Littlebrook , a fanzine by and for science fiction fans without much about science fiction in it, is published by Jerry Kaufman and Suzanne Tompkins (aka Suzle), on an irregular and unpredict- able schedule. The publishers’ address is P.O. Box 25075, Seattle, Washington, 98165; phone number is 206-367-8898. Email can be sent to [email protected]. This seventh issue is dated October 2009. Littlebrook is available for the usual: a letter commenting on a previous issue, articles or artwork, or your own fanzine in trade. We will also accept in-person requests, the provision of a beverage, or $2. We do not accept subscriptions. Littlebrook is also available on-line in a PDF format at eFanzines.com. If you prefer the electronic version, let us know, and we’ll send you an email announcement when another issue is ready.

Contents:

Bewitched, Bothered & Bemildred………………………..Jerry Kaufman.……...…….Page 2 Cane and Able…………………………………………………….John Berry…………….……..Page 6 Shadows on a Wall……………………………………………...Jim Young…...……..……….Page 8 Backwaters………………………………………………………...The Readers...……….….....Page 12 Suzlecol……………………………………………………………...Suzanne Tompkins…….....Page 20

Artwork by Anonymous (page 1, 7, 19), Brad Foster (pages 3, 5, 14, 15), William Rostler (page 11, 17), and Steve Stiles (16). Title card for Cat People on page 8 found on the Internet and used without permission but the best of intentions. Photos on page 24 by Jerry and Suzle.

© Contents copyright October 2009. All copyrights are held by the various contributors to their own work. Thanks in advance to Bill Burns for posting the PDF version to eFanzines.com. Yes, it has been al- most two years since our previous issue.

1 Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred

Jerry Kaufman

t’s obvious we have a pattern to the summer we found ourselves dealing with our publishing. We start off my mother’s final illness and death. In the fall strong, enthusiastic, and (for us) we allowed ourselves to be distracted by our frequent. Then the lapse between plan to visit Paris, and by the trip itself. issues becomesI longer and longer. You’ve This was my first time there. I prepared waited, if your memory lasts that long, for over by reading Rick Steves’ guidebook, among a year for a new Littlebrook . Thanks to Corflu others, and John Baxter’s marvelous We’ll Al- Zed and a sense of dread (and delayed again ways Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of by appliances breaking down, and the dol- Light. Steves in a local travel writer and guide drums of summer) you have it at last. with a national reputation. His series of books I don’t know about you, but my sense and tv programs have the umbrella title of of dread comes from a fear of death and things “Europe Through the Back Door.” (He does left unfinished. Let me rush to assure you that I phrasebooks, too.) Both Suzle and I found his have no immediate reason for this. I think it advice and guidance invaluable. (And we even comes more from seeing several good friends met a café owner who knew him. He’d been at and my mother pass away in the past two the café only two weeks before we were.) Bax- years. Mom, at least, had done everything she ter’s book was full of charming and funny an- ever expected in life. She’d served in the Army ecdotes, characters, and facts about Paris life, in World War II, met and married my father a interwoven with his own experiences as a few years after, had three kids and lived to see transplant from Australia. (Fans may know two of them grown and married themselves. him from his film books; Science Fiction in the She no longer knew what to do with herself. Cinema is one.) However, the friends died in their We saw many of the usual sights and primes, younger than me, and I expect they sites: the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Montmar- hoped for more life. I know they fought to stay tre. We rode buses or the Metro to most of with us. I know they had more to do. them, but walked quite a bit in the area around My ideal is to be around, start and our hotel, only a couple of blocks from the complete projects, always have something to Bastille in one direction and the Marais in an- do. Right now Littlebrook is one of those other. The Bastille exists only in memory, to things. be sure – there’s a monument in the middle of a traffic circle, and an outline on the pavement he past year has been mostly to show its original footprint. quiet with bursts of activity. The Marais is Paris’ Jewish neighbor- In the spring of 2008 we hood, among other things. It houses a museum helped run Potlatch, a small of Jewish culture and history, and rows of science Tfiction and fantasy convention that shops selling kosher foods, baked goods and lands in Seattle every other year or so. During sharp clothing. We also stumbled across one of

2 Paris’ English language bookshops there, the had an unsuspected back room or upper level. Red Wheelbarrow. (That’s a reference to a The front of the shop was obviously too William Carlos Williams poem.) jammed to fit any chairs or anywhere for the Confusingly to an English speaker, a readers to stand. “bookstore” in French is a librairie , while a However, Parisians defy the laws of “library” is a bibliothèque . The Red Wheelbar- space and time every day. We were almost the row was like the French librairies we bumbled first to arrive, and found that the impossibly into: floor to ceiling bookshelves, tables and narrow gap between shelves and tables was counters all overflowing with books, separated where we would sit. The shop owner kept on by the narrowest possible aisles. (Only the Vir- finding more places in the aisles and around gin Megastore was different – but it was going the corners to fit the newcomers – a few even out of business.) wound up standing in the doorway. She wel- We chatted with the store’s owner for a comed everyone, handing each a glass of inex- few minutes, finding out that she was an pensive but tasty vin ordinaire rouge . American expatriate. She told us about a read- The readings were pleasant, but more ing she was hosting the next evening, featuring than the characters or settings, I remember that another expat writing about a bookshop owner, each writer read a portion in English and a por- and a French writer whose first book had been tion in French. Afterward, they took questions, translated into English. many in French, and responded, usually in Suzle and I had been looking for some- French again. This left us somewhat baffled, as thing interesting to occupy an evening, so we neither of us has more than a rudimentary un- decided to return. We hoped we’d be able to derstanding of the language. (Suzle was at one make the acquaintance of other Americans time much more fluent, but time has eroded who would then invite us to join them for din- her grasp.) The worst of this was when the ner at their favorite bistro. French writer told a story of cooking for her This plan has never worked in the past, husband’s documentary film crew. Much of but we keep trying it. the tale was in English, but she switched to We wondered just where the reading French for the punch line. would take place, and speculated that the shop We took our revenge by eating dinner

3 afterward in the most French-looking restau- that I had a chance to look up Victor Noir. I rant we could find and ordering French fries. found an entry in Wikipedia that explained No, I lie. I had onion soup, escargot, and lamb Noir’s importance in the history of French re- gigot. With more wine. publicanism (shot by a nobleman he’d con- The next morning, while Suzle ex- fronted), but also how the bulge in his sculpted plored the neighborhood more thoroughly, I bronze trousers had made him a fertility sym- hopped on the #69 bus to visit one of Paris’s bol and – literally – a touchstone for women most famous cemeteries, the Cimetiere du Pere wanting to become pregnant. Lachaise. (See “Suzlecol,” elsewhere in this We had other adventures, of course, issue for our first experience on that bus, in the such as our visit to the Louvre, during which opposite direction.) I walked in through the we managed to become separated by a single main entrance but didn't see where the map floor, and spent an anxious half hour missing brochures were, and didn’t have a guidebook each other by seconds as we wandering up and with me. So I missed the tombs and graves of down stairs and elevators. We stopped in at many famous people, like Jim Morrison or Shakespeare and Company – I was disap- Oscar Wilde. pointed that they haven’t kept in print such Instead, I wandered without plan or ori- books as Pomes Penyeach by James Joyce, entation along twisting paths between rows of which was first published by the shop’s origi- crammed together small chapel, stones, tombs, nal owner, Sylvia Beach. statuary, and monuments. It was a melancholy Then there was the trip home. Suzle and forlorn pleasure to see that people from all writes about it in “Suzlecol” so I don’t have to. walks of French life were buried there – Chris- I don’t think I would have made it back with- tian, Jewish or Moslem; workers, nobles, and out her calm version of panicking. (Or not politicians; soldiers and resistance fighters. without spending an enormous amount of Eventually, I happened upon a large money.) group of European tourists. They surrounded We’re still eager for more overseas one grave, laughing, snapping photos of one travel, despite the anxiety we suffered at the another, calling to their friends. I squeezed end, and are beginning to plan a trip in March through the crowd, expecting to see the tomb 2010 for the Winchester Corflu, in Hampshire of Wilde, or Morrison, or Gertrude Stein. County, England. Instead, it was a bronze sculpture, of a recumbent nineteenth century dandy, or so he uzle and I have been married seemed. Around his head were bouquets of twenty-two years. Rather than flowers, and more were in his top hat, which my failing memory, I depend he held, open end up, in one hand. Women Son a receipt for this informa- were touching him, and I saw one kiss his tion. The receipt is from Olympic Distributors, bronze lips. The writing on the tomb read, dated 6/18/87, and is for a Rex-Rotary Stencil "Victor Noir," and showed a birth date in Duplicator and a Rex-Rotary Stencil Scanner. 1848. I couldn't quite see the death date. The cash to buy them came from a wedding I followed the group briefly (and gift we received only a month earlier. For at thanks to its guide found the graves of French least twelve years we published fanzines with actors Yves Montand and Simone Signoret). them. For a long time now, however, possibly Eugene Delacroix was easier to stumble on, as an entire decade, we haven't used them. his tomb was at the foot of Rue Eugene Dela- Thanks to Randy Byers, we connected croix. with a zine publisher, Chris Wrdnrd, (pro- It wasn't until we were back in Seattle nounced “Word Nerd”) who was interested in

4 owning that legendary machine, the mimeo- (The guides, plates, and styli will only be use- graph. (Technically, a duplicator is not the ful if they find wax stencils, of course.) same as a mimeograph - I can explain if you They are happy, we are happy (didn't insist.) Chris has published a few zines (not in have to take them to the dump or ship them to the sf subculture) like the delightful Cipher , a church in Kenya, have lots more space in the and attended Corflu to see what we were all storeroom). The equipment will continue to about. She and her partner Andy came over a have an active zine pubbing life. And we have few weeks ago, looked at the Rexes, and this receipt and fond memories of the Specific moved from interested to excited. Northwest Press. On a recent Tuesday evening, they re- [[Sections of this editorial have previ- turned in a Flexcar and took both the duplica- ously appeared, in somewhat different form, in tor and the scanner. We pressed other items on LiveJournal.]]. ΩΩΩ them: an interleaver, a packet of e-stencils, half-a-box of Fibretone, and an assortment of lettering guides, shading plates, styli, and ink.

5 Cane and Able by John Berry

recall a Comedian relating a joke con- I also had two shillings and sixpence and was cerning a father placing his very young told not to spend it all at once! son on a table and asking the boy to jump, The train shunted away, and after a few hours and he would catch him. The boy leapt we were deposited at Lydney railway station, Glouces- forward, Iand his father adroitly moved aside and his son tershire, near the River Severn, in the Forest of Dean. landed heavily on the floorboards. My psychiatrist has opined that my inferiority “That’s your first lesson in life, Rupert. Never complex stems from this time – we were paraded out- trust anyone, not even your own father!” side the station while local husband and wife teams pe- I also received a salutary lesson in this respect, rused the bewildered pupils, carefully making their se- not, I hasten to add, from a parental source, but I’ve lections. I was second to last to be chosen, by a Mr. And never forgotten the impact of this object lesson…. Mrs. Powell, of 16, Templeway, Lydney. Lydney Grammar School and Yardley Gram- t was the end of summer, 1939, and every- mar School shared the local schoolhouse, four hours one anticipated that Great Britain would from 8 a.m. to 12 noon for the locals – 12 noon to 4 p.m. soon be at war with Germany. for the Birmingham crowd. The two schools coalesced Anderson air raid shelters were delivered as well as could be expected, but one day I had a minor to every homeI in Birmingham, consisting of six curved tiff with a Lydney boy, nothing out of the ordinary, just metal sections, bolted at the top, and metal screens were a schoolboy dispute. But unfortunately, I pushed him, he used fore and aft to create a cramped area that had to be fell backwards and his head hit a radiator. This caused placed underground. My father and I dug like beavers to slight bleeding and thus a hospital visit. facilitate the shelter, the surplus soil being heaped on I was warned to attend an interview with the top as a further defense. Lydney schoolmaster, aptly named Mr. Birch, regarding My family (father, mother, two sisters and my- this contretemps, at 11 a.m. on the following Friday self) hied to the local Air Raid Precaution building here morning. we were fitted with gas masks, retained in a cardboard Prefects from the Lydney school, who were box with thick twine appended to fit over one’s shoul- aware of Mr. Birch’s strict disciplinary code, took me to der, the gas mask to be carried at all times. one side and gave me valuable psychological informa- I was thirteen years old, and I attended Yardley tion. Grammar School, near an industrial area south of Bir- “Listen, John,” said one of them, “Mr. Birch mingham city centre…if bombing commenced, as an- will offer you two punishments, either six strokes of the ticipated, the school would be dangerously located, cane, or one thousand lines such as ‘I must not fight in hence our parents were asked to present us at New the classroom.’” Street railway station, in Birmingham on 1 st September “Yes, John,” said another, putting an encourag- 1939 to be evacuated to a secret destination. ing arm around my shoulder, “but he really appreciates a So I joined the other pupils on the station plat- pupil facing up to his responsibilities. I suggest you ask form, and as the train steamed in my mother hugged me, to be caned, he will then congratulate you on your ac- and uttered a throaty “Good-bye, son,” and I staggered knowledgement of your unfortunate demeanour. Conse- onto the train. quently he will rescind the cane option and give you I was attired in a green school cap, a raincoat lines, maybe reduce the total to five hundred.” over my green blazer, and short trousers; I carried my “It always works,” said the third prefect, smil- gas mask, and a small case containing spare clothing ing at me reassuringly. “Consider the alternatives, but if and a packet of pilchard sandwiches. you are wise, you will accept our advice.” (My mother had read that providing fish meals Naturally, I was quite impressed with this com- for young people would energise their brain cells, and as radeship, and at the appointed time I knocked Mr. I was not a promising student, my diet was heavily pil- Birch’s study door, awaited the shouted command, chard supplemented.) “Enter,” and with much trepidation I opened the door

6 and walked unsteadily across to his desk and faced him. Honestly, I marveled at this wonderful double He was a large man with a heavy black beard, a bluff, taking me as far as he could before the pleasant mortar board rammed on his head, and wearing a black denouement, “Two hundred and fifty lines, boy.” gown. I proudly held out my left hand, palm upper- “This is a very serious incident, boy,” he grit- most, but suddenly his face became contorted, veins ted, “and deserving of severe punishment. Therefore I throbbing on his forehead. offer you six strokes of the cane or one thousand lines.” Thwack…thwack…thwack: he hit my prof- “The cane please, sir,” I panted. fered left palm three times. He appeared to be somewhat startled at my re- I was absolutely flabbergasted, stunned, sponse and blinked a couple of times in apparent disbe- amazed, completely and utterly shell-shocked, with an lief. He cleared his throat behind a cupped hand. incredibly numbed hand. “Boy, it is very creditable the way you have “Right hand, boy,” he shouted. demonstrated your responsibility for causing this boy to Thwack…thwack…thwack. be injured. It was an unfortunate accident.” Crikey. Both palms were now numb, tingling, “Nevertheless, sir, I want to be caned,” I in- seeming to swell before my disillusioned eyes. He even sisted, now supremely confident that the Lydney pre- had to open the door for me to exit his study. fects had surely guided me along the right path. Perhaps, When I got back to Mrs. Powell’s house, I I pondered, he might even reduce the lines to two hun- soaked my hands in cold water; how incredibly soothing dred and fifty? it was. Reluctantly, it seemed to me, he raised his eye- brow, shook his head a couple of times, reached down evertheless, the object lesson was behind his desk and produced a curve-handled cane, not wasted on me; it helped to frayed at the end, obviously through constant usage. He maintain my status quo for many swished it up and down a couple of times, as if trying to years…. ΩΩΩ obtain the optimum swing. N He circled the desk and said, “Left hand, boy.” John Berry, 2007

7 Shadows on a Wall:

The Horror Films of Val Lewton

bY

Jim Young

al Lewton holds a place in the de- The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phan- velopment of horror and fantasy tom of the Opera (1925). Beginning with Frankenstein films analogous to that of John W. in 1931—perhaps the epitome of science fiction mar- V Campbell in the realms of science keted as horror—Universal launched a series of fright fiction and fantasy. Just as Campbell was an author films that included Dracula (also 1931) and The who went on to greater success as an editor, Lewton Mummy (1932). By the late 1930s, Universal had de- started out as a writer and went on to greater fame as a veloped a reliable formula for turning out a horror movie producer. movie—take a monster, add a good-looking girl, and Lewton began producing fantasy films at a find a hero who can save her from the creature. time when—because of the spectacular failure in 1930 Lewton broke with that tradition. of the first major science fiction talkie, Just Imagine — Vladimir Ivan Leventon (1904-1951) was Hollywood shied way from SF. ( Destination Moon born in Yalta, Russia (in what is now the Ukraine), and changed that, finally, in 1950.) Horror, on the other emigrated to the U.S. as a child. Lewton’s aunt, Alla hand, remained a marketable commodity for the Holly- Nazimova, was a famous stage actress in Europe and wood studios. America in the early 20th Century, who clearly had a Consequently most of the major SF films of big influence on the boy. She was, for instance, the the 1930s were presented as horror—for example, two model for the wonderfully dotty old woman in Lew- of the biggest films of 1933, King Kong and The Invisi- ton’s Curse of the Cat People . Originally his family ble Man . Hollywood productions of science fiction was Jewish, but they converted to Orthodox Christian- were rare and tended to be ity in the 19th tie-ins, such as the spin-off century; the of the successful Flash family name Gordon comic strip. By was Angli- contrast the European pro- cized in Amer- ducers, especially the Brit- ica. ish, weren’t quite as skit- After studying tish as the Americans about at Columbia SF, but that didn’t change University, Hollywood’s standard wis- Lewton dom that horror was com- worked as a mercial, while the science journalist. stuff wasn’t. Eventually he Before Lewton’s wound up at heyday in the 1940s, the MGM’s pub- Hollywood studio best licity office in known for horror was Uni- New York versal. Even in the silent where he era it had produced two of wrote, in addi- Lon Chaney, Sr.'s most en- tion to press during films in the genre (although they may seem releases, novelizations of films. In 1932 he published a more gothic than horrific to a contemporary viewer), novel of his own called No Bed of Her Own that did

8 rather well. Lewton published two more novels that ness palpable to the viewer. year, but both tanked, as did the U.S. economy. (That Irena refuses to consummate her marriage to a was when unemployment reached 25 percent.) young American (played by the likeable Kent Smith), As it turned out Lewton’s mother knew people afraid that doing so will release the supernatural power who knew David O. Selznick, and through that link lurking within her. Eventually the couple agree that Lewton was hired to write a screen treatment of Gogol’s Irena needs help, and so she winds up dealing with a Taras Bulba for the producer. psychiatrist played by Tom Conway (in real life, George Evidently impressed by that effort, Selznick Saunders’ older brother), who gives the role an admira- hired Lewton as an assistant. In this capacity Lewton bly understated sleazy quality. wrote publicity releases, did script doctoring, and even- When the psychiatrist attempts to seduce Irena tually worked as an uncredited writer for a number of in the picture’s climactic scene, he brings about her Selznick projects, including sections of Gone With the transformation into a deadly black panther. Irena kills Wind (1939). the psychiatrist—the struggle is mainly shown as shad- In 1941, with Selznick’s support, Lewton ows cast on the wall—and then returns to human form. landed the job of heading a newly formed unit at RKO Visibly suffering remorse, Irena commits suicide by re- to produce horror films. Famously, RKO required that leasing a panther from its cage in the Central Park Zoo. these pictures cost less than $150,000 to make; that each The big cat attacks her before fleeing the scene, only to one run no more than 75 minutes; and that Lewton must be run over on a nearby street. use the titles provided by the studio. As it turned out, Much has been made about how the viewer RKO had hired a focus group to develop some really never really sees Irena become a cat. There’s never a catchy titles and the studio bosses weren’t going to clear shot of her transformation, and most of the time waste that money, no matter how ridiculous some of the shadow and sound effects intimate what’s happening, results sounded. leaving a great deal to the imagination. Money was a very serious matter for RKO at According to the commentary accompanying the time. The studio was teetering on the brink of col- the Warner Brothers Home Video DVD release of Cat lapse after making Orson Welles’ first two films, Citizen People , the story originated in a piece Lewton wrote for Kane (1941)—which cost about $950,000 to make and Weird Tales in 1930. (Regrettably, I don’t have ready barely broke even -- and The Magnificent Ambersons access to my run of Weird Tales right now and can’t go (1942)—which cost nearly as much but which did not and hunt up the story.) All things considered, the story- do nearly as well at the box office. line seems to owe something more to Arthur Machen As a result, RKO’s management needed quick and Algernon Blackwood, and their evocation of the returns on low-budget projects and thought that horror numinous lurking behind everyday life, than to the would provide the greatest escape for audiences weary Lovecraftian trope of inherited alienness. of the world war raging at that time. Who knew that the While the film unfolds seriously there’s a cer- first of Lewton’s films was about to change the studio’s tain wicked wit behind it, spoofing as it does the Univer- entire finances? Particularly considering that Cat Peo- sal werewolf films. Lewton’s story features a female ple , when it appeared late in 1942, was nothing like the shape changer (parodying Universal’s primarily male formulaic monster movie that had become the mainstay monsters), and sets poor Irena in a fraught marriage in of the genre. contemporary America rather than the fantasy central From this point on, I’d like to focus on that first Europe occupying Universal’s back lot. picture and its sequel, Curse of the Cat People (1944), Jacques Tourneur’s direction of Cat People because they demonstrate so much of what Lewton did yielded a masterfully ambiguous film. Simone Simon, as a producer. I don’t consider them Lewton’s finest— for her part, successfully underplays what—in the hands I’d rank them as his third and fourth best, for what it’s of a lesser director and actress—could easily have be- worth—but that said, they really represent the heart of come a film-long mad scene. In my view, the best mo- his efforts. ment in the movie occurs when Irena and her husband Cat People , which was released in December finally break up. Simon sinks onto a sofa behind which 1942, is the story of a young couple in New York City only the upper half of her face is visible; her expression who are going through a troubled marriage. The wife is exudes torment and a hint of the unhuman. plagued by beliefs, impressed on her during her child- Another fine scene occurs when Elizabeth Rus- hood in Serbia, that she may be transformed into a black sell does a brief walk-on, interrupting the modest meal panther that seeks vengeance on those who have at a Serbian restaurant celebrating Simon’s marriage to wronged her. DeWitt Bodeen’s script deftly plays with Smith. Russell approaches the party and asks Simon in the ambiguity of the woman’s feelings of ancestral ali- Serbian, “Are you my sister?” Russell was a strikingly enness, and to a remarkable extent Simone Simon’s per- beautiful woman with an oddly feline face, and she de- formance as Irena Dubrovna renders that sense of other- livers the line with a sense of detachment and curiosity,

9 while the words were actually read by Simon and isn’t a single ghost in the whole movie? dubbed in. And then came The Curse of the Cat People , However well done it is, there’s something which is the most charming of Lewton’s films. Although about Cat People that leaves me unsatisfied. I think it it’s not a direct sequel to the first picture, it does con- would have been more effective if—in the moment just tinue the story of the husband of the first film, reprised before Simon undergoes her final transformation follow- by Kent Smith, who’s re-married since the death of ing her seduction by Tom Conway’s slimy psychia- Irena. He and his second wife—she’d been a fellow em- trist—we’d been able to see her expression begin to ployee at the office at which Smith worked in the earlier change from human to Other. All we see is a close-up of movie—now have a six-year-old daughter named Amy, her face shot through a star-filter, making her eyes spar- played by the wonderful Ann Carter. kle; but this fails to conjure the supernatural struggle Highly imaginative and unable to get along she’s going through. Given the ambiguities of the pic- well with children her own age, Amy yearns for friend- ture, I think that having Simon express that final trans- ship. Finally, halfway through the picture, Amy uses formation—without actually showing her shifting what she believes is a magic ring to wish for a friend. shape—would have yielded a sense of closure that the Her wish is grated by a visit from a sort of guardian an- film lacks. gel—Simone Simon as Irena, but transformed into a rep- Cat People proved an enormous success. In its resentation of good. first commercial run the film grossed nearly four million Although little Amy has no close friends her dollars, establishing Simone Simon as something of a own age, in the course of the film she befriends an odd, star (after seven years in Hollywood), making Val Lew- old woman named Mrs. Farren who (naturally enough) ton’s name famous, and helping to put RKO back on its lives in a large, strange, arts-and-crafts house. A former feet financially actress, Mrs. Farren gives Amy the ring she eventually Lewton and Tourneur quickly followed up with uses to summon Irena. In another meeting, Mrs. Farren what I think of as the best film of the lot—despite its regales the girl with the local legend of the headless goofy name—I walked With a Zombie (1943). The horseman (for Lewton has set the story in his childhood movie seems to be broadly inspired by Henry S. White- haunts near Tarrytown, New York, the site of Ichabod head’s tales of the American Virgin Islands. Whitehead, Crane’s midnight experience). who died in 1932, was at the top of the second rank of Although Amy’s friendship with Mrs. Farren is Weird Tales writers—Arkham House published two col- clearly one between real people, it is nevertheless also lections of his stories in the mid-Forties—and I’m sur- plagued by demons. For Mrs. Farren’s daughter turns prised that I haven’t found anyone else who’s noticed out to be none other than Elizabeth Russell, whose his influence on the picture. The film is set on a fictional oddly feline face and slinky figure made for such a Caribbean island and involves settlers of both African memorable walk-on in the first picture. As it turns out, and British heritage caught up in the pre-Christian su- Mrs. Farren is beginning to sink into dementia and de- perstitions swirling in that tropical landscape. It’s also nies Russell is her daughter. This causes Russell such notable for portraying black people sympathetically, as anguish that she threatens to kill Amy if she ever gets did Whitehead. Sadly, I think this is one of the worst of the chance, since the elderly Mrs. Farren clearly loves the titles RKO foisted on Lewton; nevertheless, the film the child, not her. did so well that RKO promoted Tourneur to the studio’s On Christmas Eve Amy has a fateful meeting A List. with Irena, tells her parents about it, and her parents Lewton produced three more films in 1943 be- punish her for lying about what she’s seen. Even though fore turning to the sequel to Cat People . Following I a snow storm has come up, Amy runs away from home. Walked With a Zombie came The Leopard Man , based She makes her way to the Farren house where, in a final, on Cornell Woolrich’s novel Black Alibi . It’s primarily a transformational moment, Amy wins over Russell by mystery set in the desert southwest, with faint overtones hugging her, calling up the maternal love Russell’s char- of legend derived from Native American tradition. Then acter harbored deep within her. came The Seventh Victim , which is most famous as Kim Which is to say that Curse of the Cat People is Novak’s first film. While it begins well, the film’s con- a Christmas ghost tale. Redemption through love is its clusion leaves much to be desired; given the story-line, foundation, reflecting an essential aspect of the Christ- dealing as it does with a Satanic group carrying out ne- mas story, and it is to a very great extent thanks to Ann farious deeds in New York City, it would have taken Carter’s brilliant performance that it continues to charm something like another 30 minutes of running time in viewers. On the basis of seeing this performance alone I order to finish the tale. This was followed by the worst have no doubt that Carter could have gone on to become of all the Lewton horror pictures, The Ghost Ship , which an important star as an adult, had she not contracted po- is a fairly predictable story of a merchant vessel cap- lio in the late 1940s. Fortunately she had earned enough tained by a madman. Oh, and did I mention that there in the movies to provide for her medical care and higher

10 education; her biography in Wikipedia reports that she is time—and he turns in a solid performance. now a retired realtor living in the Seattle area. Lewton produced two more films with Karloff. All the memorable performances in Curse of Following Isle of the Dead came The Body Snatcher the Cat People are turned in either by the women in it or (1945), based on the Robert Louis Stevenson story of the little girl: Simone Simon as the angelic aspect of (roughly) the same name, which is probably the second Irena’s tormented soul, Julia Dean as the elderly Mrs. best film Lewton produced. Under the name “Carlos Farren, Elizabeth Russell as her daughter, and of course, Keith,” Lewton scripted it. In this one, Karloff is won- Carter. derfully malevolent as a “resurrection man” providing Adding a sense of the legendary to the film’s bodies for medical research in early 19th Century Edin- design, Simon appears wearing medieval garb reminis- burgh. Henry Daniell’s performance as the doctor ac- cent of a painting by Maxfield Parrish. As a guardian quiring the corpses is powerfully complex. I have al- angel she represents something closer to a big sister than ways been impressed by Daniell’s ability to project a mother to the little girl, Amy. menace, and this is one of his most disturbing roles on By contrast, Julia Dean, in her first film ap- film. pearance since the silent era, provides a delightfully The last of the Lewton fantasy films was Bed- dotty grandmother figure. lam (1946), a gothic melodrama set in the 18th century And for her part, Elizabeth Russell is able to in which Karloff plays the wicked keeper of the famous project her character’s torments with remarkable econ- London insane asylum. Not much of the fantastic in it, omy. Sadly, most of the supporting cast seem wooden and not entirely a success either, I’d say, but worth by comparison, with the occasional exception of Kent watching for Karloff’s evocation of the picture’s rather Smith playing Amy’s father. twisted main character. Surely the poor showing of the supporting cast Lewton worked on a few other films—none of reflects the film’s troubled development. Curse of the them in the realm of the fantastic—but sadly his career Cat People was the directorial debut of Gunther von began to unravel after World War II, due in part to heart Fritsch, who’d directed only documentaries or shorts trouble. After several bouts of illness, he died of a heart until then. Unfortunately von Fritsch could not keep to attack in March 1951 at the age of only 46. RKO’s rapid schedule. In all his pictures, Lewton brought a real con- After nine days of shooting von Fritsch was cern for story to the forefront, emphasizing originality already many days behind schedule, so Lewton and the and rounded characters—rare in the fantasy films made studio management decided to replace him with one of before his time. He accomplished this by regularly re- RKO’s best film editors, Robert Wise, even though working the scripts from which his films grew—whether Wise had never directed anything before. Von Fritsch he was credited with doing so or not, and regardless of filmed most of the exteriors and the scenes with Amy whether the story-lines grew from his own imagination and the angelic Irena, while Wise finished off the rest, or from adapting another’s work. sometimes in a visibly rushed fashion. (The family cook If you’re interested in seeing Lewton’s films, and housekeeper, played by the Afro-Caribbean actor Warner Home Video has produced a five-DVD collec- and singer Sir Lancelot, delivers a few of his lines at tion that includes a superb documentary on Lewton nar- such a breakneck speed that it has to be the result of di- rated by Martin Scorsese. Turner Classic Movies pre- rection.) Wise of course went on to directorial greatness, miered this documentary on cable in early 2008, and while von Fritsch sank back into relative obscurity. regularly shows it and Lewton’s movies, so there’s Curse of the Cat People went over schedule plenty of opportunity to see them. If you’re at all inter- and significantly over budget, eventually costing ested in films of the fantastic, you’ll very likely find a $212,000. RKO’s management went ballistic about this great deal to like about them. ΩΩΩ and assigned a manager to keep Lewton in check from —–Jim Young, November 2008 then on. At the same time the studio brass decided to hire Boris Karloff away from Universal in order to pro- vide real star power for the horror unit. Although Lewton was initially worried that Karloff would ruin the originality of the unit’s films, the two men soon found they worked well together. Their first movie, Isle of the Dead (1945), proved to be one of the better films Karloff ever made. Karloff plays a Greek general quarantined by an outbreak of the plague on a legend-haunted island during the Balkan wars of 1912. Karloff clearly enjoys actually having to act—not something Universal had required him to do for a long

11 Backwaters

Letters

John Purcell, [email protected] , mended by consensus over the other. Bill ‘s article was December 26, 2007 great fun, too; I have always enjoyed Johnny Paycheck’s As usual, I love Steve Stiles’ covers. Shadodo songs. There is something inherently fannish about a reminds me of Minicon 12, the Dododecacon (1978) at Paycheck song, so maybe that’s why I like them: that bit which dodo illustrations ran rampant. I don’t remember of a screwy, anti-establishment bent to the lyric makes if you two were there or not, it’s been so long. About all them fun to listen to and sing along with. I should learn I do remember is that it was a great time - of course - a few for my convention music-making repertoire. and that Ben Bova was the pro GoH with Buck and Jua- John Berry made me laugh. This recollection nita Coulson the Fan GoHs. Good people. made me a bit wistful for when I was a bit of a geek This memory jogging fits in nicely with your with the girls way back when, and he told this very well. editorial time-travel musings. Like you, I enjoy reading Most enjoyable. My thing wasn’t aeroplanes or cars as a time travel stories, but you raise an interesting point: can lad; I liked trains. There was a Great Northern line that they truly be labeled science fiction stories or are time- ran behind Meadowbrook Manor back in the 1950s and travel tales more accurately labeled fantasy stories? De- early 60s, and I remember standing out back behind our pending on how you tell the tale will determine which rowhouse with other kids, and we would all wave at the genre it will fall into. When I read Tim Powers’ The passenger trains as they rumbled by. We could see the Anubis Gates , that kind of blended both genres, tossing engineers and passengers waving back, too, even though historical fiction into the mix as well. (Great story, by they ran about a quarter mile away across the swamp the way; I loved it.) Some time-travel novels try to give where Minnehaha Creek ran through. I got pretty good rational, scientific methods of making it happen, so at identifying the train engines after a time, but grew out there’s your SF. The fantasy version always ignores the of that phase when I hit thirteen or so. Still, it was al- method of time-travel, or provides a mere cursory nod in ways exciting to watch the trains run by, fantasizing that direction, and simply leaps into the story, which about where they were going – probably Sioux City, usually deals with some sword & sorcery type of doings. Denver, Seattle, and other points westward. Maybe even In any event, it is interesting to read about Dr. up into Canada, which seemed so positively foreign to Cramer’s research, even if I don’t have much of a mind my young mind. for the mathematics of such work. The concepts, though, As for “Avramania!”, this was very amusing. I are interesting. How cool would it be to contribute to am surprised at how well I got the various story refer- such a scientifictional cause? “Signalling backward in ences that Andy interspersed throughout, and it would time” is cool, and superluminal communication may be be a lot of fun to see this being performed. For that mat- an end-result, if at all possible. Interesting stuff here. I ter, does a recording of the Foolscap (??) performance shall have to bookmark paper - thank you for the URL - exist? If so, this would be a perfect addition to Bill for future reference. Mills’ Voices of Fandom website. I loved the sense of I can see the cross-over between Sherlock humor Andy gave this play. A very clever idea well exe- Holmes and Westerns. They both basically grew out of cuted. Good job, Andrew. [[So far as I know, the per- the same age (late Victorian, early-20th century natural- formance wasn’t recorded. In fact, I don’t think any of ist fiction), and the parallels do exist. What I really liked Andy’s plays have been preserved except in print. JAK]] about Stu’s article was the silent movie connection, and Suzle’s recounting of the Hanukkah Eve Storm the discussion of Howard Waldrop’s story. What a of 2006 and its aftermath makes me glad that we don’t weird story. But that’s Waldrop for you; odd story-lines, get super-serious weather down here. Oh, when Hurri- yet entertaining. By the way, I am assuming that that is a cane Rita came ashore in the fall of ‘05 (“Why, I photo of William Surrey Hart on the bottom of page 7; ‘member back in ‘aught-five when the winds picked up he would have made a wonderful Holmes! He definitely whole towns and blew them over into the next had the look, that’s for sure. [[Yes, that’s Hart. JAK]] county...”) we got some nasty winds, but for the most Good to see more writings from Jim Young part, College Station is situated just right: a bit too far and William Breiding. I haven’t seen either movie that westward and inland to get hit head-on by Gulf storms, Jim wrote about, but people tell me that both are loads and too far south for wintry weather mixes of snow and of fun, especially The Prestige. That is the one recom- sleet. We do get our fair share of heavy rains, though,

12 and the wind can get pretty high. However, for the most about entanglement and non-local communication. I part, we’re fairly well protected from the really nasty wonder (while assuming I wouldn’t understand an ex- weather crap. Here’s hoping you two won’t be hit by planation if it were given) how they *know* this hap- any major storms this winter. pens (after all, you can’t follow one photon into space, let alone two). The time travel idea is interesting, but I’d Brad W Foster, PO Box 165246, prefer it if it turned out the communication was simply... Irving, IX 75016, [email protected] , there, somehow. I wonder why it only applies to these December 26, 2007 subatomic particles (as far as we know?) — and of Hey, what a great surprise to find Littlebrook course I immediately thought of Time for the Stars , the #6 waiting in the mailbox the other day. Not only be- Heinlein juvenile in which one telepathic twin stays on cause of the lack of paper zines these days, but simply Earth and the other travels into space to serve as com- because it has been a while since I recall getting issue munication between the voyagers and home base. Also #5. Indeed, had to dig back a bit in the records here, 22 the magic communicators in Terry Pratchett’s books, e. months to be exact. Just goes to show the old fannish g., Going Postal , which I just finished. What do these adage of “no zine shall be published before its time” is little particles know about the universe that we don’t, true. Or is that wine? and could we harness this power for Good, etc., etc. I’m holding off on reading Jim’s “Conjuring on The horrors of your plumbing problem put my the Silver Screen” until I get a chance to see both mov- hair on end, not least the cost — thank heavens the in- ies referenced there. And since we have them both saved surance did end up covering it after all! It was also inter- on the DVR box, just waiting for a few spare hours to esting to get a little history of Giant Storms In Seattle. crank ‘em up, I -will- get to that one day! Right now At least your repairs got done before THIS year’s though, to keep in the double-magician mode, I am in floods. Good time to have pipes that don’t flow uphill! the middle of reading the wonderful Jonathan Strange I smiled a lot seeing all the comments about and Mr Norrell novel by Susanna Clarke. Having a Cheryl Cline’s . It was indeed a great zine. She says she great time reading this, and wondering where she will be didn’t get Littlebrook , I mentioned to her it was online. I taking it all in the end. Was nice to see an illustration speak as a person who never liked country music, but there by the famous “Anonymous”. Obviously the only Cheryl and Lynn really turned me on to Western Beat vampire artist in existence, since I’ve been seeing works while I was staying with them in ‘93. Just in time for me by him (?) published for centuries! to be able to really appreciate Twangin , though it was Horror story with the plumbing problems. Just the kind of zine you could delight in whether you had before we moved my ailing father-in-law in with us a any idea what it was talking about or not. few years back, the drains started backing up in the kitchen. Ended up having to completely replace all the Lloyd Penney, 1706-24 Eva Rd., drainage pipes under half the house from the kitchen, Etobicoke, ON, Canada M9C 2B2, laundry room and spare toilet, all the way out through January 23, 2008 backyard and into the alley where it connected up to the Thank you kindly for a paper copy of Little- city sewer lines. Our back yard looked liked a WWI bat- brook 6. I get less and less paper mail these days, so all tlefield, with deep trenches criss-crossing, plus there paper fanzines are a treat. E-zines are lots of fun, too, were actual tunnels going under the foundation. They but nothing beats getting big envelopes in the mail. brought up hunks of 50 year old pipe that were obvi- Steve Stiles’ Dodo has seen print a fair amount ously only held together by the dirt that had been around lately. Two zines right now, let’s hope there’s more. them. Everything works nice on that side of the house Bemildered or Bemildred? I never know any now, and we got an estimate to come back later and do more; I’ve seen it here both ways. At least it’s not be- the same thing for the ancient pipes on the other side of mildewed... I grew up reading Asimov and Bradbury the house... but considering how the foundation has been and Clarke and so many more, reading adventures with shifting in the years since they did all that digging, I’d time travel and robots and warping out beyond the Rim. rather just pour the occasional drain cleaner down the If you’re feeling small and stuck, there’s nothing better other half and not have to deal with any of that again. for temporarily getting you out of your everyday hum- Home ownership is such a thrill, ain’t it? drum and into the Different. [[My editorial should be “Bewitched, Bothered and Bemildred,” but some days Mog Decarnin, mog@pacific,net , I’m more bewildered than others. JAK]] December 30, 2007 I guess I can see the similarities between the In this issue, strangely enough, I most enjoyed detective and Western genres...hunting for a person of the beginning and end — “BBB” and “Suzlecol,” and interest, some measure of conflict, some mystery estab- the comments in “Backwaters.” lished the interest, and a hero or heroes go forth and To start off with, I especially liked hearing solve the mystery. That may just be a basic story struc-

13 ture that all genres embrace. My favorite Holmes was I agree with Jim’s conclusion, that rising cyni- Jeremy Brett, but one of the strangest Holmes and Wat- cism about technology may explain the popularity of son combos I ever saw was a Canadian production, with fantasy. But fantasy won’t help a public that will need Matt Frewer and Kenneth Welsh respectively. Matt tech solutions, especially for climate change, more than Frewer just didn’t do it for me...he was M-M-M-Max ever. Asia, esp. China, is heavily pro-sf; the Chinese sf Headroom in a deerstalker. magazine has 400,000 circulation! Ah, so many of us know where we’re coming Loved the John Berry nostalgia—very well from, and that’s one factor in forming this whole fan- told. He’s still, after 50 years, one of the best fanwriters. dom community. I hear the words of John Berry. When The glory of IF never fades. I was an early teenager, I was most concerned with my Suzle’s column astounds. How do you live in bicycle, my studies and my stamp collection. It wasn’t such waterlogged places?! In SoCal we hoard our water, that I had no attraction to girls; it was that I knew even & have no insects in the dry surround. I went through then that no girl would want someone short and chubby several hurricanes, growing up in southern Alabama, with good grades and not much money. A jock I was and fear them and floods far more than the trivial threat not, and there were reminders of that nearly every day. I of earthquakes here. Not a big friend of endless rain, figured out that this was not my time, and that I’d proba- either, saturated soils, etc. But like the trees. I prefer to bly need to be a little older for any kind of relationship. visit weather, as if it were an entertainment… [[Here, My patience was rewarded, and Yvonne and I celebrate we have the weather come to visit us, and it is often our 25th wedding anniversary on May 28. most ‘entertaining’… SVT]] Just for the record, and just to let Eric Mayer know, we may soon be working on a hoax Worldcon bid Milt Stevens, 6325 Keystone St., for Rochester, New York. Pirates of the Great Lakes... Simi Valley, CA 93063, should be lots of fun. Memories of Myles’ House in ‘89… March 5, 2008 The cover on Littlebrook #6 features more Greg Benford, [email protected] , dodo doings by Steve Stiles. Steve seems to be going February 22, 2008 through a dodo period. If Picasso could have a blue pe- Good issue! As a Holmes fan I liked Stu Shiff- riod, I guess Steve can have a dodo period. As I recall, man’s funny piece. Picasso had the blue period, because he got a good deal Jim Young is provocative on The Illusionist on a whole bunch of blue paint. I’m sure Steve’s reasons and The Prestige . Actually, the Nazis weren’t consid- for having a dodo period are more reasonable. ered a right wing party in 1920s Germany—after all, Numerous people must have told Jerry that the they were the National Socialist Workers’ Party, whose time travel story he was thinking of was “As Never chief rivals were the communists. Socialism isn’t right Was” by P. Schuyler Miller. It was originally published wing, but the Nazis have been redefined post WWII. in the January 1944 Astounding and later reprinted in the Also, I think Tesla sent very long wavelength electro- Adventures in Time and Space . However, I bet nobody magnetic energy (low frequency radio) to light those mentioned you can’t say “As Never Was” in Japanese. distant bulbs in The Prestige ’s Colorado, not a direct They had to title the story “Ghost Image” when it was current through the ground. Jim found the twins in The translated. I learned that back when I visited the fans in Prestige a disappointment, but as a twin I guessed it Japan back in the sixties. early, and what rational element could Priest have used? A number of movies are mentioned in the rest of the issue. I’ve seen a few William S. Hart movies. I saw them during the couple of years I was really inter- ested in movie history. By the end of that phase, I think I had seen just about all the major silent movies ever made and quite a few minor ones as well. As to much more modern films, I haven’t seen The Illusionist or The Prestige . My film viewing is ex- ceedingly hit and miss these days. In addition to that, I don’t really care for dark fantasy. If you can’t guarantee me a happy ending, I’m probably not even going to watch a movie. Like John Berry, I’ve seen those “news” stories about modern youth engaging in sex at an extremely early age. I doubt it can be blamed on food preserva- tives. I also doubt the reports are true. I think you still

14 have to get through puberty before you can get around to sex. Of course, newspapers have always reported that the current generation is far more evil and debauched than any previous generation. Aside from a few over- achievers, I doubt that is the case. Ignorance may not be a good protector of virtue, but sloth does a pretty good job. Suzle’s mention of natural disasters brought to mind that I haven’t seen a copy of Readers Digest in several years. While Readers Digest is the epitome of mediocrity, you might wonder at the connection with natural disasters. It was their plague of the month article they ran for so many years. Once they mentioned some dire and obscure malady, thousands would immediately fall victim to it. If that isn’t a unique disease vector, it certainly is an unusual one. [[This place may now be filled, I think, by those awful drug adverts on TV. While some of them cause us to laugh (“Tell you doctor if you’ve had brain surgery!”….), most list so many scary side effects that I would rather suffer with the malady than use the product. Apparently people actually insist that their doctors prescribe these medications, no doubt being sure they now have whatever disease is being “featured” in the ad. SVT]]

Chris Priest, [email protected] , March 8, 2008 I was gratified to received Littlebrook the other day. It has been almost like the old days recently: Trap- door came in the mail, Prolapse came in the mail. That’s three paper fanzines in a week. Anyway, in the traditional way I dropped everything else to read avidly through the pages. apparently coincidental release of The Illusionist . For a Of course, Jim Young’s article about magic long time I was one of the very few people in the world movies has stirred me out of my torpor. I read him with who knew that The Prestige was intended to be filmed. interest, and although I don’t agree with everything he The contract was signed several years before the movie says I found much of his piece rewarding. For instance, appeared, and for month after month after month there his synopsis of the plot of The Prestige (movie) is one of was not a hint or a suggestion of what progress the pro- the best and most lucid I’ve seen (and I’ve seen hun- duction company was making, if they were going ahead, dreds of them), suggesting that his comprehension of the or had shelved it, or anything . They were a secretive lot. film was better than most people’s. In some ways, I didn’t care ... the book had been out for My views on The Prestige (movie) are no more some time, and that was enough for me. But of course, or less interesting than anyone else’s, mainly because (to most writers want to see a movie made of one of their paraphrase David Hemmings, deflecting a compliment novels, and there was the undoubted advantage that if on his performance in Blow-Up ) my influence on the they did go ahead, certain of my long-term financial making of the film version of my novel was approxi- problems would be solved at a stroke. But getting news mately the same as the influence yellow pigment had on was almost impossible, even with Google to help. I set the painting of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers ... The producers Google up to search the internet every day for references decided that my book and I were, to put things at the to “the prestige”, to the director’s name, to the produc- highest, irrelevant to what they wanted to do, and, to put ers’ names, and so on. The results were practically zilch. things lower, a bit of an embarrassment and nuisance. In The closest I ever found to news was the endless excite- fact, I was busy on other things at the time the film was ment from comics fans that Christopher Nolan was di- being made, and not too bothered by this discourteous recting a Batman movie. attitude, but it does mean I have no insider insights into One day I came across a reference to another what their intentions were. movie in progress called The Illusionist . At first, unsur- I can, though, provide a bit of a context to the prisingly, I thought this might be a change of title of The

15 away, and The Illusionist vanished off the radar. The Prestige was greenlighted in October 2005, went into pre-production immediately, and they started shooting the following February. Principle photography was completed by mid-April. All the filming was sur- rounded by almost obsessive secrecy, something that not only directly affected me by keeping me in the dark, but also perversely amused me. The book itself is about ob- sessive secrecy, and the dangers inherent in that. But as the filming came to an end, word at last began to spread that The Prestige was an unusual and intriguing film ... about stage magicians. My belief is that the people behind The Illu- sionist used the imminent release of The Prestige as a Prestige , but it soon transpired that it wasn’t. I started spur, and took the project again to the distributors, try- hunting around, and came up with the discovery that the ing to sell it as a ‘spoiler’ to The Prestige . Certainly, a script was based on a short story by Steven Millhauser. project that had been moribund for more than two years Now this had a mixed impact on me. I have read Mill- suddenly came back to life, money was pumped into it, hauser, and believe him to be one of the most interesting and post-production was rushed through. In the event, it American writers today. Many of his stories (he mostly was released in the US about three weeks before The writes short stories, although there are also a couple of Prestige . Inevitably, it stood on the higher ground when novels) are crying out to be filmed. I would want Mill- The Prestige was released, and the film of my book was hauser filmed. But the story of his they were trying to compared again and again with its ‘predecessor’. film was based on a story called Eisenheim the Illusion- (In Europe and the UK, the release of the two ist , about a stage magician. This was not news I wanted. films happened in the other order, and here The Illusion- I knew I must have read Millhauser’s story, but ist was compared with its ‘predecessor’, The Prestige .) I couldn’t remember anything about it, so I re-read it. Jim Young points out that the effects of Eisen- It’s not one of his best, in my opinion. It describes a heim’s illusion, said to be based on early cinematogra- 19th century illusionist who performs a staggering trick, phy, simply wouldn’t have been possible in 1900 when one that seems explicable only by supernatural interven- the film is set. Nor would they be possible today, except tion. In preparing for The Prestige , I had read several within the special confines of a movie, where unex- books about stage magic, some of them fiction, and the plained use of CGI effects is possible. Therefore, in the novels all depended on the same unoriginal gimmick: film, as in the story, The Illusionist is essentially about the trick so staggering that it could only be explained the impossible being used to suggest the possible. Be- supernaturally ... and in the end, it is! This has always cause of this, the story cannot make sense in any real struck me as a dull revelation, because, as I have often understanding of the word ... and even within the film argued, when anything can be achieved by supernatural itself, the story is incredible and unbelievable. The script means, nothing matters any more and so who cares? is dull, the storytelling is slow, the acting is wooden. When I wrote The Prestige , it was always crucial to me However, The Illusionist does look amazingly beautiful, that the illusions performed by the magicians could be with its use of low lights, 19th century interiors, sepia explained by rational methods or scientific means ... or, filters and high-grade digital photography. There is a lot because it was a science fiction novel, by speculative of skill in the film, but not a lot of imagination. I don’t scientific means. So long as science is involved, human make the opposite claim for the film of The Prestige. It responsibility remains, and therefore so too does human might be true, or might not. As I say, beyond the fact interest. (This for me has always been the dividing defi- that the story of the film is based notionally on my book, nition between sf and fantasy.) I don’t know much about it. I was glad of the dosh, A few months later I heard that The Illusionist though. All gone now, of course ... had been shot, using inexpensive locations and technical [[If you’re interested in more detail, visit Chris’ facilities in the Czech Republic. A website sympathetic website, http://www.christopher-priest.co.uk/ , where to the film complained, though, that no American studio he’s selling The Magic , a book about the making of The or distributor would back it. A rough-cut extract view- Prestige and its relation to his novel. Click on able on the website looked photographically beautiful, “GrimGrin Studio” when you visit. JAK]] but excruciatingly slow, and heavily dependent on the supernatural. As the months followed this, the film- Steve Green, [email protected] , makers’ complaints increased that the film would re- March 20, 2008 main on the shelf forever ... but then even that buzz died Rather surprised Jim Young couldn’t manage

16 to discuss Christopher and Jonathan Nolan’s adaptation bulleted list utterly lacking in detail (and which assumed of Christopher Priest’s novel The Prestige without re- we only wanted to dry-line the upstairs front wall, so vealing the methods used by each of the rival magicians wasn’t even complete), and the second one was a mas- to perform “The Transported Man”. It’s one thing to tell sively over-specified list of works with a price tag of readers that Rosebud is Kane’s sled, or that Rick £15,000 at which we laughed hysterically before we tore chooses to stay in Casablanca—these twists are now it up. (Even the people at the Green Concierge Service part of cinema history—but the Nolans’ movie was only thought it quite startling.) released in November 2006 and didn’t hit DVD racks Christ, I’m so ******* off with the whole busi- until the following February. It really is poor form to ness I could spit. So far, the only job we’ve had done is expose an illusion with such indifference. [[I suppose the one we identified ourselves, to engage a plumber to we should have thought to put “Spoiler Alert” on Jim’s replace the leaking stopcock under the greenhouse article; it didn’t occur to us to do so, alas. SVT]] where the mains water enters the house — but then he wanted to fill in most of the hole so that we wouldn’t Joseph Nicholas, [email protected] , have been able to get at the tap, which would have rec- June 11, 2008 reated most of the problem we had originally, so we had Very belated thanks for Littlebrook 6 — which to send him away with the work uncompleted. At least arrived so long ago that I now can’t remember how it’s not a big hole, and constructing a large box with a long. It’s obviously been in my reading pile for some lid to insert into it shouldn’t be too onerous, but..... time, or at any rate it’s been carried around in my bag gaaaah! The whole point of hiring workmen is so that for some time, the covers having become a bit dog-eared you don’t have to do the work yourselves, because we through rubbing up against everything else; I shall obvi- are both busy people, so this is another damned incon- ously have to leave it sandwiched between a couple of venience we don’t need. Gaaaah again! Several days large atlases to help smooth it out to something like its have passed since I drafted the above....days in which original state. we have had a visit from a company to quote for the ap- I read the saga of your sewage and drainage plication of shaded films to the insides of the windows problems, and thought “rather you than me”. But at least to reduce the intensity of sunlight in the summer to pre- you got the work done in what seems like reasonably vent it fading the decor -- but of course we can’t have short order — people knew what had to be done and that applied until after the dry-lining has been done, oth- generally turned up to do it without fuss. (At least, the erwise it would just get scratched up and have to be way you tell it makes that seem the case.) We’ve been done again. So we’re still no further forward! Well, trying to get some work done on our house since we had apart from having obtained a quote and arranged a date it energy-audited for airtightness and whatnot in Janu- for another company to install a bathroom extractor fan, ary -- it was rated as good, but we thought it could be and fixed a date for another company again to install a improved by dry-lining the interiors of the front (east- light tube in the roof above the stairwell, to provide di- facing) walls to minimise both heat gain in summer and rect illumination to the darkest spot in the house and cold ingress in winter, and by doubling the amount of thus save on the use of electricity. So I suppose that loft insulation, but ever since then it’s taken an age to does help push the whole project a little further forward. get contractors in to assess and quote for the work. [[My sympathies. My version was a simplified We’re doing it through the Mayor of London’s Green one; we had some good folks working who, in fact, Concierge Service (http://www.londonclimatechange.co. could not help us, and we had to find various profession- uk/greenhomes/green-concierge-service) which is sup- als who could. Since the beginning of 2009, we’ve had posed to take care of much of the faffing around that to replace our furnace, which took 4 visits from the in- building work involves (trawling contractors — ascer- taining what they can do — getting them to visit and quote for the work — refining the quotations and setting a starting time for the work — being on site to monitor the work and answer queries — et bloody cetera), but this of course takes no account of the faffing around that the building contractors themselves do. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that with an economic recession setting in they’d be falling over themselves to get work lined up and an income stream guaranteed, but here we are five months after the energy audit was done and we’ve only just had a visit from the third contractor, who now has to go away and work up a quote. Which had better be bet- ter than the other two — the first one was a single-page

17 staller to really complete, including one to fix the fan’s high up to be flooded. I dread what November may jet engine-like noise (no heat, just blasting noise), and bring and as for December…. the refrigerator. When the handle broke off of our mi- crowave immediately after the refrigerator was deliv- Eric Mayer, [email protected] , ered, I just smirked a bit…. No Worldcon for us this October 3, 2008 year. SVT]] …. The covers were both wonderful. John Berry’s essay is classic. I love this kind of Joseph T. Major, 1409 Christy Avenue, gentle, self-deprecating humor. It’s sad how, to an ex- Louisville, KY 40204-2040, [email protected] , tent, a lot of excellent writers were largely drowned out October 15, 2008 by the boorish and self-aggrandizing sorts, all of whom “Bewitched…”: But remember Niven’s law that any could’ve taken a lesson from John and his faanish gen- world where time-travel is possible will inevitably be eration. But then it seems that the whole world is intent changed so it isn’t. Rather like the dramatic finale to the on becoming ever louder and more crass so I suppose it story of Mike Resnick’s Oracle, who at the end of the is me who’s out of step. Great piece though. [[John’s last book is busy changing the world so that there will humor has mellowed somewhat over the years, but when be no more people like her. he’s written Goon Defective Agency stories and the like, In other words, it would be fun but it’s not his humor’s been much more raucous. (But never boor- gonna happen. Sigh. ish, self-aggrandizing or crass.) JAK]] “Sherlock Holmes and the Western”: This goes Suzanne’s story about the sewer line and the back to one of the very first Holmes pastiches, Mark attack of the doom roots horrified me because I can re- Twain’s “A Double-Barrelled Detective Story”. And at late to it. Almost twenty years ago I bought a house in present there are Larry Millett’s stories of Holmes in Rochester, NY and we’d hardly moved in when one Minnesota. The paranomasically-titled “Holmes on the morning we woke up and smelled, not the coffee, but a Range” (2006), by Steve Hockensmith, features a guy couple inches of sewage in the basement. The kids were who is inspired by Holmes stories. of an age that they found it fascinating and hilarious. “Pant a Loon”: Ah, the agony of young love. (Eyeuuu...What’s that floating there? Is that yours? No, And he couldn’t even propose a friendly game of ghood- it’s yours!) To me, having pretty much blown all my minton. resources on the house, it was a disaster. Luckily the Backwaters: Robert Lichtman: The archetypi- house wasn’t too far from the street, and the line was cal story of old photos I know depends on the tip of shallow, but it still cost what seemed like a fortune at writing on the back of the photograph who is in it and the time. The cause of the backup was roots. Over the when it was taken. As our archetypical family researcher years they’d more or less destroyed the line. did so after finding a large family group picture. He A couple of years ago we had more tree trou- turned it over and sure enough, there was scribed who ble. Lightning hit the ninety foot tall pine behind the was in it and when it was taken: house, split a section of the trunk down the middle, sent “The whole bunch of us, a week ago Tuesday” bark flying all over the yard, and burrowed through the If Milt Stevens wants grits, he’ll have to go to ground before emerging in a shower of rocks about a Tennessee and points south to get them. My cousin Ben- foot from our 500 gallon propane tank. The insurance nett (who died last year just short of ninety) was amazed paid about a fifth of what it cost to have it taken down. that I did not eat grits. I refrain from discussing mem- Yet I love trees. I always hate it when I see bers of the Liberal Party of Canada. [[I think the only people move into a place and first thing take a chainsaw time I’ve tried grits was in Nashville, while attending a to the trees. Around here in the summer you hear chain- Corflu there. JAK]] saws so continuously I’m always amazed when I look And speaking of Milt, did his grandmother sus- out the window and see the mountains don’t have crew pect her long-time companion of dipping into the piggy cuts. bank? Hiding money all over the house like that seems Trees. Can’t live with them, can’t live without to be that sort of response. Come to think of it, I still them. have to help Grant McCormick clean out his trailer be- fore he scraps it. (Grant has been living in our front Gary Mattingly, gsmattingly@yahoo,com , room for a year and a half, after his trailer became unliv- February 3, 2009 able.) Great front and back covers by Steve Stiles! Dave Rowe: Unreleased books are all over. I Any updates on the Non-Local Quantum Com- have promised Alexei Panshin that I will never ask him munication Experiment? It sounds interesting. [[Nope, to bring out The Universal Pantograph , for example. not a word that I know of. JAK]] Natural Disasters: So far this year we’ve had a “Sherlock Holmes & The Western” by Stu tornado, a hurricane, and a blackout. The house’s too Shiffman was quite interesting and entertaining. I seem

18 to have some vague recollections of an ongoing conver- sation about Spengler in Riverside Quarterly years and years ago (1968?). Must be related to some sub-atomic particle splitting and communicating across time. Al- Recommended though that might have been related to Blish and Van conventions Vogt, I suppose if you throw in Sherlock Holmes and

Howard Waldrop you could get an interesting combina- tion. Vampires in the Cities in Flight with a gunfight. Potlatch 19: I’m sure it happened or could have. Interestingly enough Seattle, Washington Niles Canyon where many of the westerns were filmed Hotel Deca, March 5-7, 2010 is just south of where we live. Although I have not vis- ited it there is a Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Why? Because it’s dedicated to talking about Fremont and they have a Silent Film Festival every science fiction and fantasy in an intimate setting. June. Maybe I’ll make it down there this year. Because the Book of Honor is Lord of Light by Wm Breiding in “Patron Saint of the Honky- Roger Zelazny. Because it’s in the heart of the Tonks” is also enjoyable. I have one or two Johnny Pay- University District, one of Seattle’s most inter- check CDs and enjoy his music. He obviously lived his esting neighborhoods. Because the Hotel Deca is songs. gorgeous. Because Suzle’s one of the chairs I can assure John Berry that I was not sexually (Mary Kay Kare is the other) and wants to make active before I was twelve. I do believe that Mr. Berry sure we meet our breakeven point. Go to www. was more active with members of the opposite sex at 15 potlatch-sf.org for membership rates and other than I was until my 17th or 18th birthday. Even then it details. was more brief than his adventure. Outgoing was never a term that could particularly describe my exploits in the game of relationships. I never particularly enjoyed Corflu Cobalt (Corflu 27): games for that matter and never fully understood that Winchester, United Kingdom which was to be silently understood, not expressed, The Winchester Hotel, March 19-21, 2010 those things which were insinuated. They simply es- caped me more often than not. Several times I was told Why? Because it’s dedicated to hanging out with after the fact I had missed that chance, that opportunity fanzine readers, writers, artists, and publishers. young males dream of, a touch, a look, I’m sorry, what? Because it’s in a lovely English town with South- Marvelous artwork throughout by Brad Foster, west England, Wales and Cornwall only a short Stu Shiffman, William Rotsler and Steve Stiles. distance away. Because it’s only the second time The LoCs are marvelous, as is always the case. Corflu has been outside North America. Because William Breiding mentions doing another fanzine. I we’ll be there (if we keep our jobs and Little- keep waiting. Actually with respect to pop vocals they brook Creek doesn’t rise). Check www.corflu. are around currently even having a bit of resurgence al- org for the membership rates and other details. though mainly through female singers, I think, and also, to a great extent from England although there are some in the US. Of course there were a number of female vo- calists in England in the time of the Beatles that most people in the US didn’t hear much about. Cilla Black was around with “Alfie.” I’m amused that her real name was Priscilla White. If I get a chance I’ll find the names of some of the current ones and send it your way. I’m sure you’re familiar with many of them. Unfortunately it won’t be in this LoC since my memory sucks for the most part and I actually have to go poking through my CDs and online to jog my memory. I can’t even blame aging. My memory of names has always sucked.

We also heard from: Robert Silverberg (the first person to write in with title and author of my mys- terious time travel story, in mid-December), Henry L. Welch, Laurraine Tutihasi, Rob Jackson, Tim Marion, and Bob Sabella. ΩΩΩ

19 Suzlecol

Suzanne Tompkins

We’ll Always Have Paris meals tended to be whatever Ginjer Buchanan, my roommate and traveling companion, or- … and Newark dered – “Moi, aussi!”.) And, Heicon, the 1970 Worldcon in Heidelberg, Germany, was 39 s Jerry mentioned, 2008 years ago! Since then, my French had gone se- was a hell of a year. We verely downhill, so my plan was to take some were tied up helping to run sort of refresher audio course (so that Jerry and A Potlatch 17 as usual, and I could study with it in the car, among other the first half of the year seemed to race by. I places) starting that spring. But it was October know that we followed other pursuits during before I could even attempt to start working on this period, but cannot remember much else. it, and this just wasn’t enough time. My head Late in 2007, we had relocated Jerry’s actually ached trying to recall things that I mother, Frieda, from her retirement apartment knew I KNEW (damn it!) at one time. into the assisted living building next door. She We did acquire some really good was not happy there, and by June of 2008, it guidebooks and dictionaries, and advice from was obvious that her already fragile health was friends and Rick Steves about where to go, failing. There was a series of hospital/emer- what to see, where to eat, etc., and quickly gency room trips intertwined with nursing planned a basic itinerary that we could com- home stays, and finally in August, as we were fortably accomplish in about a month. We had arranging to move her belongings out of her six days (leaving out Day 1 which is all travel apartment into storage until we could find a and time difference loss for us on the Left nursing home that would take Medicaid pa- Coast). tients, she passed away a week before her 90 th This isn’t a full Paris Trip report, so I’ll birthday. just mention some highlights – first stop the It took a while after that before we got first day, after arriving and trying to get onto our lives back into any semblance of normal. local time rather than collapsing in a heap in But we began to pick up the pieces of our our delightfully tiny garret hotel room, was the long-planned trip to Paris, for which we had Eiffel Tower. We got there via a recommended already purchased Air France tickets for a No- a long city bus trip (the famous #69) through vember trip, and finished setting it up. I had Paris, but as it was near rush hour, most of the studied French in high school and was, if not at famous “sights” from the bus seats were peo- all fluent, at least knowledgeable, able to ask ple’s arms, belts, purses, etc. November is per- and understand simple questions and answers, haps not the best month to be there, but there and could read most anything. When I traveled are far fewer tourists, and that is a good thing. in France in 1970 during the Heicon/Europe It was almost dusk by the time we took the trip, I got along fairly well. (I sort of panicked long walk from the closest bus stop, so we when we first arrived, though, so my first few opted to not wait in the long line for the eleva-

20 tors, but took the requisite photos of the ET We’d bought 4-day Museum passes and us. One thing that really caught my atten- and visited the Louvre, of course, and then tion were the seriously armed guards there and walked through the Tuilleries to L’Orangerie, at other well-known sites. We’d been in Lon- an impressionist/post-impressionist gallery that don weeks after the Underground bombings in was once a kind of conservatory where citrus 2005, and had gotten accustomed to very visi- trees were over-wintered and that now displays ble armed soldiers, but it was a constant re- the Monet Water Lilies cycle. We also spent minder that it’s a different world now. I was time in the Musée d’Orsay, a huge museum surprised that they seemed to be guarding the built in a renovated railway station, the Musée exits rather than the entrance, but perhaps there d’art et d’histoire du Judaisme, the Centre was some good, if not apparent, reason for Pompidou, the Musée national du Moyen Age, this. and several others, along with a visit to L’Arc The biggest difference I noted since my de Triomphe, and a walk down the Champs 1970 trip was that many Parisians spoke Eng- d’Elysée on a Sunday afternoon. lish and didn’t seem the least bit annoyed or We also visited Notre Dame with the resentful to do so. This certainly lessened the obligatory stop at Shakespeare and Co. nearby. frustration level when our French just wasn’t Notre Dame is huge and impressive and not to enough to deal with complex situations. Folks be missed, but I was more emotionally im- were patient and helpful, not at all the clichéd pressed with Basilique du Sacré Coeur on rude, American-hating French of legend. Per- Montmartre. It is smaller and gorgeous. We haps it was helpful that we were there a week had taken the funicular up the steep hill, and after the Presidential election, since some folks walked around in Place de Tertre afterward, were eager to talk with us and sincerely happy warding off offers to draw our portraits from (hopeful is a better description) about the out- the many hungry artists who roam this plaza, come. Most notable were some of the news- which was not at all bereft of tourists in early stands (where they blow up the covers of the November. recent papers to fill the windows) that featured My only regret is being too walked-out a newspaper cover – Obama and family after some of the time to be able to see everything the election outcome with the easily under- we intended to; I spent more time than I stood headline – “Our last best hope!” wanted to sitting out parts of museum visits Jerry has written up our most memora- because I just couldn’t stand or walk slowly ble event there – the evening reading at the for a while. Le Metro is wonderful, fast, and bookstore. It was a bit weird and uncomfort- frequent, but is also very, very old. This means able (I mean physically – tiny, narrow seats), lots of walking from one train line, exits and but we were actually taking part in a Parisian entrances to others via incredibly convoluted activity that the average touriste might not underground routes, lots and lots of stairs and find. The next morning I took a walk around very few elevators or escalators (unlike Lon- the Marais neighborhood to get a feel for the don or New York, the only comparable cities I place on my own (I almost always do this know well), so we walked up and down 30 or wherever we go). On Rue St. Antoine, I more flights a day before taking anything else bumped into the bookstore owner exiting a into account. For some reason, I did better 39 shop on her way to open her store, and we years ago. I thank the ADA for making US chatted for a few minutes. Much to my sur- traveling so much more, um, accessible; it’s prise, she apologized for the reading having not perfect by any means, but seeing what it’s turned into a different experience than she her- like without an analogous law (e.g., most rest- self was expecting, especially all the French! rooms were located down, and then back up, a

21 very steep flight of stairs in just about every like an abandoned airport (the exact opposite restaurant or shop we were in), makes me ap- of zoo-like Heathrow three years earlier); no preciate it more. sign of the earlier strike or milling passengers. Oh, yes; Newark Or where we should go to check in. One of the few perks at our hotel was As we couldn’t figure out which check daily complimentary newspapers. The Interna- in area to go to, we went instead to a customer tional Herald Tribune was particularly wel- service area. The Air France personnel were as come, but we also took Le Monde and Le Fi- helpful as they could be. We were told that it garo and worked on them as well. Having was too late to get through security and to our gone through a British Airways strike on our gate, but one agent took pity on us, and at- way back from the TAFF trip in 2005, I was tempted to arrange for us to get through initial monitoring the Air France pilots’ work stop- security at a nearby check in area – if we ran page scheduled for the day before we were to there like the wind. Which we did! All the return to Seattle pretty closely. I’d read that a ticket stands there were empty and we were pilot strike was scheduled but didn’t tell Jerry again confused about where to go. In the mid- until the day before our return flight since I dle of this vast empty area, we did see a kiosk thought that one of us obsessing about it would with a uniformed person, but we also saw be quite enough. We stopped at an Air France someone on the floor having a probable medi- office and were assured that we should be cal emergency, with armed guards and medics okay, then checked in on line the day before. running toward them. We went to the next Having taken various modes of public open check in desk, where we were told that, transportation, mostly the train to le Metro, to indeed, we had missed our flight. get to the Hotel Castex on the way in, we were I came pretty close to having a melt more than ready to spend the francs for a taxi down and was feeling panicky as we went on the way out. Then in our hotel lobby, we back to the customer service counter to start overheard another American making a reserva- over again. The original woman we had tion for a car service for her flight (if there was worked with was engaged, and the new person a flight for her, of course….), and we did like- said that our only option was to return to the wise with the help of the hotel clerk. Since US on another Air France flight, and that the Charles de Gaulle Airport is close to Paris, we next available flight to Seattle was in three allowed about three hours before our flight to days…(remember that strike?). This was im- get there. What we didn’t know: this “car ser- possible; we both needed to get back. The only vice” was essentially an airport limo that alternative was to take a flight back to the US makes multiple stops to pick up as many pas- that day – Los Angeles or Newark. Take your sengers as will fit prior to actually going to the pick! airport. When it arrived almost a half hour late, Flying to LA meant one really long I was already getting worried. Little did we flight, followed, possibly the same day, with know that we would not then head out to de- another longish flight. Flying into Newark Gaulle, but traverse the City of Paris in what is meant two flights with shorter combined flight possibly the worst traffic jam I have ever seen time, and had the benefit of our knowing the (have lived in Manhattan, BTW), picking up area much better than LAX, and friends whose many other passengers. Overhearing our in- numbers I could remember or find to call if we creasingly worried conversation, other limo really needed help. So Newark it was. There passengers insisted that we be dropped at our was a flight in a few hours, so we grabbed airline terminal first. Arriving with less than something to eat and I contacted my favorite our hour to go, we raced in to what seemed airline, Alaska, to try to book us back to Seat-

22 tle from Newark, while Jerry searched airport walked through had an eastern view of Man- shops for a few more gifts to take back to folks hattan at a distance; this was the first time I’d at his office (our last real day in Paris was a seen the skyline without the World Trade Cen- Monday and we discovered that all the shops ter buildings. Eerie. Uneventful flight back, where we had intended to buy gift-type objects thank ghod. Saw several movies (three on the before we left were closed). way to Paris and about five on the two flights BTW, Air France’s responsibility for back); someday I’ll actually have to see some us ended in New Jersey; we had to pay the air- of them again when I am conscious. fare to get back to Seattle. In addition, Air And I swear that never once during this France charged us a fee to change our tickets return debacle did I think about getting a good to the new flight – until the original agent, who article out of it. Really. had seen us return and was puzzled about what Aside from this fun return, our trip to had happened, came over. Realizing that her Paris was wonderful, exhausting, educational, arrangement for us to get onto our original frustrating, way too short, and not to be flight had gone wrong, she had the change fee missed. waived and apologized to us. I might have been able to find cheaper airfare from Newark to Seattle if I had the time Jerry's Suzle's 2005 TAFF Trip and lack of panic (and a better grasp of the computer I was working on at our gate), but Report —Travels in the United we were just grateful to know during our eight Kingdom in 2005 hour flight back to the States that we had a flight out of Newark the next day. When pack- y TAFF report is out and ing for the trip, I had stripped my wallet of all available either from cur- the cards I usually carry to just those that I rent TAFF administrator, knew I would actually need, but left in my ho- Chris Garcia, or me. It’s 38 pagesM with lots of photos, so send $7 US tel and other travel cards, those that I shouldn’t need, “just in case.” Well, this was the case! (includes postage) and find out what we were After arriving at the much-renovated Newark up to on my TAFF journey. Airport (the old, bus-station-like building that I’d last seen about 34 years ago long gone), I Chris Garcia called the Airport Hilton and we had an enor- 962 West Weddell Dr., #15 mous room (esp. by our garret standards) for Sunnyvale, CA 94089, USA the night, almost free, as was the limo that Checks payable to: Chris Garcia took us back and forth, courtesy of HiltonHon- E-mail [email protected] ors where I had been accumulating points for several years. Suzanne Tompkins The rest of the trip had a foggy, dream- PO Box 25075 like quality, mostly from total lack of sleep. I Seattle, WA 98165, USA remember showering and going to the hotel Checks payable to: Suzanne Tompkins restaurant for dinner in what was then the mid- Email: [email protected] dle of the night by our Paris timeframe. We were actually too tired to try to call New York ΩΩΩ area friends, but we did call Cliff Wind and Marilyn Holt, who were to pick us up, to re- arrange it. One section of the airport we

23 Jerry at one of the last vintage Metro stations-on Montmartre

La Tour D’Eiffel, of course.

Basilique du Sacré Coeur

Suzle at the Fountain at Centre Pompidou

24