matter. Rockville itself was cleaner than router) and the convention program book, Random almost anywhere in the UK, and especially Jottings 17: A Corflu Fanthology and an elegant spiral Oxford, whose streets and pavements often bound copy of Thy Life’s a Miracle, a collection of resemble a spilled litter bin of bottles, nightclub selected writing by the late and hugely missed flyers and food packaging (and indeed food).) Randy Byers, graced with a beautiful cover by Ulrika O’Brien, Jae Leslie, and carl juarez. In fact I did eventually see one lone squirrel on the walk I think I paid for this last one as a Corflu back, but it’s odd how you miss things you expect fundraiser. I had downloaded the pdf before to see. coming out, but the real thing is so much nicer What I should have noticed, I realised later, was and simply invites you to drop in and start that (a) it was a very hot sunny day and (b) Grant reading, even if I didn’t get a chance to do so was sensibly wearing a hat while I had spent myself before I got home. several hours walking through the Mall I had almost forgotten what a good writer Randy bareheaded. The result of that would become was. I wished we’d met to discover, now it’s far too rather obvious over the next few days. late, how many things we had in common, from “You are a bit pink” Karen Shaffer would observe still liking and reading sf (I still haven’t worked out the next morning, gracefully avoiding any whether that makes me a fringefan or real fan)

34 STEVE JEFFERY and the writings of John Crowley (one of my I wish I had more time to talk with Joe Siclari and favourite authors, and I’m hugely jealous that Edie Stern about their fanac.org project. They set Randy knew him), to Chip Delany or the films of up shop on a couple of comfy sofas outside the Pedro Almodovar. In a better world, he would still main con-suite with a scanner and a growing pile be here and we could have sat in the con suite into of rare or historic fanzines that had been donated the early hours talking about the stuff we love. for scanning into their archives. Last time I looked at their site they were still working though these a month after the con. After the first few conventions I’ve tended to avoid auctions on the grounds that our house if already too cluttered with stuff (I have boxes of fanzines I’ve not looked at in years, sometimes decades, and wonder why I’m still keeping them, apart from laziness and a feeling that I shouldn’t just throw them out.) At Corflu36, however, Andy’s magic fez presided over some spirited and entertaining bidding wars, with collector and archivist Mowgli Assor emerging as a surprise (and surprisingly generous) winner. I bid for a Tiptree cookbook, to go with the shelf of other cookbooks that I collect but rarely follow apart from using as a very rough guide to ingredients and quantities. This is probably why I have never managed to replicate the same dish twice, although versions seem to work well enough. Unfortunately the Tiptree book didn’t contain David Levine and Kate Yule’s recipe in Bento for ‘nerve gas chicken’, which involves incinerating a quantity of pungent spices in a hot pan until the kitchen becomes uninhabitable unless you are wearing a gasmask, and even the hardiest and The Sword in the Scone most recalcitrant cockroaches pack up and leave. The con suite, IMHO, was an ideal place to hang A similar result can be achieved by opening a out, and so well stocked that there was far more packet of belachan, a Thai fermented shrimp food and drink than even 50 or so fans could get paste, anywhere other than the middle of a large through in a long weekend. Huge thanks have to open field. The smell, which is indescribable but go for Curt for organising everything, and to never forgotten, can linger for days. whoever brought scones (complete with cream and jam) which proved to be a huge hit. There As the pile of fanzines, books and posters in front was some debate as to whether it should be cream of Mowgli got steadily higher, occasional items first then jam or jam then cream, depending on would be allowed to slip through to other bidders. whether you come from Cornwall or Devon (or I added a couple of fanzines and Corflu XXX t- possibly the other way around), and Murray and shirt and later added a couple more t-shirts Mary Ellen Moore and I tried to resolve this by (including one for Corflu Cobalt which I missed trying both options, although I can’t recall if we buying at the time) from the fan fund table in the came to any firm conclusion on the matter. con suite, on the basis that (a) they are light to transport back and (b) Vikki keeps threatening to

35 STEVE JEFFERY throw several of my favourite t-shirts away on the banquet, I just got up and mumbled my way spurious grounds that they have holes in them. through a briefly truncated handful of ‘thank (This same logic, surprisingly, does not extend to you’s to everyone before sitting down, which Vikki’s favourite cardigan, whose sleeves are best seemed to go down as well as anything, although be described as a series of holes held together by I’m sure Curt was wondering when the Busby threads of wool, and whose ongoing raggedness is Berkerly chorus line and performing seals were constantly aggravated by catching on door going to come on before being enveloped in a sea handles.) of dry ice and fireworks. Besides, I didn’t want to upstage Jim Benford’s GOH speech on trying to I’m slightly shamed that – along with many others develop a working interstellar propulsion system to – I chose to opt out of the Corflu GOH draw this get to the nearest star (Ok, second nearest) within time, the opt out donations providing a very tidy our – or least the project sponsor’s – lifetime. pot for the eventual ‘winner’ (after several false Which was fascinating, and rather more sercon starts where the names of previous GOH’s were than anything I’d expected at Corflu. successfully drawn out of the hat, only to be discarded as ineligible. At some point I suspect this As a (long lapsed) fan artist it was nice to see the tradition will have to be revised when it becomes panel and slide show hosted by Dan Steffan with evident that the only people in the draw are those Steve Stiles, Jay Kinney and Grant Canfield on who know they can’t be chosen). Finally, though, the work of various fan artists, many of whom Jim Benford emerged as the lucky recipient, to be were familiar (or in Rotsler’s case, near ubiquitous) greeted with cheers, sighs of relief from those but others less so. Especially pleasing to see work whose names were still in the hat, and the by Taral, and to nod agreement with Steve Stiles’ proceeds of the opt-out fund which he generously comment that Taral can draw “the only skunk I’d went on to donate back again during the auction. really like to fuck” (or possibly, along with Taral, An economics graduate could have a field day want to be). Although while I admire Taral’s untangling Corflu’s weird closed-loop economy. erotic-cute renditions of his furry avatar, Sondra Maar, I still can’t quite fathom his seeming Despite being reassured by various people that the obsession with Fraggle Rock. only obligation of the Corflu 50 delegate was to show up and have a good time, Curt had other I was surprised and immensely cheered by how ideas. Every time we passed in a doorway or well Sandra Bond’s ‘Just a Minac’ panel game corridor he would up the ante. From “Have you went across both with the participants and the written your Corflu 50 speech yet?” it became a audience. I thought its appeal, based on a long- presentation slideshow (“Our Mission Statement is running BBC radio show where participants have to drink interesting beers and wines until I start to speak on a randomly selected topic for one talking incomprehensibly and fall over, but not minute without hesitating, repeating themselves or necessarily in that order”) to a performance piece deviating from the topic, might take a bit of in the medium of interpretive dance. By Sunday explaining but Rich Coad in particular seems to morning I fully expected to be composing and immediately channel the spirit of the show’s conducting a grand opera, complete with sets and champion player, Paul Merton, by challenging his working stage machinery. I have actually done the opponents with only three seconds left on the latter before, though with rather more than a day’s clock, at which point all you have to do is repeat preparation (where do you buy stage flats in the title of the topic (this is allowed) to win the Rockville – a town that seems to consist almost point. I admit I was in stitches through a lot of entirely of restaurants?) As for singing, all I can this as the challenges got more and more say is that it would probably serve to clear a room outrageous and desperate. (And if you’ve ever as quickly as a fire alarm and with about as much hear Merton’s arch rival Gyles Brandreth, this is musical range. purely in the spirit of the game, in which – as someone once said of academic disputes – the In the end, after having hastily scribbled a couple rivalry is elevated in direct proportion to the of pages of notes in the half hour before the triviality of the outcome.)

36 STEVE JEFFERY

“Bring Me the Shed of Alfredo Garcia!” It made me wonder how other UK radio game lucky few to see Geri’s and Pat Virzi’s depiction of shows might work in a fannish context. Would I Lie the benefits of mimeo fibretone as performed to You might be a goer, as participants try to through the medium of interpretive dance. smuggle five fannish true facts past the rest of the Presumably, as we were in the spillover con suite, panel buried amid a farrago of lies. I think I’m this was one of the convention’s sercon items. Sorry I Haven’t Clue might take a lot more explaining, although rounds such as Fanwriter’s It’s probably best to draw a discreet veil over the Film Club or Uxbridge English Dictionary might effects of all this the next morning, necessitating have some mileage. Just what is the American an emergency dash back to my room. equivalent of Mornington Crescent anyway? I’m glad I had a chance to grab a lift back to the airport from Rob Jackson and even better to share (Yes, I know this is all out of sequence, but non- it with Victor Gonzalez so I could chat over a final linear is the in-thing now and almost traditional beer and exchange email addresses with him for con reports. Try to imagine a few slow before seeing him off for his flight which boarded dissolves and images of fluttering calendar pages a couple of hours before mine. I then spent a between paragraphs.) good 40 minutes trying to get my tablet to connect Back in the consuite, Geri Sullivan’s beer tasting to the airport Wi-Fi so I could send a pre-flight evening included a number of brews that might email home to Vikki. It was good thing I did. I best be described as intriguing and challenging had scribbled my departure and return dates on rather than actually palatable (certainly as session the calendar in the study, but blithely forgotten to beers) and favoured rather more variants of note that with the additional time difference flying chocolate flavoured stout than were good for my out on the 6th meant I didn’t actually arrive until (by this stage) delicate constitution. the 7th, leaving Vikki with an afternoon and evening of growing worry as it got later in the Tango in the Night evening of the 6th before my pre-departure email By the middle of the third bottle I was distinctly landed in the inbox. I felt really bad about that, struggling, both with the taste (imagine trying to and it’s not a mistake I’ll make again because I drinking a pint of Black Forest gateau) and to stay know the same feeling when Vikki has a day out awake. By 3:00 am I was ready concede defeat and told me to expect her back around 7 to and make for bed, but Geri, more inured to the 7.30pm, and it’s gone quarter to nine and I’m effects, was having none of it, and forced me moving from irritation through worry to slight awake with cold flannels so that I was one of the panic.

37 STEVE JEFFERY

Attending Corflu, and perhaps especially as an invitee, has had other non-fan effects on me. It’s attend and for making me feel incredibly welcome made me seriously examine my life style and and giving me a good time while I was there. choices over the past couple of years and decide If you were there, you probably had a good time that continuing to go down that same road is not a too. I hope you did. And if you weren’t, you viable choice. The results of that were immediate missed a good one. But you may still be able to in the aftermath of the con, and I’m wondering if enjoy bits of it from the photos and posts or the and how long I might be able to sustain that in the Corflu Facebook site and the video streams inevitable post-con let-down. I wondered whether this was just me, but Bruce Gillespie assures me https://www.youtube.com/user/robjackson60/ this is a fairly standard reaction, especially on videos) returning to what passes for ‘Real Life’. We’ll have to see how far real life cooperates. I hope whoever gets chosen as the Corflu Fifty candidate for Corflu Heatwave in Texas has as So this is an opportunity to say a modest thank you, to the Corflu 36 organisers, committee and much fun as I did. volunteers, to the Corflu Fifty and to everyone who was there, for making it possible for me to

DUBLIN BEST AND WORST

IAN SALES

BEST * pros noticeable by their absence outside * meeting Dr Jeanette Epps, a NASA astronaut programme items * moderating Jeanette Epps on a panel * having someone drop out and another person * finding excellent replacements for a panel that removed from a panel I was moderating one hour lost two members an hour before it started before it started * bumping into one of the people who * no secondhand book dealers - I bought one introduced me to fandom and who I book and that was a book on Swedish grammar hadn't seen for around 25 years * the split venue, 1 km apart * Mayor Square: lots of good food venues within * the CCD - too many levels, not enough sitting walking distance down space * hanging out with friends in Martin's, the fan * way too much walking, was averaging 10 km a bar day * bumping into an ex-colleague and his partner, * the queues, made it difficult to see a neither of whom had attended a con before but programme item on a whim had decided to include the worldcon in their * Dublin too much like the UK Ireland holiday

WORST * con was too American

38 THE GENZINE HAS BEEN DRINKING

NOT TOM WAITS

The genzine has been drinking, my beanie is asleep The Colossus went back to New York, the Dorsai are too stoned to speak And the Hobbits need a haircut, and the program book is a blurry mess And the masquerade’s full of Boba Fetts, and the Toastmaster is not awake And the genzine has been drinking, the genzine has been drinking

And the illos are all bleeding, and the cover’s blank on one side And has a Rotsler on the other and the Guest of Honor has a Marital Aid, And he showed it to your mother and the genzine has been drinking, The genzine has been drinking and the foreword is six thousand words Composed by L. Ron Hubbard and the chairman is a cosmic thinker With the genius of a lug nut 'cause the genzine has been drinking, The genzine has been drinking

And you can't impress your soul mate with a letter column And they don’t care about the Poctsarcds you got from Robert Lichtman And the colophon is leaking, and the margins are ablaze And the A. B. Dick is squeaking, and the Ghost of Wollheim can’t get paid 'Cause the genzine has been drinking, The genzine has been drinking The genzine has been drinking, Not me, not me, not me, not me, not me

Original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPPtrqvHGEg

Lyrical manipulation by Andy Hooper

39 GENTLEY DOES IT

ROY HESSINGER When I was young I never read as much as I old, but at the time that was how I felt. Excited should have. I liked reading and knew it was good and enthralled. Most importantly, the writing in for me, but I was slow and that hampered my Golden Witchbreed seemed to flow really well. As enjoyment of it. I read mostly westerns my someone who read slowly, my English was not… mother was finished with. While entertaining, they top of my class, so all I had to go by was a book’s didn’t increase my vocabulary nor spark my flow. imagination. I read very few SF/F books and none of what could be considered “classics”. These gave me the same impression as the westerns, entertaining, but... despite the awesome locations of space or invented worlds, no real imagination sparked within me. I read the Tripod Trilogy (The White Mountains, The City of Gold and Lead, and The Pool of Fire), various short stories, and one of the Gor series. Though I was Gor’s demographic, a young male, the misogyny was a bit much, plus the writing was as hectic as the characters in it. While the Tripod Trilogy was good and kept me from giving up on SF, still nothing sparked that imagination. In my late teens/early twenties I started reading whatever paperbacks I could and got into fantasy books, but still the same old refrain - “good, but…”. Also at this time I got interested in Kurt Vonnegut’s short stories which kept me going, loosely Science Fiction. Maybe it was me. Maybe I’m too critical - I am. Still, I plugged along, just as they tell you, read everything good or bad. Just read. Then in 1986 I read Mary Gentle’s Golden Witchbreed [deep breath for nostalgia]. There was something about it that finally sparked my understanding of what I always thought SF/F could be. For the slow reader that I was, this was a relatively long book and I read it all in three days - a record at that time. That I could pay Mary Gentle’s writing made me care about the attention long enough to read a book faster than I voice a narrator used and the voice of characters - ever had was in itself... eye opening. The main that flow. It could totally change, enhance, and things that got me immersed in Golden Witchbreed inform a story, not just for SF/F, but all fiction. were the use of both science fiction and fantasy, This made me realize the benefits of reading similar to Edgar Rice Burroughs Barsoom series - more books, and more often. To find writers who yes, this is an old, longstanding device in science speak, on some level, to you or who draw you in is fiction, but I had not read any of them at this worth reading as much as you can, no matter how point - Sorry, I sound like like an excited 12 year glacial your reading pace. Golden Witchbreed was in

40 ROY HESSINGER short easier to read for me, not because the reading. The good writer allows us to suspend language was simpler, but because I liked the more and just enjoy the story. voice, characters, and, again, that flow. After all, stories regardless of location, time, and Golden Witchbreed inspired me to, eventually, read space, are about relationships and interaction with many of the so-called classics of SF: Asimov, people (aliens are people too). You need a good Clarke, McCaffrey, Heinlein, Anthony, Le Guin, writer, like Mary Gentle, to give the story a life and recently Ann Leckie. I am hardly qualified or and soul. Otherwise you are just reading the skilled enough to judge the quality of any of these, classifieds in prose form. Maybe that's overly but for me the enjoyment of reading them would simplistic, but it's how this reader sees it. If I not be possible without Mary Gentle. It made me weren’t so critical and didn’t find it hard to realize that a good writer can make almost any suspend belief, maybe a different author would story worth reading. That there are as many have started my major SF/F reading. aspects to a book as there are to a movie. As long I am not the most prolific SF/F reader, but I am as the writing is good, it will spark your still reading... as much as I can... as often as I can.. imagination, in any genre, but for me it really has because of Mary Gentle. kept SF/F at the top of my preferred reading list. We all suspend some amount of belief while

“For my part, I prefer aliens that look alien. Then when they ritually eat their first-born, or turn arthropod halfway through their life-cycle, it isn’t so much of a shock. You expect it. Humanoid aliens, they’re trouble.” — Mary Gentle, Golden Witchbreed

41 ELEVATOR PITCH

JERRY KAUFMAN

It’s 12:40 as I ride five levels of switch-back We hear voices outside the doors, asking if we’re escalators in the Convention Centre Dublin, with okay. I advise loudly that we are, and prove this by a panorama of the Liffey River and the banging on the interior. Docklands beaming through the glass walls. The Finally, a smaller door to one side of the elevator, fifth level foyer has been transformed into the Staff previously unnoticed, opens. Workers there help Lounge and the participant Green Room. I’m us up the half-foot distance between the elevator meeting the other people on my 1:00 o’clock floor and the fourth level. We have been inside just (13:00 Worldcon Time) panel, “The Evolution of over an hour; our panel is over, but I think I can Fanzines.” There’s Geri Sullivan, but like an get downstairs before the rest of the panelists overly caffeinated butterfly, she’s here and gone disappear so I can explain what happened. again. Bill Burns and Sandra Bond are nowhere However, the Wicklow foyer is full of people in sight. exiting program items and people queuing for However, Edie Stern, our moderator is here. She things about to start. suggests we save time and take an elevator to our Edie, though, is made of Sterner stuff. She has second level venue, Wicklow Room 1. So we step remained on the fourth floor with Convention to the west bank of elevators and step into the first Centre staff and has responded to their question, doors that open. The doors close, the descent “Is there anything we can do to make it up to begins, a loud bang sounds. Time and the elevator you?” The next day, at the FANAC.org table, Edie stop. hands me my very own coupon for 50 euros, Edie and I stare at each other with a wild surmise. redeemable at any of the CCD’s Food Docks or in Nothing happens, very quickly, very slowly. We Martin’s Bar. She’s also wangled permission to realize that we are stuck. I start pushing the alarm mount the FANAC.org banner on the wall behind button. The alarm sounds and stops in a minute. the table, something originally denied. There’s no internal telephone. We try our cell I also find out that Geri, Bill, and Sandra, phones, but the elevator is a big Faraday cage and although deeply puzzled by our whereabouts, there’s no cell service. I push the alarm button have managed to carry on and talk about fanzines again, more than once. without us. Edie asks me if I have claustrophobia. I ask her In the end, I’ve gained a closer friendship with the same. We each deny it; later we tell our friends Edie, and a story to tell. For the rest of the we think the other was indeed a bit convention, I start many conversations by asking claustrophobic, but we bravely bucked the other people, “Would you like to know how to earn 50 up. Edie and I exchange health bulletins about euros in an hour?” ourselves or our friends; we talk a bit about what we would have said on the panel. We share our interest in traditional British and Irish folk music. Eventually we hear a human voice on the elevator’s PA system, telling us workers will come to fix the elevator and get us out. “Really soon,” it says. An automated voice tells us, several times, “When the doors open, please exit the elevator.” I wonder if someone thinks we would decide to stay in. Each time the elevator shakes but without result.

42 SKYLINER #6

JACQUELINE MONAHAN & JOHN WESLEY HARDIN And when he says “...Fandom is now based on Editorial note: while we don’t tend to specify what corporations instead of fans, and I see it Jacq and JoHn ought or ought not to review, collapsing as soon as it fails to cut a buck,” I want suggestions are offered. In this case, given that to point out that Amazing and its fellow pulp Alan White had announced that he’d be ending magazines weren’t conceived as charities, and the run of Skyliner, it seemed a good idea to give Doubleday didn’t give away their products. that title a good send-off similarly to that penned by our reviewers for Graham Charnock’s Kids successfully chased off the lawn, we move on Vibrator. However, evidencing their free hands, to As I Recall, Alan’s decade-by-decade review of J&J decided to focus on a representative ish. ‘Fandom and Excess,’ and “excess” is right. This 18-page, heavily illustrated memoir details Alan’s JoHn: enthusiastic embrace of the debauchery (the good kind) that undergirded fandom (and popular “Dope will get you through times of no money culture in general) up until the mid ‘80s, when the better than money will get you through times of double-whammy of AIDS and Reagan’s War on no dope.” Drugs brought the party to a halt. This ‘Potzine’ issue’s cover features a Robert The photos alone are a fanhistorical trip to a lost Williams-style lowbrow VW bus making a not-so- era; I wasn’t prepared for the abundance of naked clean getaway from a highly guarded grow facility. women (marijuana’s not the only bush featured in It’s good: colorful, over the top and it this fanzine) or the shirtless Larry Niven. communicates what’s inside. Everybody was clearly having a good time, but Early in his ‘Crankitorial,’ Alan sez “when it I’m left with a mix of envy that I missed it, relief comes to pot or booze, most fans smugly swing to that I missed it, and a sense that, if these guys had “Of course, I would never consider drinking been a little more chill, maybe the party wouldn’t alcohol or smoke mariju-ana”” and I can only have attracted so many metaphorical cops. Ah think that we must have had different experiences well, nothing exceeds like excess. of fandom, indeed. Then again, I was an Keeping with this issue’s theme, up next is Up In inveterate dope fiend enthusiastic drug taker Smoke: Adventures in a Brave New World!, a sizeable before I found fandom, so I gravitated to those in collection of stories that detail Alan’s re- the hobby who shared my first hobby. introduction to the World of Cannabis after He goes on to say this issue of Skyliner is dedicated legalization in Nevada. He finds good sport in to “the wonders of excess and substance abuse in several local “hemp conventions,” recounts the Fandom,” and that’s where the issue shines. The surreal experience of getting a medical cannabis best parts are Alan’s reports from the front lines of card from the DMV and gives readers a tour/ the drug war; the abundant grousing about review of some local dispensaries. contemporary fandom takes some of the fun out A quick review of THC-infused beer acts as a of it though. bumper to the next article, a recounting of a Alan writes wistfully of the “speakeasy delirium” peyote ceremony, attributed to one Rosie Ann which infused fandom from the sixties to the Privateer. Unfortunately, THIS trip report reads eighties, and scorns the virtue signaling, safe- like it was written while the author was still space-seekers who louse up the joint now. I can’t tripping (“Natural laws were based primarily on help but want to come to the defense of modern the directions and knowledge residing within earth fans when he says, “Millennials completely missed itself governed by the four corners of the compass everything Fandom was about.” That’s debatable and work together to nurture our Mother and, at any rate, the yoots seem enthusiastic about Planet”). The whole thing is rather non-linear and the fandom(s) they do have. incoherent, just like a good peyote trip should be.

43 JACQUELINE MONAHAN & JOHN WESLEY HARDIN

Next, Puff Piece is another pseudonymous article Jacq: (by “Piper B. Token;” now Alan is just fucking with us) detailing the point of view from a person Cover on the fringes of marijuana fandom. It’s an A wild, airborne VW van hops a fence while interesting POV to consider, after a fanzine full of Vietnam-era choppers hover in the background drugs, debauchery and long, strange trips. and masked skulls nestle in each corner. A fenced- in marijuana field sports a warning sign (another There’s room for one LoC (from suspiciously- skull) in a yellow diamond. Fun or danger? Both? drug-free Lloyd Penney) and another bottomless You decide. nun, but with nipples concealed by N3F buttons as modesty demands, and that’s the end of Skyliner #6. The issue is fun when Alan puts his wry, observational humor on display instead of his dyspepsia with fans these days. Even the sections that sound less- than-gripping are made compelling by abundant photos, cartoons and visual flair. Alan is a graphic artist, and it shows; Skyliner is easily the best looking fanzine produced in 2019. That said, this is a fanzine meant to be read on a computer (BUT NOT A PHONE, ALAN WHITE WILL FIND YOU AND KILL YOU); there are hyperlinks on almost every page, linking to explanatory historical or biographical pages, YouTube videos, business home pages, etc. and I love it. If you’re printing Skyliner out to read it, you’re missing out on much additional content/ context. Go now and read it. Click the links.

44 JACQUELINE MONAHAN & JOHN WESLEY HARDIN

Contents My favorite quote from this article hints that Alan was a wild man back in the day, a sentiment he Oh wow, man, like, don’t harsh my mellow! I just goes on to prove. Armed with tales of joints, coke, wanna chill with my best friend, Mary Jane, and snogging, nudity, acid trips, and child zone out. It’s cool man, real cool. Got a roach endangerment (Not Alan), this last one (sorta) the clip? Got anything to eat? Why you starin’ at me intrepid Mr. White takes the reader from 1960 to that way? the early 80s. The escapades sound like all sorts of Crankitorial uninhibited fun, and wouldn’t be complete In which our intrepid perziner opines on the without at least one scoff in the general direction of clueless Millennials. Alan’s own evolutionary sensitive sensibilities of current fans. Alan trip through fannish conventions with most dedicates the issue to the wonders of excess and substance abuse in Fandom. He advocates unconventional people (well, back then they were). nothing, but reminisces about a different time that In a mini history lesson, Alan informs us that the evolved into today’s prudish and triggered fans. term “Muggle” used to mean MJ, ganja, grass What the hell happened? (1928, Louis Armstrong) Muggles came before blunts, joints, pre-rolls, doobies (1931). As Mr. White cranks on, admirably. These days, sanctimonious rabble pontificate on the substances dispensaries pop up (themed ones with interactive floors and huge slides) Mr. White longs for the they don’t do. Hypocritically of course. Where there were once fun people consuming mad/ underground, speakeasy days, when pot was illegal and those in possession flaunted the law as massive quantities, completing projects, just chill much as they flaunted their flesh. This potzine, by AF, there now sit judgmental malcontents, and pleasure kiboshers. the way, gets an “R” rating for featuring corporal adornment sheer enough to warrant a faint sneer In fandom since 1960, Alan experiences a big arc from Rotsler’s ghost. of OK, not OK behavior (himself and others) Alan rode fandom like a rocket, high on discovery within 20 years and multiple happenings. And and rapscallionism until his first puff on a joint in don’t get him started on those upstart Millennials, all going to hell in a handbasket with ailments 1968. Through a haze of smoke, he seemed to have been everywhere during the Me decade, befitting their rapt attention to tiny Svengali-like screens. running wildly into adventures both carnal and cannabis-based in a bid to live fast, die young, and He’s got 99 problems but a stitch ain’t one. Alan leave a beautiful corpse. It didn’t work, and Alan ends his tenure as Crankenstein by listing his is here to tell the tale of living long enough to see ailments and surgeries, most recently cataract a fan metamorphosis – from those taking a drag to removal. Now he can give you that steel-eyed those who’ve transformed into one. appraisal and really know what he’s looking at. Okay, not everyone. But gone are the party rooms Never again will he mistakenly substitute Robert and creative think tanks, the smell of mimeograph E. Howard in a white hat for Edgar R. Burroughs in black hat. Update: No one caught the error, ink, the “scare-anoia” of a federal offense, a long string of indiscretions, underground comics, the and Alan had time to leap out of bed and change it. Hindsight is indeed 2020 as we all glide into PSAs, the cocaine dealer named Wizard. Alan mourns the current “absurdity of safe places in that year, so in honor of the zine’s theme, “Here’s fandom.” lookin’ at you, lid.” As I recall This is a guy whose first convention was attended by Harlan Ellison, Fritz Leiber, Robert Silverberg, “Hunh,” I thought, “My car is much wider than the lane Ray Bradbury, and Frank Herbert; who I’m in.” encountered a “waist-high” pile of ganja on someone’s floor; who sped on Black Beauties until

45 JACQUELINE MONAHAN & JOHN WESLEY HARDIN

he woke up in a psych ward for a week. Alan was Half-moon Desert Secrets a wild man! In which Mr. White entertains Rosie Ann Wasn’t fandom supposed to be a refuge from the Privateer’s own recollection of a Carlos get-off-my-lawners? There is, of course, another Castaneda-like event full of imagery and “trip”. compelling side to this story, but I’m here to give It is the literary equivalent of a kaleidoscopic you Alan White’s take. Or toke. mandala, a tour, complete with a guide, universal energy, and a sacred burial ground. Up In Smoke In which the hedonist of the past meets the Puff Piece… headshops (dispensaries) of today. Alan recounts In which the rare non-Alan contributor jives and rates the cannabis cons he’s attended the last about grass, weed, joints, (six-legged) roaches, and few years. Armed with a shiny new pot card that seeds. Piper B. Token fills the bowl with a had something to do with the DMV, our intrepid potpourri of anecdotes from an adolescence full of host takes us along to Hemp Con 2, Euphoria an insane amount of pot, pot heads, dealers, and Wellness (dispensary) High times Cannabis Cup joints, but little belief in its potency or effects. See Festival, Hempfest and the badly run Chromicon Piper toke. Piper is high. Watch Piper reluctantly (I would have named it Chronicon). He also admit that pot is more than a rumor. Give Piper a ventured into the cleverly named Herban Expo, cronut. Nuwu Cannabis Marketplace, Cannabition, the The letter from Lloyd Pot Museum, and Planet 13 the Entertainment Potplex. Alan is still searching for the good old, Full disclosure. Lloyd Penney is a treasure and bad old days. This article’s title confirms where here guest stars as the entire Letter Column. they went. Quality over quantity I always say. Lloyd is one of the protons of the fannish atom, always positively Drinking Things So You Don’t Have To charged, always a pleasure to behold in print or in In which THC-infused beer is discovered. Is there person. A Lloyd Penney LoC is a blessing at the nothing this man won’t try? ReLeaf Dispensary end of any zine and here serves as the much and Two Roots Brewing company charge an sought-after munchie at the end of a bong bash. exorbitant $8.00 for a single can of Tropical That’s one righteous dude, man! Infamy Wheat with its 4.68% THC but no Separated at birth? discernible buzz. Enough Said, another $8.00 infused brew, also bombed on the buzz. Bummer, I have always thought that a young Alan White man. resembled Merrill Osmond.

46 JUKE OF ERLE NIC FAREY Evelyn Waugh, in 1949, called him the greatest immigrant and the indigent (particularly Chinese living American writer, and it’s arguable that in and Mexicans) which led to him founding the the year he turned 60, Erle Stanley Gardner was ‘Court of Last Resort’ in 1943 to investigate running at peak power, even though he’d severely miscarriages of justice. This was also made into a curtailed if not completely ended his early and TV show. prolific contributions to the pulps. It’s inevitable that the perception of that most Waugh’s praise stands in stark contrast to a famous creation, Perry Mason, will be driven by generally-held belief that Gardner was a mere the TV series starring Raymond Burr, and it’s mechanic, churning out the stories with more of something I can happily rewatch endlessly. Less an eye on his self-imposed 1,200,000-words-per- well-known might be the fact that Burr’s year target than on any pretension to literary interpretation was long preceded by six generally merit. “Mechanic”, in my years of working unsuccessful Warner Brothers movies in the construction, was (and presumably still is) a 1930s, and a radio serial which ran from 1943 to plaudit given to a craftsman considered most 1955 on CBS which was so disliked by Gardner highly skilled, and so it should be here. that when it transitioned to daytime television he Reviewer Kirk Woodward, in a 2006 essay1 on withdrew all support and thus the show became the Perry Mason books (of which he is an The Edge of Night (which ran for 30 years). admitted admirer) wrote, in part: This experience so soured him, one of his big sticking points being a lack of creative control, Arguments about “good writing” tend to that he determined to never allow the character point toward a generalized notion of to be portrayed again, until persuaded by “beautiful style”, and often forget that to be producer Gail Patrick (herself with the study of “good”, writing must succeed at the purpose law on her resume) that it could be properly for which it is intended. done. With, at that point, a tad over 50 novels That’s as solid an argument for the worth of available for use, the majority of the early series “popular fiction” as you’ll ever see. had opening titles reading “Erle Stanley Gardner’s ‘The Case of...’”, rather than the later Woodward points out the strengths of Gardner’s “based upon...” credit. The fact was, though, that anti-literary method, generally dictating his work all scripts went through Gardner for approval, (taking about three days for one Perry Mason adherence to law and so on, earning the show a novel) and thus, as supposedly “characterless” as reputation in the writing community of being the his cast are, the dialogue is the driver and is hardest to work for. Gail Patrick observed to TV colloquially realistic. Guide : “Funny thing about writers. A lot of them The realism and contemporary nature of both think they’ll improve on Erle. Most of them find the Perry Mason series (1933-73, including two out they can’t even duplicate him.” posthumous publications) and the Cool and Lam series (1939-70, under the pseudonym ‘A. A. It’s notable that Mason reflects Gardner’s Fair’) has always led to my own fascination with concern for the underdog against the forces of the books as representing a social history of what we could call “oppressors”, whether they be America. There’s the expected instances of overenthusiastic police, corrupt (usually local) casual racism and sexism in earlier works, though government and a DA’s office with an eagerness not to the extent you’d expect - they’ll tend to be to have at it with a modicum or circumstantial establishing of the qualities (or lack thereof) of evidence. some unpleasant types who enter the crosshairs To be fair to Hamilton Burger, though, as he and are intended to evoke the proper distaste points out in several episodes, most of the “trials” from the reader. Gardner’s own legal career was depicted are preliminary hearings, in which the notable for his unwavering defense of the prosecutor is only required to show that a crime has been committed and that there is reason to 1 www.perrymasontvseries.com/woodward

47 NIC FAREY suspect the defendant and thus wouldn’t present Every legal drama owes its own debt to Erle a full case at that time. Stanley Gardner, and I was minded to refer to As far as the police go, Lt. Tragg is an honest John Mortimer’s Horace Rumpole, who hewed copper and his relationship with Mason might to the tenet in a murder defense that all you need be called a friendly rivalry of sorts, since both of is a likeable defendant and an unlikeable corpse. them recognize and acknowledge the Rumpole was, of course, referring to swaying the professionalism of the other. The mercifully less- jury, whereas Mason’s clients were appealing to seen on TV (more so in the novels) Sgt. the jury of watchers and readers. Holcomb is the boorish and deranged one of a Gardner himself was persuaded to appear as the type that would be planting the proverbial brick judge in the final episode of the original Burr on the demonstrator. series ‘The Case of the Final Fade-Out’ (picture Then there’s the awful capitalists, and you knew below: Gail Patrick Jackson, Gardner and I was going there, didn’t you? Many of Mason’s columnist Norma Lee Browning), and as this was cases resolve in one way or another around set in a TV studio, all the crew members, most of motives of greed, and there’s a definite anti- whom had been with the series in its entirety, got capitalist sentiment to be seen, although that a moment on-screen. might be more accurately stated as being anti- And now we’re going to have another stab at a the-powerful for whom enough is never the remake (on HBO), set in 1932 Los Angeles and desired feast. This also contrasts with Mason starring Matthew Rhys. I hope it’s true to the himself, who is clearly wealthy, and what we original2. occasionally see of his on-book clients, mostly presented as moral and ethical people. The moneyed class, the canon tells us, are generally not fine upstanding people, nor are those who aspire to its membership by any means necessary. Mason’s early life and background are unknown, but it’s presumed that his affluence (often shown by the ability to charter a plane without obvious consideration for the cost, and his whimsicality over Paul Drake’s expenses) was attained by his successful law practice. Nevertheless, he lives modestly in a bachelor apartment. His implied self-made status contrasts effectively with some of the venal money-grubbers on display. Although very early on Mason was shown to be not averse to some technically and not-so-technically illegal moves (including breaking and entering, witness tampering and manufacture of evidence) this aspect was quickly dropped in favor of acute detection skills and genuine legal maneuvers, something Gardner 2 I later discover that the HBO version is intended himself enjoyed in his own career at the bar. as an origin story. Interesting.

48 SUSCIPE VERBUM

THE READERSHIP

Nic tenderly prunes the twigs, Ulrika chainsaws off the branches...

Joseph T Major May 25 Scalzi had a pretext. Who was the Best Fan Writer in 2010? A pro with a blog. That fulfilled his definition perfectly, a pro with a blog won the Best Fan Writer Hugo, therefore that justifies him. There was a difference. The “pro with a blog” was Frederik Pohl. Frederik Pohl the Futurian. Pohl the First Fandom fan, attendee of the First National Con, the year before he was kept out of the NyCon. Frederik Pohl who was a long-time fan before common set of assumptions and background Scalzi was ever conceived. information -- fannish culture, if you will. There are natural limits to how big that But never mind, he was a pro with a blog, and audience can expect to be, even if those limits that was all that needed to be said. are bigger now than they were when fannish The walls are down and the ignorant barbarians communities were tied together with paper. have taken over. Why do you think you will see John Scalzi is writing to a general reader. “Best Fan Writer" and “Best Fanzine” in quotes in And that's fine, it's just not fanwriting. the Hugo listing of Alexiad, while all the other categories are untainted by quotes? Curt Phillips Nic : I suspect we could nitpick the differences between Pohl’s and Scalzi’s wins all day, but I May 25 think most of it comes down to the motivation Thanks for BEAM 14. I haven’t finished reading it for the writing. Putting “Best Fanzine” et al as I’m back to working 12 hour days. We've lost categories in quotes in Alexiad listings might several nurses recently and there just isn't anyone be superfluous, but it’s a decent way of else. reminding the readers what a cartload of manure the “Fan” categories are over there. But I love the cover art, and I did look inside and I’ll always mentally fill in the phrase got hooked by Ulrika’s editorial comments about “according to the latest nonsense Hugo rules” John Scalzi and the damage he's done to Fandom without any apparent regard for any interest but Ulrika : I tend to agree with Claire Brialey his own, and I had to take a moment to write and that a central component of what makes say that I agree with the sentiments you’ve something fan writing is the intended expressed here with all my heart. The Hugos used audience and the author's relationship to that to operate with a considerable amount of trust in audience. Fan writing is aimed at a group of the good will and good character of those people who mostly know each other, or are one involved, and Scalzi immediately recognized the or two handshakes apart, and who share a

49 SUSCIPE VERBUM

weakness in that system and ruthlessly exploited it Various people have tried to come up with a for his own personal gain. And the horde of bone clear, easily understood, generally acceptable pickers scuttled in after him. The Hugos - all the way to make the distinction between devoted Hugos - mean nothing now. Just another product Science Fiction consumers and enculturated to be bought and sold. actifans, and all the shades of gray in between. So yes, your editorial struck a resounding chord This exercise inevitably fails. (It also typically with me. attracts enraged outcry against “gate- keeping,” because people apparently can’t tell the difference between taxonomy and norm- Taral Wayne setting. I have more than once explained that just because I think someone isn’t a fan May 25 doesn’t mean that they can’t become one, or I read [Ulrika’s] diatribe passionate editorial with that I don’t want them to be. Not that it ever interest. Not long ago, I gave a shit, but clearly does any good to say so.) time has passed us by, and the giving in to caring about the Hugos can only bring grief. It isn’t like a few years ago, when inappropriate nominees Leigh Edmonds sometimes upset the established order as we June 10 understood it. Today that is the established order. As usual, when I see fans’ street addresses I pop The people who run and attend Worldcons have them in Google Earth to see where they live. Of changed, and no longer understand what fandom course, I’m always disappointed, fans live in such was or how it operated ... or, more bluntly, don’t ordinary houses. There should be a castle with a care. This is the fandom of giant corporate moat (and perhaps a dragon) or, at the very least, properties, and money is at stake. A Hugo a neon light dangling from a skyhook pointing nomination can be worth solid advances in the down to the house with the sign ‘Here be the future, so if you have to take money from a child Enchanted Duplicator’ or something equally (or an aging old fart more like ourselves), then take grand. It seems incongruous that such fabulous it. Snatch the main chance. fannish fanzines should emerge from such Out of self-preservation, I’ve learned that the new unremarkable places of residence. No doubt there fandom is not fandom as I knew it, and has is nothing unremarkable about the insides of your nothing to do with me. I can do nothing to alter houses, but we’d need a kind of x-ray Google what fandom has become, and there is no point in Earth to be able to see the details. (And then, agonizing over what once was… perhaps, there’d be things we’d wish we hadn’t seen.) Sour grapes? Or wisdom? Perhaps it is just a I’m a bit divided and confused about what I liked question of one’s perspective. about this latest issue. Everything, of course, Sorry, I don’t loc as much as I used to, but I find would be the simple answer, but life is somewhat that I have less energy than I used to, and like to more complex than that. […] focus more on what I enjoy most. Fan politics is The highlight of this issue was Christina Lake’s not one of those things that I derive very much report of being a GoH. It reads like hard work to pleasure from. For that matter, neither is SF. I like me. […] However, Christina did bring up the to read good fan writing, now and then, but life is option of making a speech or being interviewed. too short and too precious to spend it on book During the Continuum GoH interview I wished reviews … unless I write them, of course. I fervently that [Bruce Gillespie] had made a speech assume they are not read, anyway. about something, anything. That way there would Ulrika : The Venn diagram is fuzzy and have been some structure, rather than just amorphous around the edges, but a large part chattering about stuff without direction. The of what you’re calling “new fandom” isn’t, point about a speech, I think, is that it is an IMHO, fandom at all. This is the perpetual opportunity to make a statement about something problem with the ambiguity of the word ‘fan.’ or at least telling some sort of story, but I spent an

50 SUSCIPE VERBUM hour listening to talking, the only point of which Ulrika : Fanzine fandom indeed suffers from a was to fill in an hour. dearth of glitz. Also of contemporary design Nic : “Interview or speech” is, in my sense, and accessibility. Even our online experience, a choice often made by the guest presence is generally lacking the glamour of themselves, and I’ve seen successful variants the many, many distractions available in the of both. When running a “Holodeck” Star genre. We do have an open door policy, but Trek convention back in the UK I’d taken the we have let the thistles and brambles encroach unusual step of structuring the on the front walk rather. programme like a more “traditional” sf con, with a full slate of panels and something which hadn’t been done before (nor, to my knowledge, since) having a Fan Guest of Honor, Janet Quarton, who had been instrumental in UK Trek fandom from the beginning (and whom, not coincidentally, the character “Q” was named after). The modest Janet rather recoiled at the thought of giving a speech, and opted for the interview format, not even solo, but accompanied by her cohorts Sheila Clark and Valerie Piacentini. Went well, as I recall... I enjoyed the ‘Diva Diaries’, partly because the daughter of a good friend of mine is also an opera singer so I’ve talked to her a bit about what it is like to be center stage will the full orchestra carrying her up to heights that no other kind of music can reach… David Redd What an excellent letter column, with some June 13 worthwhile and informative editorial comments [...] too - I like them. In your comments to Lloyd Penney about filk, and ‘reminiscence’, ‘memoir’ Nice cover (intriguing – made me stop and look!) and ‘fan history’ I’ve made the marginal note, A new mature image for BEAM these days? [...] ‘don’t get me started ...’ so I won’t. Next to Nic : The provenance of the cover: I saw that William Breiding’s letter where he writes that photo by the Lord Kettle a couple of years ago fanzine fandom is exclusive, but ‘with an open now, immediately noting its BEAM cover door policy’ I would like to suggest that one of the potential, I asked Roy for permission of use, problems with fanzine fandom is that it doesn’t which he agreed to but had quite forgotten by look gaudy, interesting and exciting from the the time it came around... outside, but once you see the inside, Goshwowboyohboy. And since I’ve managed to John Scalzi: rather glad I was out of all this. But close the narrative circle which begins and ends Scalzi the “fan writer” did at least plug Fred Pohl’s with reference to faneds’ houses and their contents fan blog, quite rightly, and on grounds of quality I (much to my own surprise) this would be an hope rather than pro solidarity. Pohl’s fanwriter appropriate moment to hit the ‘send’ button. Hugo seemed okay to me in these digital days.

51 SUSCIPE VERBUM

Jack Gaughan you recall won both fan and pro art As We Knew Them are going away, faster and Hugos, both deservedly, so it’s the playing-field faster. that counts. Your objection is clearly to what Scalzi started while on that playing field and why As a Bjo cartoon once said, “Welcome to fandom, he did it. But modern media are fertile ground for Mr. Kemp!” all that. Perhaps Scalzi’s rise was an early Ulrika : I think you get to the crux of the symptom of the decadent-stage decay of our local disagreement – clearly there are lots of writers society? (See Toynbee, Spengler, van Vogt.) Will and artists in the fantastic sphere who think be interested to see others’ comments. they are fans, simply because they like the fantastic arts. And in some sense, they’re not Ulrika : I think what I objected to was not what John Scalzi did on the playing field of wrong. Just not the sense of fan that the fan fanwriting, rather that he wasn’t actually on Hugos were crafted for. Or maybe it’s just that playing field at all, but instead used that there used to be a lot more overlap rules-lawyering and a large personal following between fandom and people who merely to steal the goal posts and move them to an consume or produce the fantastic arts, while entirely different pitch, on which the original now fandom is swamped in a heaving sea of players couldn’t even compete. consumers. Julie McGuff ’s memoir on volunteer medical treatment was vivid and fascinating. This was the Jerry Kaufman good side of USA citizens plugging the gaps in their capital-and-profit system, a good side we July 8-19 non-Americans rarely notice among all the other Television ads for 7-11 use, or used to use, “Too stuff. A brilliant “unreported world” piece in only much good stuff ” as their motto. Adapt it as your one page. own. [...] On the right hand, I’d like to just say everything was wonderful, but on the sinister hand, that’s unfair and cheating. Big thumping credit all Andy Porter around. June 28 Roy Kettle’s photo cover, with the piercing beam I think that a lot of people miss the point that of light running through…Nice one, really. those who are not fans, but rather writers or artists Ulrika, ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’. Too late. You’ve operating in the fantastic sphere - and who are been done. Let me wish that you’d been less harsh unfamiliar with the traditions and especially the in your descriptors of John Scalzi. [...] history of fandom and the Hugo Awards - are being nominated for and winning awards meant Nic : Ulrika can, of course, speak for herself, to honor the best produced by our microcosm. but I’m sure you’re aware (especially given some of the content of This Here..., now in its Because nowadays so many people consider third go-round) that I’m not at all swayed by themselves fans even if they’ve never heard of the concept that we must be nice and polite Mike Glyer or Mike Glicksohn, or Amazing Stories, and pretend that all is unicorns and rainbows. but have seen all the Star Wars films, and the Lord of I’ve always got room for robust public the Rings films (but have never heard of Tom discussion on fannish topics of interest, and Bombadil). I’ll admire a forceful well-written polemic... Nearly 30 years ago when I was GoH at Ulrika : I know a lot of Glyer’s ConFiction, I spoke about how SF and fandom as correspondents didn’t get the joke, but I we knew it were 20th Century phenomena. And wouldn’t have thought it too subtle for more here we are, 20 years after that century, and things established fans. I wrote my editorial in KTF

52 SUSCIPE VERBUM

mode. I don’t think there is such a thing as useful. Newszines, reviewzines, and “sercon” zines “too harsh” in KTF. won far more often than “fannish” zines. [...]The fanzine Hugo was clearly intended for on- Inside beat Hyphen one year; Science Fiction Times paper publications, although it had to be fiddled beat Hyphen the next. with from time to time to rule out special one-time Nic : You seem to be almost defining publications like Who Killed Science Fiction. It was “fannish” in this context by what it isn’t - not clear because that’s all there was. The fan writer a newszine, reviewzine or sercon, and most and fan artist were added in 1967 (I was there - hilariously, implied “not useful”. So is it Alexei Panshin won best [fan] writer, probably arguable that the only actual “fannish” Hugo- because of his essays about Heinlein, and Jack winner in the last mumblety-spoit years Gaughan won best artist, likely for his work in the would be Plokta? That would lead off into convention’s progress reports). The expectation, I side debates on whether The Drink Tank or presume, was these would also always go to work EmCit would have checked that box for you... that appeared in fanzines - or convention publications. Ulrika : My own theory on the fan Hugos is that reach beats quality. When handicapping a [...] For my taste the fanzine winners over the Hugo race between objectively excellent work, years often neglected the good in favor of the and work that has a huge audience, bet on the

53 SUSCIPE VERBUM

biggest audience. Usefulness may feature in for 2008; this in part gave Scalzi two Hugos for what reaches the biggest audience, but I the same material! (Note that I’m interested in question whether art in a progress report is reading both books sometime.) really useful as such. Useful isn’t what art is Nic : I’ve previously noted that Arrows of for. Desire had contributions from feelthy pros in […] almost all of its ishes. Nobody got paid for any What was a Fan Writer? A person who wrote for of them other than with a drink (if they were fanzines, which by definition was not a profit- lucky) and a copy. That’s fanwriting even by making publication and did not pay contributors the implied Hugo definition of “not except in copies and egoboo. Many fanzines immediately rewarded with actual money”, charged money, either for subscription or sample but more solidly defined by me as “because it copy, but this was understood to assist in defraying appeared in a fanzine”... costs. [...] Ulrika : I again borrow a page from Claire How did we think about professional writers who Brialey. What makes writing fanwriting is contributed to fanzines? Sometimes we didn’t have the audience it’s addressed to, and the reasons to - Robert Bloch made his zine appearances it addresses them. It’s written to people who before we had the award, for example. But what are, or at least wish to be, included in the about, say Alexei Panshin? As I said above, his culture we call fandom, and assumes Hugo win was most likely for his Heinlein studies, knowledge of, and interest in, that culture and published in zines in 1966, His book on Heinlein its habitués. Writing for a general audience was published in 1968. Individually and in just doesn’t qualify, no matter what the fanzines, his work was unpaid, but presumably subject or compensation. I think a lot of Advent paid him for the combined work. It adds a fanwriting is also in some sense written about wrinkle to consideration, not of the quality of the fandom, but at the very least, it assumes a work, but of how well it fit the award parameters. fannish perspective in the reader. This is, I now see, a question that can be applied [...] to Scalzi’s Hugo nominations and win. [...] He The bigger question is, what do the Fan Hugos was a non-fiction writer before he began Whatever, have to do with fanzines, and the answer is, unless or began to write sf. Whatever archives blog posts your fanzine (keeping in mind the much broader back to 2002. Scalzi published five books of sf understanding of fanzines as expressed in the between 2005 and 2007, including Old Man’s War. WSFS Constitution) is online in some fashion and He published two books drawn from his is serious and constructive in some way, not much. blog, You’re Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your The number of “trufans” like us who join the Laptop to a Coffee Shop: Scalzi on Writing (2007) and Worldcon as attending or supporting members is Your Hate Mail Will be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, too small to affect even the nominations, and as 1998-2008 (2008) in the years during which he our numbers dwindled, the possibility of passing was nominated. on the cultural flesh of “unwritten rules” He was certainly a professional writer in those dwindled with them. The bones of a common years, but was the blog writing “fan” writing? My love of sf and related genres are, I think, still presumption from the dates was no; the work he there. [...] did in the blog was the source of two books, Maybe Simon Ounsley makes too much of a intended for sale. Based on this (certainly simple dinner gathering or maybe it wasn’t that arguable) conclusion, Scalzi should not have been simple. He addresses many of the questions we nominated for Best Fan Writer; instead, he should face when we try to get our friends together for a have been placed in the “Best Related Work” meal that’s also meant to be a Special Event - category. At the time, I doubt it would have annual get-together for a holiday or at a occurred to anyone to nominate his blog rather convention. Where do we meet, what do we eat, than him; but You’re Not Fooling Anyone was eligible. how do we greet? (I especially like the Lou Reed Indeed, Your Hate Mail was nominated, and won shout-out.) And if Simon’s note about Ian

54 SUSCIPE VERBUM

Sorenson’s taste in music means Ian likes the Bee apa’s purpose would be better served by being all- Gees, then I’ll have to point this out to Suzle, who female, the men left (not, I think, without some also likes them. (But if it means Ian hates the Bees, grumbling). But there was one member who I’ll leave her in the dark.) caused some real controversy, as she was trans. This was Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who had Julie McGuff ’s follow-up to Luke’s piece about chronicled her change in some of the fanzines of going to the King County Health Clinic adds a lot the time. I was one of Jessica’s friends, having met of good detail to Luke’s picture. There's also been her soon after I moved here, and remember when an article in our local paper about a similar clinic we got the news that she was being ejected. She for pets. was very hurt, as were her friends on her behalf. I was quite happy to read Christina Lake on her Does this bear any similarity to the TWP Guest of Honor experience at Follycon. They situation? treated her well and gave her lots of interesting I had no idea what “David O. Fucking Selznick” stuff to do. Good to know she still had the energy was writing about, but was intrigued enough to to take part in non-official activities like dancing, check out the Moby video on YewTewb. It makes drinking, brunching and so forth. One line in her much more sense, in a poetic and dreamlike way, paragraph about TWP caught my eye… now. She says, “...maybe my sense of empowerment could be interpreted as condoning misbehaviours I loved the insight into opera performance as in relation to transgender members”. This shared by Stacey Tappan, and am glad Ulrika got knocked me back to 1977/1978 when I was her friend to write. Unexpected and welcomed. friends with a number of the people in A John Wesley Hardin and Jacq Monahan have me Woman’s APA. In its first several years, AWA (semi) seriously considering writing up a couple of included men. When the membership decided the pages for this year's WOOF collation. I’ve got time, some leisure, and maybe some things to write about. It could happen. I’ve always struggled with the idea that I could, at a moment’s notice, be drafted to be a Corflu GoH. I’ve never paid to be left out, and fortunately the only time my name was drawn from the hat I was out of the room. In fact, I was out of the state! (I had an attending membership but didn’t attend, and somehow the con committee didn’t observe my absence.) But I’ve had the honor of being a GoH at other conventions, and although a thrill, the stress of having to do a presentation is only a little less pressing. (One has longer to prepare, and can often deflect the possibility of giving a speech by doing an interview, or getting others to join in presenting a “live fanzine.”) So my hat’s off to Alan Rosenthal. Wait, not that hat - that’s got all the names in it! I’m glad to see how well you and Nic get on in print; if ever the two of you are at a Corflu at the same time, I’d like to see you do a dialog thing in front of the assembled multitudes. Nic : I fled in terror at this suggestion. Ulrika’s eyes may have lit up, though. I’ll add

55 SUSCIPE VERBUM

(later) that we put in a lot of effort, jointly, story being a balcony that overlooked the dance which was definitely reflected in the tone and floor. topic of ‘Eleven Years Later’. I believe I can I lived in New York from 1971 to 1977, and I have speak for Ulrika in expressing our combined very little recall of seeing music during my first pride in this publication... years there. I know I saw a Rolling Stones concert Ulrika : I believe I am far more witty and at Madison Square Garden but all I remember incisive in print than in the flesh, so a live was that I went with Bridget Dzidzec and we ate interview might be less fun than you’d hope. brownies before going. But 1975 changed that. The postcards from Brenda were fun, but I have I’d read something in the Village Voice or East no interesting comment to make. Village Other about this new performer, Patti Smith. Then Paul Williams invited me to join him and […] some friends to see Smith, for the first time with a [Letters:] full band, play at the Other End. Sure, I said. And I do wonder, as Dop does, whether and how many it was incredible. I’d never seen anyone like Patti, apas still exist, though he may be talking strictly nor heard anything so powerful. I remember that about British ones. I know FAPA goes on, as do she ended the show by reciting one of her poems SAPS and the Turbo-Charged Party Animal APA about meeting Anita Pallenberg in a bar; then she (Turboapa for short, and one Andy H still took off her white shirt, revealing a tee-shirt contributes to). What if anything remains of featuring Keef Richards’ face, and singing ‘Time CAPRA, for example, The Cinema Amateur is on My Side’, followed by ‘G-L-O-R-I-A-A-A-A’. PRess Association? I was OE of that one for (As a bonus, during a break, Paul’s friends sitting several years (though not for the first year), and for across from us in our booth began giggling and which I published my first fanzine, The Spanish whispering. “What’s with them,” I asked Paul. Inquisition. (Suzle became co-editor with the third “They think Dylan’s sitting in the booth behind issue, and we turned it into a genzine. I created a them.” And so he was, as shown in a photo in the new apazine, Flash Frame, for the remainder of my East Village Other the next week.) membership.) Not only was I hooked by La Smith, seeing her in Somehow it didn’t occur to me to detail my own half-a-dozen other shows in various performance history of music appreciation as a response to spaces over the next two years. I was also drawn ‘There Are Places’ as Mark Plummer did. I should into the world of punk and New Wave (hands up have known. The story starts in Cleveland, Ohio, if you can explain the difference) at CBGB's (and with Josh White, Jr (folk blues son of a folk blues OMFUG). For example, Barry Smotroff and Lou performer who was much better known back then Stathis (and maybe Susan Palermo?) included me in the 1960s) and The Blues Project, an electrified when they went to see a band that Barry’s blues outfit not too different from the Paul haircutter’s boyfriend was in. That was the Butterfield Band, and including Al Kooper. Both Ramones, and Blondie opened for them. Then performed in La Cave, a basement venue. I there was Television, and Talking Heads (when remember exiting after the Project and telling my they were a trio) and visiting groups like the friend Ken, “I feel kind of sick.” “You didn’t like Runaways and the Dead Boys. (T. Heads was my them?” “No, I loved them, but there was so much favorite of all these.) Everything you’ve heard bass!” I’d never felt anything like that before. about the place was true. It was dark, dirty, long My Ohio State years included movie theater and narrow, with the bathrooms behind the stage, performances at midnight by bands that did covered with graffiti and stickers. Rolling Stones and Van Morrison covers (like I looked for places like that, and music like that, ‘Street Fighting Man’ and ‘It Stoned Me’) and when I moved here. I dragged enough people with visits by Riders of the Purple Sage and Grateful me to have Patrick Nielsen Hayden (Did Teresa Dead on the same bill (weren’t they essentially the co-write?) include the experience in ‘How to Be a same band?) in a two story club with the second Seattle Fan’. Something to the effect of, “Go with

56 SUSCIPE VERBUM

Jerry Kaufman to a punk rock show. Have a great to be a bit more than just some “clever lyrics” time. Never go again.” in isolation... [...] Thanks for the Cardinal Cox piece on Steve In my letter, I described Barry Allen in The Flash Sneyd, about whom I knew little and now have as “prissy.” Not quite the right word, I think. read much. The bits that Cardinal quotes do whet “Priggish” might have been better. He just kept my appetite, so will have to seek him out. (I am being overprotective of his daughter and sure to currently reading Tracy K. Smith’s collection, Life act in the way best calculated to alienate her. I on Mars, which includes much sf poetry and many don’t believe that behavior from that character David Bowie references. She mentions at one and thought the writers forced it. point her father reading Larry Niven.) I’ve said far too much, haven't I? Have fun editing Nic : Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen is both prissy it all down. and priggish - it’s an exaggeration of traits on display in the comics of a certain age, and very Nic : “Fun” would not have been the different from his generally goofy DCAU operative word, necessarily, since Ulrika and I portrayal. In one way it’s quite interesting that the both had several goes, sensibly passing the “heroes” have such human frailties, something task between us momentarily before we began you’d tend to associate with Marvel much more to see bright lights and hear dead relatives than DC, who nevertheless mostly can’t get away beckon. We hope you’re pleased with the from the portrayal of Supes as “the big blue result, as that bit of snark isn’t intended to schoolboy” as he was once described. What tends discourage you, or anyone else from loccing to interest me more, though, is that so many of the the World’s Finest Fanzine. Reader response, female characters behave in appalling and ignorant as I interminably observe, is our fundamental ways (including but not limited to Iris West Allen currency, and part of the editorial task is (as and Lynn Pierce (Black Lightning)), and that’s Ulrika has noted in a previous ‘Suscipe equality!... Verbum’) to present those responses in a [...] manner which is readable and interesting to all. I used to have a pretty light touch when it Mark P talks about Billy Karloff - wasn’t he one of came to loc editing, generally only excising the Merseyside British Invasion guys? Billy J. salutations and overt gush, but my esteemed Karloff ? Top hit “Little Children (Are Good on co-editor is a lot more astute about it, even as Toast)”? she is prone to wail “But it’s so much more Nic : You’re thinking of Billy J. Kramer... work”... [...] ‘Genre Fiction’, ‘Old Time FIAWOL’, and ‘The Rich Lynch FAAN Award Blues’ all have clever lyrics. But I July 9 haven’t got around to listening to Rush's ‘Subdivisions’, or whatever Ben Harper song’s the Ulrika’s slightly over-the-top lead-off article, model for the latter, so can't say how well the “Don’t Do Me Like That” is what has inspired me words work with the tune. ‘Old Time FIAWOL’, to write. No mean feat, either, as writing a letter on the other hand, seems ready to be included in of comment is not something I do very often. our next karaoke session, if we had such. Notwithstanding the amount of sheer horror that the article aroused over at File770.com (as well Nic : Jeez Killer! Part of the point of the lyric as a lot of breast-beating about ‘gatekeeping’), I parodies is that you should check out the do very much agree with your basic point: the Fan source material especially if you’re unfamiliar Hugos have been hijacked. with it. Our lyricists take a lot of trouble to Your year-by-year breakdown on how it all went preserve the cadence of the original songs down was pretty damning, though I think blaming (well, I know I do), and thus they’re supposed John Scalzi is oversimplified – this was probably

57 SUSCIPE VERBUM destined to happen with or without Scalzi’s involvement. In fact, I don’t really think that he deserves the most blame. Me, I’d lay it on social media in general, and specifically blogs, as the root cause. Nowadays, anyone (especially competent writers like Scalzi) can be a focal point through a blog. And it doesn’t take a whole lot of encouragement for all the blog’s followers to rise to the occasion. Back in 2011, I saw what was happening and tried to preserve a place for fanzines in the Hugo Awards. My proposed amendment to the WSFS Constitution, much of which was eventually approved, eliminated podcasts and for-profit publications from eligibility. But I apparently couldn’t eliminate blogs – even though the Constitution stipulates that publication of four or more issues (or equivalent in other media) are required in order to be eligible, all the Hugo Awards administrators since then have ignored that. An issue of a true fanzine, on the web, has a unique URL. Blogs cycle all their material through a single URL. That makes a blog the you describe) are now the deciders on who or equivalent of a single issue of a fanzine. Blogs what gets nominated. The Rabid Puppies fiasco is should therefore be ineligible for the Fanzine only the most obvious example of this. I don’t Hugo. think there’s really anything effective we can do, Ulrika : It does seem that Hugo and I doubt that attempting another WSFS administrators are, in general, deeply Constitution amendment attempt would work. If reluctant to enforce the rules even in the face we tried that we might well end up with what of flagrant violations. Which is why I would Australia’s Ditmar Award for what used to be prefer renaming the fanzine Hugo to Best Fan “Best Fanzine” has morphed into: the category Publication irrespective of medium – it would definition now reads “Best Fan Publication in Any at least be more honest than calling a blog a Media”. fanzine. And there’s nothing to say that great From all the adverse reaction over at fanac can’t appear in blog form – I think it File770.com, I don’t think you’ve made many can, and should be recognized. But this new friends with your article but bravo to you for wouldn’t resolve the knotty question of how to writing it, for pointing out that the Fan Hugos limit the fan categories to actual fanac, and the should not be a stepping stone for professional answer, I think, is that it can’t be done. writers and artists on their way toward success. It Because, as you say, fandom has changed. Or needed to be said. at least been overwhelmed by this new thing, that calls itself fandom but doesn’t grok the fannish. Lloyd Penney Parsing through all the invective about your article July 24 at File770.com, I think I do agree (albeit grudgingly) with one comment: Fandom has [...] changed. And in such a way that people not familiar with all the history and traditions of Part of the slow passing of fandom is the fact that fandom past (up to the middle of the 2000s, as fans don’t qualify for fan awards any more. The

58 SUSCIPE VERBUM

This issue’s loccol wordcloud. worditout.com

Fan Auroras in Canada aren’t won by fans, but by chatted up UK fanzine friends, but as the evening pros running conventions for their fellow pros, and wore down, and we did too, we took a black cab by the friends of pros, often producing radio back to our hotel. We were also advertised shows and podcasts most of us cannot access. Canadians at two other club gatherings we went With that, the fans have largely given up on the to, with the steampunk groups in London and Auroras, and the pros have more opportunities to Lincoln. put Aurora Winner! on their publications. Part of I gather that for the Dublin Worldcon, none other that was from some years ago when the price of than Kees van Torn is managing WOOF. I will voting in the Auroras was put at $10. have to see if I can generate something to go in it, In 2010, I was nominated for Best Fan Writer, but but these days something original in fanzine out of a field of five, I came in fifth. Fred Pohl format seems beyond me. Hey, Jacq! Hugs! won it that year. I didn’t mind, but it was for a My loc… I stand corrected since our trip to website showcasing the best writings of Fred Pohl, Liverpool in mid-June… The Beatles played twice and the webmasters decided it would be great to in Toronto. Yvonne got to one concert at Maple get Fred one last Hugo. Good idea, but not fair to Leaf Gardens, I think the second one, and she the rest of us that year. indeed met them all. Three weeks in England was One thing we did do when in London was go to a marvelous fun, and we’d happily do it again, if the First Thursday at the Bishop’s Finger. I gather we cash presented itself. Not to worry, Ulrika, I expect had been advertised as Canadians coming to join severe editing on my letters, and I am pleased if the party. We had ourselves a wonderful time, and even bits are published. [...]

59 SUSCIPE VERBUM

Chuck Connor But eventually the old/discarded technology became impossible to support. And now it’s the November 11 same. I found several copies of my old CD- Here I am, finally with some good news from the fanzine venture Phlizz recently, and I understand NHS – remission, and the fact I can dump on a that Dave Langford will be eBooking the old stick sufficiently for it to be analysed and come Harry Warner collection I published 20+ years back negative as well. But the guilt, the guilt!, at ago on a 3 ½” floppy disk (wrap-around cover and not replying to BEAM #14 is relentless. a clear Perspex ‘CD’ like case.) Ulrika : Remission is a fine thing. Would any of that be relevant as a medium today? Congratulations! Vinyl may well be back in black (and multi-colours However, as this is playing ketchup, and seeing as as well) but I don’t see it taking over anything the two of you complained like a pair of other than the hardened collector of esoteric downtown hookers at the size of my last LoC, artefacts. consider this one as having had a bris – ie Mind you, 5 or 6 years ago I remember seeing an trimmed down. original paper copy of that AOY for sale on ebay Claire makes comments in regard to a 3rd Fan (cue for a ridiculous amount of money, so maybe that’s Harry Lime quote re cuckoo clocks while the the way ahead? Create something designed for ghost of Anton Karas does a Pete Townsend/Jimi future profit, rather than being given away in the Hendrix with his zither) – and I suspect when the tradition of its origination (and I still have fond seals are finally broken and the records opened, it memories of Derek Pickles – the ‘inventor’ of the will turn out to be someone such as John D. Trade concept.) Rickett, or Chr$ Carne, or Vincent Clarke, or But to move on, and Mark’s comments re my skills The Chicken Brothers, or The Terrible Twins, or with short term memory retention. Actually, I Moira Shearman, or Jane Carnall, or Pat Silver, went through eFanzines and dropped a back issue or Jenny Glover, or Dave & Philip Collins…. All in PDF, but I wouldn’t want to disillusion the wheels within wheels (ed ceddera.) young man. I don’t think it’s possible to identify one specific As to the ‘powers that be’ comment? Bless you, ‘glue-person’ - more like Copydex (the mozzarella Mark, it’s yours. It was something I used to use of glues) which seems to have minds of its own back when Greg Pickersgill walked the Fanac, depending on how you use it. biting the heads off Neos and suchlike. The one underlying/binding factor for us was the Experience has taught me that Alison will happily fact that it was Fun-with-a-capital-F. Even in the print up anything, so a shirt with that on shouldn’t penultimate IDOMO (issue 20 – final issue being be a problem. 20 ½ because I remembered reading in a fanzine As to whether eAPA is worthy of support? I that ‘real’ fanzines never make it to voting age always thought it was, and would probably which, back when that was written, was 21) I continue that support even if I’d been informed stated that it had finally become Un-fun – fun that it was an APA of little or no importance. negative. It had become time to walk away. Nic : I will say that I thought eAPA was Is Fanzine Fandom ‘fun’ these days? In some “worth it”, having contributed to a few distys, respects yes – however, I also feel that things are but my thick inability to actually open the file way too serious and ‘political’ for me to get kiboshed interaction with other members, a involved with it like before. The medium has crucial letdown, as least as I saw the purpose changed, for one. No more 10 day stints typing of that or any APA to have a conversation. I out 60 – 80 stencils from nothing. No pre- was also in FAPA for ten minutes or so, and origination, all live to the typer (an Adler Gabriele for whatever reasons I didn’t feel suited to it. 8008 with 10, 12 & 15 pitch daisywheels). Like the That’s a rather blathery way of saying that I Desperate Bicycles said: “It was easy, it was cheap, suppose I’m not much of an APA-friendly go and do it.” person in terms of being able to contribute

60 SUSCIPE VERBUM

meaningfully, but I’ll defend anyone else’s John Hertz right and desire to do so... February 4 As it is, I’m (far too) slowly working on something that’s designed to bring in new members – and In the fan-category Hugos the dominators are the using new technology that’s free to one & all. nominators. I’ve been calling attention to this for Distribution is guaranteed, but the take-up will quite a while now. Banana Wings 75, with a superb probably be on the standard Club Membership O’Brien cover, printed a letter from me in which, Model – 99% passive to 1% active. Even if it you should pardon the expression, I ran the generates the 1% then it’s a job well done. And if numbers (2019 Worldcon). [...] that 1% also go onto other things, then that is a Nic : “Quite a while” indeed, and I locced BW real bonus. 75 along the same lines as I did a couple of But, like everything else, it’s a case of finding time, years ago on this topic, suggesting that you’re and computers that don’t fucking blow caps after wasting your time. It subsequently occurred 6 years of use. Two in as many days – and I’m to me that I’m not your audience, but good talking proper computers here, not some mincing luck anyway. little lap dancer of a thing that overheats after an Ulrika : You are, of course, right that if hour or so. That, plus having data across so many fanzine fans were to participate in the Hugo bloody hard drives I need a hard drive just to nominating process in significantly greater consolidate them, and then sort through the numbers, the chances of fanzine fans winning things. Colour me a digital packrat, I suppose…. in the fan categories would be better. But it’s And in case it was missed, Dop adds to the not perhaps the most realistic ask. The electronic history of ‘Fandom’ with his comments financial barrier to participation isn’t trivial, re Nigel Richardson’s email system. Anyone have especially for those who feel marginalized in more details to add? the event. It’s likely that the rate at which fmz fandom participates in the nomination process William Breiding’s comments: usually I couldn’t is quite a lot higher than that of the larger give a metaphorical flying rat’s furry ass crack population, but it’s a numbers game, and either, but I’ve seen so much of it that it was fanzine fandom is profoundly outnumbered. difficult not to step in the horse shit. What a treat finding Stacey Tappan. I’ve had Finally (was that a Thank Fuck from the back?) more to do with her sister, to whom recently I give many thanks to Pete Cox for the Steve Sneyd the reverence due a queen - some readers may piece. If I can still find the image/files I’ll see actually get that - but I’ll offset by pointing out about putting up the Icarus CD I did for Steve that ST has sung the title role in Sucharitkul’s more than a few years ago. Steve sent me a flood/ Madana. That’s a connection for you. And I just water damaged cassette back in the 1980s, after learned she opened last Saturday in the brand- several tech advances it was possible to clean it up new Aucoin-Ruhl Eurydice with the L.A. Opera! and make it presentable, but without losing the (Photo below) atmosphere. I sent him 150 copies in DVD cases, Another treat finding WOOF. It seems to be news with a booklet of the poems he read. It was a time for J.W. Hardin, but as the saying goes “It’s always long before Pop-Up events, and such things as news for someone”. I’ve never been a pillar of mobile studios were for the likes of the Rolling WOOF, but I’ve been a buttress, as Lord Stones & The Who. Melbourne put it. Chris Carson in WOOF 43 is And as the Lady said: “Boom-boom, that’s indeed cool, analytical, intelligent, and has an Shalott” extremely dry wit - oops, I skipped a page. Certainly I remember Steve Sneyd. I was a regular contributor to Data Dump. I sent many a POEM - some readers may actually get that.

61 SUSCIPE VERBUM

WAHF rules as such that I was irked with Nic over, but Alan White; Jacqueline Monahan : “Looks rather the lack of transparency with which he wonderful, as usual. A LoC from Claire Brialey is handled the discussion.] ; Bill Burns ; George rare. For her to curse is even more rare. Perhaps Phillies : “Interesting bit on the Hugo awards.”; John and I have misrepresented her lager [sic] Christina Lake ; Guy Lillian : “What a intent in some way? I am perplexed. Love the winner! And I’m incredibly tickled by Jacq and lyrics to the FAAn Award song. Did not know that John’s kind review of WOOF. Hope they review Ulrika got upset with you over “rules”. Perhaps CHALL #42 sometime, but there are a lot of good the lot of us here in Vegas are just troublemakers! zines out there in line before mine. Anyway, Postcards from Brenda, yes! A sterling, stylish bravo!” ; Steve Green ; Robert Lichtman ; Jim Linwood ; Mike Glyer ; Cardinal Cox endeavour. Kudos…” [Ulrika : It was never the

62 IRON LYIN’

NOT FAIRPORT CONVENTION

Now I've been fanzine writer all of my days That's how I been getting my 'boo My words have been seen in some terrible zines Wherever they'd let me spew Yeah, wherever they'd let me spew Well, I nearly got done at some Midwest con Her hair was red, her eyes were blue But the life of a hack just kept calling me back So I went to the next Corflu Yes, I went to the next Corflu

Oh this'll keep that brain cell humming Hold on darling the fanzine writer's coming I'm coming through

Some day I'll have to give up this life of lyin' And then I'll tell you what's on my mind I'll build a slan shack by the Croydon tram track So I can hear them faneds whine So I can hear them faneds whine

Oh this'll keep them oldpharts grumbling Hold on darling a zine dog-eared is coming What will you do?

Now I've been a fanzine writer all of my days That's the only way I get 'boo I'm as cranky as fuck, and I'm shit out of luck Because I can't say anything new No I can't say anything new

Oh this'll get some loccers slumming The egoscan, and fans are slans, it's all coming Coming to you

Original song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxfsGbvH71A

Lyrical manipulation by Nic Farey

63