Chunga 25, Particularly Your Con Report
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From the rills and chasms of a distant peak issues Chunga, descending in musical cascades through deserts of indifference and canyons of criticism to water the green, green hills of Trufandom. Come dangle your feet for a while and perhaps you too will receive a complimentary pedicure. Edited by Andy ([email protected]), Randy, and carl ([email protected]). COA: Please address all postal correspondence to 11032 30th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98125. Editors: please send two copies of any zine for trade. Available by editorial whim or wistfulness, or, grudgingly, for $5 for a single issue; full–color PDFs of every issue may be found at eFanzines.com. Issue 26, November 2019 Tanglewood Artists this issue 1 an editorial Patrick Ijima–Washburn You Only Fail If You Stop Writing Front & back covers 2 by Steven Bieler Ulrika O’Brien 3, 4, 6, 50, 55, 58, 61 Fear and Loathing on the O’Bama Trail 4 by James Bacon Dan Steffan 10, 12, 13 Hal O’Brien 15 (top photo) Thumbs Up for Mr. Sardonicus 7 by John Hertz Randy Byers et al 17–31, 61 (photos) My Life as a Hack Steve Stiles 41, 52 8 by Graham Charnock Ray Nelson 46 Antecedents carl juarez design, other art 10 by Gordon Eklund ❦ On Distance and Expanding the World 14 by Pete Young Home is Like No Place There 17 by Randy Byers Contributors’ addresses have been removed Biographical Directory of the 1939 Worldcon (II) from this edition. 32 by Andy Hooper The Iron Pig 48 a letter column by divers hands Tanglewood Tangledown hen last we met in Chunga #25, it was February of respondent Luke McGuff volunteered to edit such an anthology, 2017. A majority of Americans were still in a kind of which was titled Thy Life’s A Miracle. This was intended to be out numb haze after the general election of 2016, and we in time for Corflu 35 in Toronto, in May of 2018, but wasn’t ready bent over backwards to talk about fannish topics as far removed until Corflu 36 in Maryland earlier this year. Members of both as possible from mundane politics. Our co–editor Randy Byers conventions received copies, and of course, it is accessible online was in the 15th month of treatment for brain cancer, and received at eFanzines.com. the news that the tumors had returned about the time that we went to press. Exhausted by the therapies as well as the can- Much of the material in this issue was solicited in the late cer, he chose to stop treatment, and embarked on a final visit to summer of 2017, and I’m grateful to the contributors for their Micronesia with members of his family. We’re publishing his patience. In addition to his submission, Steve Bieler proofread the remarkable account of that trip in this issue. It would have been a copy for the Biographical Directory, a huge job and a profound major work at any time in his life; that he composed it while suf- necessity. Thank you again, Steve. Ulrika O’Brien has also helped fering from an increasingly difficult terminal illness leaves me out with proofreading, in addition to contributing several pieces quite speechless. of original art. And before his Pacific Ocean adventure, Randy managed I don’t think carl or I feel quite “right” continuing Chunga another major goal, which was to attend Corflu 34 in Woodland indefinitely without Randy’s participation. In addition to solicit- Hills, California. His account of the experience “Like Riding a ing or finding a majority of the material that we have published Bike,” was published in issue #12 of BEAM. Most improbably, in Chunga, Randy also did much of the actual editing of that Randy’s name was drawn from the hat, and he was chosen the material, and set a standard that I might not be able to match. convention’s Guest of Honor, in keeping with a long and random But because the “Biographical Directory” is so impossibly long, tradition. His speech, titled “Fandom is a Forge” was promptly only a portion of the “fan section” could be included in this issue, published in Banana Wings #66 in June. which compels me to publish Chunga #27 in order to finish it. Over the summer, he worked on his account of the trip to Yap, My intention is to publish two more issues of Chunga, with the with some assistance from our friend Ron Drummond, and did final number containing primarily the correspondence on #27. I his best to continue walking, watching movies and communicat- have some unpublished material by Randy that I hope to include ing with friends online. Meanwhile, I was working daily on the next issue, and I’m encouraging his friends and readers to share “Amateur section” of the Biographical Directory of the Nycon, try- something about him there. I’m not looking for “tributes,” so ing to get it ready for publication as quickly as possible. But that much as memories of things that we enjoyed with him and about was a ridiculously long process, not completed until nearly a year him, or things that you endured together. With the passage of later. nearly two years, I hope that thinking of our co–editor will begin The last time I saw Randy was in the second week of Octo- to elicit something beyond the immediate grief of his premature ber. Carrie and I brought over some Chinese food for lunch, but absence. And I really hope carl will be able to contribute some- Randy slept through much of our visit, and we shared the food thing to #27, as he knew Randy just about as long as anyone in with his housemate Denys Howard. Denys had helped him move fandom. his bed upstairs into the middle room of the house, and he was But now, please enjoy Chunga #26, which is already in prog- able to greet visitors from there. But it was clear that his strength ress around you. Always one minute to midnight, and right on was ebbing. His family took over a few days later, and moved time. him down to a hospice in Portland early in November. He died on — An d y November 20th, 2017. 7/14/2019 Randy’s body was cremated, and in early 2018, the family scat- tered his ashes along the banks of the Hoh River, one of his favor- ite spots on Washington’s Olympic peninsula. Ron Drummond and Geri Sullivan, Randy’s collaborator on Science Fiction Five Yearly, went along to represent his friends in fandom. On their return to Seattle, we had what became a rather raucous wake at Randy’s favorite Belgian pub and restaurant, the same place we had last gathered to celebrate his birthday. A collection of Randy’s fan–writing seemed like the most appropriate sort of tribute to him; Chunga contributor and cor- Figure 5. A diagram from the literature of the Caudate–Putamen. Chunga 26 1 You Only Fail If You Stop Writing by Steven Bryan Bieler That’s the best I can do. If it’s not good enough, it’ll have to wait until I’m better. — Jo March in Little Women One of the joys of writing is receiving rejections. as well as anthologies that were also magazines that I’ve received nearly 500 rejections and look were also anthologies: Far Frontiers, Pulphouse. at me: And I don’t remember what these were, but what- I am a joyful person. ever they were, it were the 1980s: Cosmos, Questar, Unlike Gaul, my writing career can be divided Spectrum. into two parts. In the 20th century, I wrote science (I sold stories to some of these places, which only fiction and I was unsuccessful. In the 21st century, proves that a sale is not a safeguard.) I don’t write science fiction and I am unsuccessful. What I’m saying is, I’ve been kickin’ it. My street My 20th–century period was filled with an unre- cred rules. As George Scithers wrote to me in a lenting tide of rejections from SF magazines that, kindly rejection from 1976: I think you stand a though the economics of the game are against them, chance. He may have been guilty of optimism. In still exist: Analog, Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fic- the early ’80s, Damon Knight, after several encour- tion*, and Interzone. The science fiction reader who aging rejections, returned one of my stories with simultaneously looks to the future and to the past a small blue square of paper, one quarter of a full is not only in need of an ophthalmologist, she will sheet of paper, on which he wrote Sorry. DK. happily chant this list of zines that I tilted at as if they were windmills and which long ago suffered a core breach and vaporized: Aboriginal SF, Amazing, Peabody’s Improbable History Eternity SF, Galaxy, Galileo, If, Last Wave, Omni, In the 20th century, if you wanted a rejection, you Owlflight, Rigel SF, Stardate: The Multi–Media Sci- worked for it. Your manuscript emerged from a ence Fiction Magazine, Twilight Zone, and Unearth: typewriter or from a thunderous tractor–feed printer The Magazine of Science Fiction Discoveries. or laborious laser jet. You then went to work on the I was also weighed and found wanting by the edi- envelope. You wrote addresses. You found stamps. tors of the original anthologies Berkley Showcase, You made a second envelope to go inside the first Dragons of Light, Elsewhere, Full Spectrum, Future one and addressed it to yourself in case your target Bazaar, New Dimensions, Orbit, Shadows, Silicon editor wanted to stuff it with $100 bills.