J June, 2010 Volume IV, number 2 Askance number 20

Edited and published by John Purcell, 3744 Marielene Circle, College Station, TX 77845-3926

Contents © 2010 by John A. Purcell.

All rights revert to original artists and authors upon publication. So there.

What you have here in your hands (or on screen) is another Mythical Publication. Copies of this fine QUARTERLY fanzine can be had for The Usual, which means expressed interest, submission and eventual inclusion of articles and artwork, letters of comment, expressed interest, and cold hard cash in the amount of $2.00 USD to cover mailing of a hard copy. Bribes encouraged. Of course, if you send in locs, articles, and artwork, you‟ve earned a life-time free subscription. Heckuva deal, eh?

Contact information via e-mail: [email protected] contents

Bemused Natterings...... 3 Political Philosophy, by William R. Wright...... 7 Against the Fall of Empires, by Taral Wayne...... 10 Things We’ve Learned, by Robert Whitaker Sirignano...... 17 Why Aussies Don’t Throw a Pig on the Barbie, by John Straede...... 20 Penney for your Thoughts, fanzine reviews by Lloyd Penney...... 21 Figby, by Bill Fischer...... 23 Tales from the Convention, by Lloyd Penney...... 24 From the Hinterlands, by the deluded, but delovely, loyal readership...... 26 Wikiphilia: The Fried Encyclopedia, by Bill Fischer...... 37 Regional Convention Calendar...... 42 The Time-Binder’s Wife, by John Purcell……..…………………………………………….…………..…….48 What’s Next...... 51

Cover: Ditmar (“Robot’s Lament”) Photo by Valerie Purcell – 3; photos by John Purcell - 4, 5; clip art – 7, 8 ; filler art sent by Bill Wright – 9; Taral Wayne – 10, 35; image googled “President Obama” - 1; image googled “Nimitz-class carriers” – 13; Steve Stiles & Bill Rotsler – 16; image googled “life-stages” – 17; Jose Sanchez – 19; from old “Asterix” strip – 20; Alan White – 21, 34; Lloyd Penney – 24; image googled “hinterlands” – 26; image googled “furry con” - 29; image Googled “Invader Zim” – 33; image Googled “Pinky and the Brain” – 36; Leslie Hawes – 42; image Googled “armadillo” – 44; book scan by John Purcell – 47; Sheryl Birkhead – 51. Back Cover: recently received convention flyers from F.A.C.T.

Member FWA (since 2007!)

2 DUFF results

The results are in: John Hertz won the 2010 DUFF race, North America to Australasia, by a vote total of 73 to my 47. If you go to www.File770.com/DUFF you can see the complete voting breakdown by rounds. Interesting stuff, if number crunching cranks your chain.

Okay, so this is old news in the fannish universe since it is now June and the results were announced in the first week of April. My, how times have changed. Back in the day a two-month turn around in getting the news out with all the various fanzines responding to said news would have been positively fast, or at least, typical response time. Nowadays with the Internet speeding things up, what once was fast is now ponderously slow. It all strikes me as an interesting commentary on communication here in the early 21st century.

So John Hertz will be the North American fan heading down to Aussiecon IV later this summer. Good for him. I have never met John, but have read lots of his writings in assorted fanzines, notably File 770 and his Apa-L zine, Vanamonde, which he mails out to folks in batches of five. He seems like a good fellow, so I don‟t mind losing to him. What I find really amusing about this whole deal is that I came in second. Four rounds of vote tallying, eh? Interesting. Folks are already encouraging me to try again in 2012, which is flattering. Will I? Don‟t know. It is way too soon to even think about that. Right now, I simply want to thank all of the folks who supported me – Arnie and Joyce Katz, Lloyd Penney, Bill Wright, Bruce Gillespie, and Guy H. Lillian III – and those of you who actually voted for me. Thank you all so very, very much, you poor, benighted sods.

As far as this year‟s DUFF race goes, I must admit that it wasn‟t until the final ballot came out that I learned John Hertz was in the running. It really surprised me, and my first thought was “Well, he‟s gonna win.” Up until that point I thought I had a real shot at it. Oh, well. John is going to be a fine DUFF representative, and I fully expect to see his trip report published in File 770, or at least a large part of it. If he wants to send part of it my way, I would be honored to publish one segment of John‟s Aussiecon IV trip report here in Askance. The way I look at it, there‟s a fun way to get another new name to appear in these pages, and quality writing, to boot.

In the meantime, congratulations Mr. Hertz, and have a safe and fun journey to Oz.

3 In case you haven’t noticed...

The publication of this fine fanzine has been changed to a quarterly. Why is this, you wonder? Well, allow me to explain. There are three main reasons for the shift:

1) Time. It is my belief that giving myself a bit more time, even just one month, will make a big difference in improving the quality of this fanzine. Sometimes my written contributions feel a bit rushed when I have tried to maintain the bimonthly schedule I set for myself back in the spring of 2007. I also believe that having a few more weeks of time will give readers a chance to write locs and work on other written material for Askance. All in all, more time will be A Good Thing for the zine, and should improve the overall quality of each issue. Personally, I think I am going to enjoy having that extra month to work on the layout and visual appeal.

2) Print copies. Yes, the bane of my existence with this zine. It has always been my goal to run off a certain number of copies of each issue to mail to contributors and potential recipients who might loc and contribute other material (articles, artwork), and it pains me to admit that I have not been very good here at my end of the bargain. The procrastinator in me has always felt “Well, I have another ish coming up soon, so I‟ll do it then”, but the chance to be a good boy and do what I say never comes to pass. I have been a bad boy, Abbott, and an extra month might be just what I need to set myself on the right path. Sure hope so.

3) Feels right. A quarterly schedule just “feels” like a more leisurely pace and even gives the zine that indefinable sense of “faanishness”, which truthfully bears no stated schedule, if any regularity at all. Lots of fanzines are irregular, which reflects their editors/publishers, and we all know how irregular fans can be – and I‟m not talking about their digestive tracts, either. But I digress. All I know is that at this stage of this fanzine‟s lifetime a quarterly publishing schedule feels Just Right. Who knows? In the future the zine may return to a bimonthly schedule. Let‟s just not worry about that right now, okay? Okay.

Strange days, indeed....

Our oldest child, Penny (here she is in her commencement attire), graduated from Sam Houston State University on Friday evening, May 14, 2010, and we couldn‟t be prouder. Her four year degree in Criminal Justice/Victim Studies may have taken Penny five and a half years to complete, but, hey, she got it done, and that‟s the important thing.

The commencement ceremony was most uneventful - except loud, thanks to over-exuberant family members of assorted graduates - but getting there WAS eventful: we drove out of a big honking thunderstorm settled right over College Station, then followed us to Huntsville. A pretty intense storm, too. Her boyfriend Eric and Penny's father Mitch (she's actually my stepdaughter, but I've never thought of her as anything but a daughter)

4 got slowed down by the storm as well, and a few accidents caused by said T-storm, so they missed the speechifying (lucky bastards) and 75% of the graduates, but they were able to see Penny walk the stage and get her diploma, so that was good. My in-laws were already in town at a motel so they weren't affected by the storm, and Eric's folks (who likewise live here in College Station) arrived late (20 minutes) to the ceremony. Yes, it was Kind of crazy weather that night. (Sing with me, everyone: “Riders on the storm...”)

Then on the way home after the CJ-graduate reception across campus, when it was NOT storming, a couple wild hogs ran across the road in front of us, barely missing our car, just as we were getting back into College Station. I guess those hogs were bolting for cover because another line of storms was due to hit town Real Soon Now.

All in all, though, things went well. So late afternoon Saturday the 15th of May we all gathered at the Ficht's house (they offered since their place is much bigger than ours) for Penny's graduation party. The eating fare was brats, hot dogs, and burgers on the grill, and the forecasted rainfall never materialized. In fact, the weather was delightful. Once everybody ate and drank their fill, we all chatted for a bit then called it a night.

The only real glitch in all of this wonderfulness isn‟t a real problem. Yet. This coming fall, when the baseball playoffs begin, then the fur could begin to fly. See, Eric's dad is a Yankees fan. How could Penny have fallen for the son of a *YANKEES* fan? I thought we raised her right. Oh, the shame of it....

Most peculiar, momma...

So I'm sitting in the rocker next to our couch on the morning of April 29, 2010, watching CNN while Dan gets his socks and shoes on so I can drop him off at school on my way in to Blinn College, when one of our eight-month old kittens, Inga, comes flying up from behind the couch, chased by one of her brothers, Froderick. Inga bounced off the top of the couch, slamming into the left side of my head. As she ricocheted off, one of her back legs raked across my ear, scratching it open in three spots. "GAAAHHH!" I gasped, more surprised than hurt, clutching my stinging ear. The next words I uttered are unprintable as the blood started trickling down into my hand.

"Hang on, Dan. This might take a little while," I said on my way into the bathroom. Twelve minutes of styptic pencil application later, the bleeding is stopped, and I appraise the damage (the photo here is my ear left, post-Inga attack). "This is going to make for an interesting ice-breaker in classes today," was all I could say. "My students won't believe it." I briefly considered applying for an emergency medical leave of absence, then shelved the idea as impractical, although the idea had a certain appeal.

Yes, life is most interesting - and dangerous - around the Purcell household when you least expect it. The next time the kitten grand prix starts racing through the house I am not going to sit so close to the track.

5 Who and What is in this issue

This issue has simply grown into something that I did not expect: a genzine with all sorts of different material. In these pages you will find people espousing on world politics, barbecues, growing old, economics, convention tales, books, and fanzines. In short, broad samplings of the sorts of topics fans love to talk about. This is definitely one of the characteristics of producing a fanzine that I love: the varied interests of fans, and we love to write about them in our zines, even continue these conversations at conventions or club meetings. Science Fiction fans are awesome. They are definitely among the most intelligent, literate, and interesting people I have ever met in my life, and this is without question A Good Thing. So here‟s the run-down on this issue‟s contributors:

Bill Fischer This gent returns with a double-dip effort: the next installment of the continuing adventures of “Figby” – Darwinism seen darkly through a fogged glass – and a long-awaited Wikiphilia entry, one explaining “Wealthcare”. Yes, you read that right. Now go read the entry and enjoy.

Lloyd Penney Lloyd is double-dipping, too, with his regular fanzine review column, this time focusing on Steampunk fanzines, and another one of his “Tales from the Convention!” series. All of us - well, most fans – have convention experiences worth sharing, and Lloyd‟s 30-some years of con-going has left him with, shall we say, interesting memories both good and bad, some of them definitely funny.

Robert Whitaker Sirignano Way back in the late 1970‟s, Robert used to do filler illos and write the occasional letter of comment, some of which were published in my fanzine of that time, This House. I am very happy to present his article “What We‟ve Learned”, inspired by comments I‟ve made about my children both here in Askance and on Facebook, and Robert also picked up on the growing old section of Taral Wayne‟s “Latent Thoughts” from last issue.

John Straede We can thank Bill Wright for this one. It is always a good idea to balance out serious writing with something that‟s funny, which usually involves recounting something stupid we‟ve done in our life. This is a reprint from the October, 2001 issue of Bill‟s fanzine Interstellar Ramjet Scoop, which can be found on efanzines.com (of course). Bill sent this along mainly as another example of why fans should not be allowed near open flame. Right, Chris Garcia?

Taral Wayne Besides being one of fandom‟s best fan artists and the Fan Guest of Honour at last year‟s WorldCon Anticipation in Montreal, Taral has, in the past few years, established himself as an excellent and prolific writer. “Against the Fall of Empires” – besides being wonderful word-play off an Arthur C. Clarke title – is actually in response to Bill Wright‟s essay preceding it.

William R. Wright Little did I know that Taral‟s article in the last issue (“Latent Thoughts”) would spark a round of e-mails between Bill and Taral that eventually morphed into two wonderfully written and interesting articles discussing points first raised in “Latent Thoughts”. Both of them cc‟d their e-mails to me so I could watch their dialogue develop. Like I have said before, fanzines are a great place for fans to speak their minds and hash things out; what we have here is definitely not a failure to communicate.

6 Political philosophy

William R. Wright

PART 1: Musings on some recent Australian initiatives and their potential impact on global affairs Almost everybody with power to act on climate change seems to be pussyfooting nowadays. So, in the lead up to a Federal Election later in the year, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd must be grateful to Opposition Leader Tony Abbot for frustrating his emissions trading initiative, considering the rest of the world didn‟t follow him into it at Copenhagen. The Chinese might have the right idea from its „let‟s-get-back-at-the-colonial-powers-for-what-they-did-to- us- in-the-nineteenth-century‟ perspective – that is, quietly pour resources into pioneering solar, wind, tidal and thermal power technology at least to the stage of operating pilot research plants, all the while expanding its industrial base with dirty coal technology to maximise trade credits from its equally dirty currency float; then wait for the penny to drop in the rest of the world which then has to pay through the nose for the use of Chinese patents. Germany started on that tack years ago but had to stop because it can no longer afford to do so and at the same time support the Euro currency all by itself. The reality is, of course, that China‟s manipulation of its currency is of minor significance compared with the root causes of the West‟s, in particular America‟s, economic woes, which are systemic. Overconsumption financed by excessive leverage and high budget deficits must be tackled in conjunction with lowering the dollar‟s exchange rates with the rest of the world. Barrack Obama is inching towards coming to grips with that but is frustrated by reactionary elements at home. I don‟t exaggerate when I talk about a Chinese mind-set that permeates every level of society there from the lowliest peasant to the ruling elite. Clive Palmer is an Australian businessman who is in the process of stitching Australia‟s biggest export contract to provide over $60 billion worth of coal to China Power International Development over thirty years. On 15th February 2010 he flew into Beijing in his private jet all set to demonstrate to an unholy conclave – consisting of China Investment Corporation (China‟s sovereign wealth fund), Temasek (sovereign wealth fund of the corporate state of Singapore whose post- independence paramount leader Lee Kwan Yew regarded Euro-Australians as the white trash of Asia) and the usual feeding frenzy of hedge funds and private equity outfits – that he, Mister and Owner Palmer from Old North Australia, enjoyed unquestioned support from the Chinese ruling elite. He was as a lamb among wolves I‟m on record as stating unequivocally that Australia, in conjunction with Europe and America and never mind the so-called developing world, should pursue linked strategies for climate change and sustainable development that directly tax coal mining and exporting in order to fast-track the planned and integrated development of solar, wind, thermal and tidal power. As I see it, Clive Palmer has gazumped an important national debate by seeking to enrich himself by flogging off Queensland‟s rich coal resources for peanuts. In doing so he ignores the facts of history and where Australia‟s real interests lie. You would think that, with the prospect of snaffling such an enormous honey fall, China‟s industrial moguls would have refrained from throwing a spanner in the works, but at least one of them couldn‟t resist tweaking the sensibilities of an outpost of the Empire that, it must never be forgotten, had done China a poultice of damage a century and a half ago.

7 Madam Li Xiaolin, chair of the China Power group of companies, on no less than three separate occasions ridiculed Palmer‟s claim that he had stitched up the deal. She is the daughter of Li Peng, Deng Xiao Peng‟s chosen successor. Deng, you will remember, was the monster whose charm offensive directed at President Nixon resulted in linkage of the US and Chinese economies on terms overwhelmingly favourable to China, in the course of which he orchestrated the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre – to make a point, no doubt, that in the succeeding couple of decades has been ground into our souls. The aforementioned Li Peng did the dirty work. Deng was himself a protégé of Premier Zhou En Lai, the great mandarin survivor and administrative genius who had accompanied Chairman Mao Zhedong on the Long March and afterwards saved his country from Mao‟s disastrous „Cultural Revolution‟ by taking charge of it then announcing it was over. Australians are babes in the woods in the Big League. Clive Palmer‟s horizons are blinkered by his business interests and over-inflated ego.. He should have been monitored by Australian diplomatic watchdogs but I‟m pretty sure he wasn‟t. If his deal goes through, Australia will have meekly surrendered a leading advantage in developing industrial technology for the future. Kevin07 is either asleep at the wheel or he‟s negotiating a tricky path beyond my comprehension. If his strategies also puzzle Great and Powerful Friends on the other side of the American Lake, he‟s going nowhere.

Concerning Australia’s Great and Powerful Friends on the other side of the American lake…

PART 2: Consequences of misinterpreting the recent global financial crisis and its implications The emerging pre-eminence of China in world affairs (that will be consummated when the Yuan replaces the Dollar as the world‟s reserve currency) is predicated on its achievement of sufficient military power to enforce its trade policies. When America‟s President Bill Clinton was delivering balanced budgets I thought the transition would be a gradual evolutionary process taking many decades to come to fruition. President George W Bush‟s ill considered and expensive forays into foreign wars disabused me of that notion. Today, even China‟s gigantic theft of America‟s wealth via manipulation of its currency is of minor significance compared with the latter‟s seemingly irreversible slide into mismanagement and debt. It is a minor miracle that President Barack Obama has succeeded in convincing China of the unwisdom of bankrupting America too soon, but a rancorous and reactionary political climate back home makes it unlikely he will succeed in curbing financial excesses in the private sector and in mending unviable government structures. Al Gore could have done it but that fork in history didn‟t occur, more‟s the pity. When – I think within fifteen years – the point is reached when America can no longer call on the rest of the world‟s savings to sustain its spending, it will suddenly realise that Nixon‟s deal with China, irrespective of its theoretical merits given good will on both sides, was in reality nothing but a gigantic Ponzi scheme. It won‟t be able to afford (and hasn‟t for some time, as witness Obama‟s recent gutting of NASA) many of the constructs that sustain its global power interests, including upkeep of its military forces. Faced with the prospect of the whole shebang going down the gurgler, ideologues in what President Dwight D Eisenhower called the Military Industrial Complex might start World War III in a vain attempt to recapture the global economic playing field. That could be one hell of a show. It is a matter of profound satisfaction to me that I won‟t be around to see it, being safely and cosily dead.

8 PART 3: How well off is Australia, really?

Australia, despite appearances, isn‟t so well off in real terms. We are increasingly subservient to China‟s economic interests without much to show for it except appearing to weather the latest global financial crisis in better shape than most other countries. We‟ve a housing bubble that looks sustainable for only a couple more years. And what is a nation with a population of a mere twenty million doing with the world‟s sixth largest economy financed by trade deficits, merchant banking debt and - horror of horrors – social banking debt? If I were the Deity and had so much borrowed money out on speculation I wouldn‟t sleep at nights. Our only saving grace, if you can call it that, is to have only a small aggregation of government debt. Public debt reduction, however, was financed by sales of infrastructure that the Australian people used to own in common and had been built up over a century and a half using government borrowing at cheap interest rates. Another contributing factor was cutting back on health and education spending, resulting in a current skills shortage that severely limits our ability to grow the economy. Fixing that is not on Kevin07‟s radar. Indeed, he seems so mesmerised by the „resources boom‟ (which must end sometime leaving behind nothing but holes in the ground and an insurmountable mountain of debt) that he has allowed sunrise industries in fields like the life sciences – the erstwhile clever side of the Australian economy – to fall under foreign ownership and control for a twentieth of their current value and very likely, a millionth of their potential value.

- William R. Wright

EDITOR‟S NOTES:

Like I said way down at the bottom of page 6, Bill‟s article is the result of an e-mail dialogue between him and Taral Wayne, sparked by Taral‟s article “Latent Thoughts” in Askance #19. It was interesting to watch their dialogue take form, starting off as Bill responding to Taral‟s “rant” lastish, and then the two of them going back and forth, sharing their e-mails with me, all the while keeping the idea that their views and ideas could be shared with the Askance readership. Needless to say, being the fine fan editor that I am – and eager to fill up these pages with well-written material – I let these lads go at it. Eventually Bill and Taral refined their arguments, presenting them in the formats seen in this issue.

So now that you have read Bill‟s position on their topics of debate, here is Taral‟s response to “Political Philosophy”:

9

Even I don't always agree with everything I say. I try to entertain, and maybe get people to think a little bit too. So, I don‟t think it very surprising that I disagree with no significant portion of Bill Wright‟s “rant” either. In fact, it opens whole new opportunities to rant about other, only marginally related topics!

I've long held the Chinese in deep suspicion, and not been gulled by claims of New Capitalism or any other horse-shit from Beijing. The Chinese aren't democrats, and, despite the BS, I doubt very much they will be content with a standing as a nation-among-nations. The government will be satisfied with nothing less than a re-establishment of their old perceived status as the Central Kingdom, around which all barbarian nations revolve.

What they want, and what they will achieve, are not necessarily the same thing, but we need to be playing the game a lot more intelligently than we are, if the planet is not to be dominated by a Chinese- speaking superpower in another generation. Plain and simple, the Neocons sold out America (and the rest of the West) for fast profits – which, incidentally, they had no intention in sharing with Americans (or other peasants). It‟s likely the Neocons thought they were outsmarting their competitors, but the recent financial crash has permitted doubt to enter in their calculations. Still, if they should find themselves completely outsmarted, they will simply educate their children to speak Mandarin, and court favour with the Party even more assiduously – ultimately relocating themselves to where the power and money is, whether it's Beijing or Dubai – and I have my doubts that Dubai's future is rosy. I regard most American business and financial leaders as having been involved in mass-treason over the last thirty years, to be honest. And Ronald Reagan‟s White House were the masterminds of it.

I might cavil about China being victimized by colonization. China never was really colonized. There were enclaves in most major port cities, but something of the sort might have developed to accommodate foreign traders, in any case. And there's Hong Kong. Before the British, the desolate, mountainous island had been a sort of Siberia. Native inhabitants were poor and uncultured, and Beijing sent political exiles to live there as punishment. It was nothing of value until the British built a world-class city there. Hong Kong is no more Chinese than Hawaii. But just wait… on the basis of a substantial minority on the American islands, Beijing might someday declare it a “historical” Chinese territory also.

10 The Chinese have always been colonizers. The Han people, who are the core of modern China, began to colonize what is now South China before the 6th. century AD, I think, pushing aside the indigenous Min, Wu, Hakka and Fukienese peoples. They colonized western provinces like Sichuan a couple of centuries later, and were pushing against the borders of Islam before 800 AD. The Tibetans and Koreans have always had a precarious relationship with the Heavenly Kingdom – it could change from mentor to puppet-master overnight. China fought a thousand-year-long war with Annam to dominate Indo-China. The last battle in that war was fought with Vietnam, only some 30 years ago! Today, the Chinese are absorbing Tibet, acting on a long-term plan to overwhelm that Himalayan nation with a majority population of Han, and to gradually smother the indigenous culture.

If the Chinese were victims of European imperialism, they were far more often the victimizers, and if given the opportunity seem likely to be so again. In the 19th century, people complained about the arrogance of the Imperial British. In the 20th they complained about the arrogance of the “American Century.” But everyone throughout history who has had contact with China has complained about the arrogance of Mandarins and the Imperial Court. It is the nature of empires, after all. Who could imagine Belgium as an arrogant aggressor? Yet the history of the Belgian Congo shows what a little imperialism can do to even a minor power.

I doubt anything has changed much in Beijing. Despite a century and a half of humiliation, in their heart of hearts the Chinese are still The Heavenly Kingdom, and singled out by destiny as the centre of civilization. And it is hard to argue with over a billion people who are trying to throw their weight around.

When president Obama was elected, I went on record as saying that the America the world loved and respected was back. Events have shown I might have been premature in saying that. It isn‟t that Obama hasn‟t tried to bring change, or that he will bring no changes at all. But there has been incredible resistance. I believe there is a vanishingly small chance that he will transform America in any profound way.

Obama spent half his first term merely to promote a timid, partial reform of health care that may be so flawed that it will likely do little good. It might even run up the cost of health care even faster, as its critics have insisted it would. While coverage has been spread, the cost of the system has not really been put under controls, and the profit motive has not been removed from the equation. To be blunt, the HMOs should be dancing in the streets. The new bill makes it illegal not to buy insurance from them! If you can't afford it, the government is obliged to pay for your coverage, but American HMOs in effect have gained the indirect legal right to force you to buy from them. How can they possibly lose? I see windfall profits ahead.

The most optimistic say that the new bill is at least a step in the right direction. The door has been opened to further reform. Americans can hope.

More recently, Obama signed a treaty with Russia that cuts back on their mutual stockpiles of nukes, as well as

11 delivery systems. This, in its way, could be the more foresighted achievement. It's a very good move, made possible, perhaps, because Moscow was eager to cut back on the useless expense of a huge nuclear arsenal to match the Americans. And it remains to be seen whether congress will rubber-stamp the deal or not. But it is a development of the precise sort America needs to pursue if it is to put its house in order economically. America‟s economy is very much at the heart of most of its current ills.

Obama, and presidents after him, need to bring US military resources home. Policing the world to protect US business interests is a luxury America can no longer afford. History has shown us that no empire remains profitable for long, and sooner or later maintaining one begins to drain the productivity of the imperial power. It can take 500 years, as it did the Western Roman Empire, or a mere 70 years, as it did the USSR. Sooner or later, though, it begins to cost more to keep subject nations down than they pay back in looting and pillage. The end of the American imperial experiment was probably written before Teddy Roosevelt took office. Just how many battleships can cheap bananas pay for? Can the McDonalds franchise in Nicaragua justify the cost of just one single Stealth Fighter?

The US currently maintains giant military bases in very nearly every friendly nation on Earth, and in some unfriendly ones. (Guantanamo Naval Base, for instance, which serves no purpose except to stick it to the hated Castro regime.) Thousands of soldiers are kept at the taxpayers‟ expense in communistic lifestyles, where everything is provided for at government expense, in Germany, Japan, England, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Turkey and South Korea. Hundreds more put in time in Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Chile, Egypt, Thailand and The Philippines. The United States is in active combat or militarily occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as leasing major bases in places so obscure most Americans don‟t even know they exist, such as Bahrain and Chechnya. These bases do little, but the Pentagon is loath to give up a single one. Each is a staging ground – as England was before D-Day – in case the United States decides to attack Iran, North Korea, Somalia – or indeed even one of it allies, should it displease the White House enough.

Italy comes close to electing a Communist government now and then, so you never know who you can really trust…

As well as this far-fetched scenario, consider that these bases require generals and admirals to command them. Every base closed represents a senior officer who must be retired from somewhere in the chain of command, and these are the sort of people who do not want to give up commanding others and take up golf instead. No… closing bases is very unpopular at the Pentagon.

It‟s no more popular in many American cities, where the military-industrial system has taken root. The major employer of many cities in the American South is the Army, Marines or Air Force. In such places, even if you are not a soldier, you probably make your money by dry-cleaning his uniform, serving him drinks, providing his cell phone service or delivering sweet-and-sour chicken to his barracks. Other cities in the South or the Pacific Northwest depend on jobs provided by Lockheed, Boeing, Hughes or Rockwell. Nearly 25% of the American economy is directly or indirectly dependent on military spending – a figure comparable to Soviet defence budgets in the Cold War, and far exceeding Chinese spending. In fact, the United States out-spends all other nations on Planet Earth put together.

And still, nobody in America feels safe. Sadly, they aren‟t. But it isn‟t a lack of nuclear-powered submarines or assault helicopters that threatens them. It‟s debt.

Plainly, America can no longer afford to operate a dozen “super” carriers, each of which sails surrounded by support craft. The latest Nimitz-class carrier came to over $6 billion at the check-out counter. If you add to this the protective screen of cruisers, destroyers and submarines, each of the dozen fleets likely

12 costs in the neighbourhood of $12 or $15 billion. These fleets would be useless, as well, unless we add another $5 billion for aircraft. Operating costs are probably on the order of a half-billion or $1 billion every year. Each.1

Equally draining to the economy is the fleet of more than 15 nuclear ballistic/cruise missile submarines, dubious projects such as the 747- mounted laser gun for shooting down North Korean ICMBs and new generations of stealth fighters, whose halo type is the F-22 Raptor – the cost of the 183 to be built is roughly $339 million per airframe.

Add to all that the worldwide network of “death star” camps, and the sad spectacle of a bankrupted playboy borrowing gas-money for his stretch limo comes to mind.

Just as a start, it might not be a bad idea to cancel a few next-generation weapons systems. Obama has already cancelled America‟s return to the Moon, it seems, so why not the F-22? Does the United States need it? What aircraft outflies the F-15 and F-18 fleet the USAF already has? Perhaps it‟s already too late to cancel the Raptor, as it‟s already flying, but who has any doubt there are plans to replace it already in the preliminary stage? Why continue with building the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, though? The name alone is reason enough to discontinue its construction. The most recent, Nimitz-class carriers2 are expected to remain in service until the 2050s. The older classes could and should be decommissioned, while no more need be built. Six super carriers is still six more than the rest of the world has. Finally… close bases. Bring the men home from dreary, isolated spots such as Okinawa, Korea and Northern

1 In a candid display of Pentagon partiality, America’s newest nuclear powered aircraft carrier has been named after that most inconspicuous and worthless president of the 20th century, Gerald R. Ford. Not only that, but every super carrier since CV 63, The U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, launched in 1968, has been named for either a Republican president or a member of Congress with hawkish sentiments. This includes such warlike presidential favourites of the Pentagon as Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. The sole exception is the CVS 75 "Harry S. Truman." I nearly counted him as a Republican, he fit the GOP pattern so well.. Curiously, the two non-presidents so honoured with the naming of a 100,000 ton weapon of war after them – the CVN 74 “John C. Stennis” and CVN 70 “Carl Vinson” – were both Democrats. Both were deeply involved with Naval affairs and the Navy’s aggrandizement. Jimmy Carter is arguably the most ethical and intelligent president of the last 50 years. He served in the submarine force and has a Seawolf-class attack submarine named for him. Whether this was thought to be more appropriate or whether it was an intentionally less visible honour, you’ll have to guess for yourself.

2 Another odd note about the Nimitz-class super carrier. Due to a design flaw, the class lists to the right under combat loads.

“I kid you not.” – Captain Queeg, The Caine Mutiny (film

13 England. Remove them from Germany, Italy, and other nations that are capable of defending themselves, or that face no plausible threat.

That would put a lot of soldier boys out of work, granted. I don‟t waste any sympathy on their superior officers, who no doubt have cushy jobs as lobbyists for Lockheed waiting for them. But you don't want crowds of unemployed ex-marines and parachutists wandering the streets of Chicago, Philadelphia and Atlanta, wondering what sort of job they can get with airborne radar maintenance skills or expertise in field-stripping an M-16. It seems unwise to close any but overseas bases. As you bring American armed forces home, station them where they‟re most needed – in Texas, Georgia, Kansas, North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska. There is little for them to do there, but that was true anywhere, if they hadn‟t been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. It goes without saying that those bloody, costly and counter-productive conflicts have to be terminated as soon as possible. The influx of personnel into Stateside bases will also continue to support the parasitic communities that have grown up around them for another decade, forestalling – for the time being – political objections to a build-down. But eventually, those towns and cities will have to be weaned from the public teat. The military must also reduce recruitment, even eliminate it for a time, while downsizing and attrition thins out the ranks. Inevitably, as the military establishment shrinks to sustainable levels, most Stateside bases will have to be closed down too.

Instead of chastising NATO for keeping armed forces far smaller than America's, it‟s time for America to realize it is NATO that has it right, and build down to their strength.

This, more than anything else, is what America must do if it is to recover its economic health and the consumer lifestyle that did so much to win the Cold War for it. It wasn‟t Abrams tanks that defeated the Soviets, it was Nintendo and the large-screen TV that did it.

Unfortunately, the gloating victor of the Cold War was a bit of a charlatan. The cornucopia of consumer goods that America boasted of was, to a very large extent, imported from the Pacific Rim on credit. America has stopped making VCRs and large-screen TVs – along with cell-phones, jogging shoes, automobiles, steel, electronic parts and bicycles. What America did make was mainly handguns, Hollywood movies and fast food. Its main exports were military technology that threatens peace wherever it is sold, and bad debt instruments that dragged much of the world down with them when their bubble burst.

Now America is going to have to face some hard truths. Consumer spending will have to be reined in until most of the cars and cameras it bought from Japan, the oil it bought from the Saudis and from Canada, and the cheap plastic crap it bought from China is paid for. There is no way the majority of Americans can pay for this, of course. Debt forgiveness for ordinary people would be a step in the right direction – although the IOUs may very well have to be pried from the cold, dead hands of the banks. This is the time when those who have most should step forward and do their civic duty by shouldering most of the debt. Perhaps it‟s time to take over a few financial institutions and other corporations that exploit the economy and American people -- HMOs come to mind immediately, as well as certain banks and power consortiums who have been amply demonstrated to be incompetent and untrustworthy. Eventually, it will be necessary to shut out Chinese goods -- no democracy should be involved in a major trading relationship with dictatorships anyway.

It's immoral to fatten off the work of unfree labour – and regardless of “capitalist” hot air coming from Beijing, Party favourites making millionaires of themselves, and the few bones that are thrown to its workforce, China is still a totalitarian dictatorship. Selling them a few Chevrolets hasn‟t changed anything.

14 Moreover, we were set up by the Chinese for a double-cross from the beginning. America was always meant to finance the rapid expansion of China‟s manufacturing, and they knew full well that it would undermine the most fundamental basis of American power – productivity. You cannot make a nation rich only by moving money around. The money will inevitably gravitate to where it is made. What is marked “Made in America” anymore?

By a remarkable irony, the Chinese today are as much a captive of America‟s debt as America is of China‟s loans. If America were to go bankrupt tomorrow, the Chinese would suffer an economic implosion remarkably like the Japanese one of the 1990s. After decades of expansion, a slight turndown in exports resulted in their massive manufacturing over-capacity suddenly becoming redundant. Factories closed, and workers were “downsized” from jobs they had thought were secure from cradle to grave. It‟s a classic situation in business. Too rapid growth, fuelled by borrowed money, followed by a slump and debt load that could no longer be managed. One wonders how the Ninja Warriors of the Nikkei Index ever fell for that one…

A Japanese-style implosion in China isn‟t inevitable by any means. It‟s true that, as long as Chinese manufacturing capacity is geared for export, they cannot afford to bankrupt their main customer. Without America‟s addiction to inexpensive exports, it‟s likely that the Chinese economy would collapse. The prodigious manufacturing capacity they've created would have no purpose. Plants would close and people would lose their jobs. Discontent with the government would follow, and this, more than anything, is just what Beijing wants to avoid. This outcome can be avoided, however, if production is diverted gradually from export to domestic consumption. So far, the average Chinese citizen has gone without a VCR or digital camera so that his counterpart in Omaha or Baltimore can have three. Economic planners in Beijing don‟t love Americans more than their own citizens, of course. The payoff has been rapid growth and enormous capital investment in China‟s overheated economy. But, like any zero-sum game, it can't go on forever. No nation can continue to pursue a trade surplus with its neighbours indefinitely, because sooner or later it will beggar its trade partners – and the game will end.

Unlike Monopoly, though, in real life you don‟t just roll the dice and start again. There are unpleasant repercussions. Depressions. Famines. Armed uprisings. Overthrown governments. The muthafuckas up against the wall and shot.

Beijing, thinking itself clever, has built up the Chinese economy while undermining its chief rival, but now finds itself locked into propping up the stultified American economy. The Chinese cannot call the loan – they can‟t even stop extending America credit. Even revaluing the Yuan would be risky. If Chinese exports rise in price, their best customer stops buying. As a result, the Chinese workforce is now a captive of the American consumer, who continues to live off the sweat of underpaid Chinese workers who have no rights in the workplace. So far, the Chinese even appear to be grateful for their exploitation. They have more than they formerly had, by far. But unless the Chinese are to work indefinitely for less than their labour is worth, this must end someday.

The Yuan has been under pressure to be re-valued upward for some time. European nations smelled a rat, long ago, and even the Neocons in America are getting nervous about debts, deficits and trade imbalances that begin to look less like graphs than they look like a row of hangman‟s nooses dangling from the gallows.

Clearly, the Chinese have thrown a lot of good money after bad in financing the US. They will have to face up to it, and change from being an export economy to satisfying their own domestic consumption. And America will have to learn all over again how to make things for itself. In the long run, it will be for the best. Instead of coal-fired factories in China doubling in number every year, perhaps there can be

15 jobs in Ohio and Michigan instead. A pair of socks or a toilet scrubber may cost more than a dollar once again, but more people will have a job and be able to afford the marginal increase.

There is Obama‟s real challenge. Downsize the military and rebuild America‟s industries. Can he do it?

Not a chance in hell.

He may only be president for two more years – but even if re-elected to a second term, I doubt very much that those who profit most from the status quo would allow fundamental change in the way America does business. The least they will do is manufacture frenzied “Know-Nothing” movements like the so-called “Tea Party.” They will buy support in Congress, hire right-wing radio talk show hosts and assault the public with a steady drumfire of lies in the media. The more likely Obama is seen as bringing change to the system, the more likely he will be murdered – whether by a CIA conspiracy or by one of the legions of potential “lone gunmen” hardly matters. It is characteristic of the ultra-conservative collective consciousness that a violent solution can be on everyone‟s mind without once speaking it.

I don‟t even think it will come to assassination. There is no sign that Obama has a deep enough insight into what troubles America, let alone the determination and force of character to make revolutionary changes. I think the president will patch a few obviously threadbare spots in the seat of America‟s pants, and leave the rest much as it was before. That is probably the most we can even hope for, and we should be grateful if he succeeds at only that.

Keep America as we know it going for another two or three decades, and at least I won‟t be alive to see the eventual collapse and the much-altered global politik.

TARAL WAYNE

16 THINGS WE'VE LEARNED

(being a sequential study of getting older)

by Robert Whitaker Sirignano

HYPER-----

When I was younger, from age four to about six I used to bump and ding myself frequently. I just did, and my mother was always wondering if I recalled getting hurt I would notice these things later. For me, this was the “Age of Scabs.”

And when I was dating my wife to be and she would arrive at her apartment, she would have a bruise on her side, or her leg or her arm which stemmed from her job as a bike messenger, and only because someone opened up the taxicab door and she could not stop and flew over it. Still, the bruises like this and other weren't noticed until much later. Knocked down, she got back up. She did have quite a few incidents where she hit something and bounced off car hoods.

Years later...

Comes my own son, whimpering to his mother that he couldn‟t sleep because his arm hurt. It was four in the morning. He was five, almost six. Poked in the place he complained about--his wrist--he would just say “OW!” Loudly. His left arm.

Taken to a Doctor. She poked, handled his hand and said, “It‟s probably not broken.” Doctors are authority, aren‟t they? thought Giani. “I question authority.”

17

“Leo,” said Giani, “do you want your arm x-rayed?” “Yes,” he said.

Diagnosis: Wrist broken in two places. Cast put on, with the usual annoying things that casts do: itching, skin warpage, weird statements written on cast....

Some months later. I wake up, at some ungodly morning hour like 7 AM and place the kid on the bus. It is an ungodly morning hour because I get to sleep by 3 AM, working the night shift at the post office. By agreement, I get the kid to school. And Giani gets to sleep.

A phone call later that morning. I wake Giani up. “Guess what Leo did. The school nurse think he‟s broken his arm. The other one.”

Giani glared at me, scowling “It‟s your turn!” And went back to sleep. Leo had fallen off a set of monkey bars, which were military grade and donated by the local Air Force Base in Dover.

New cast. New skin warpage. New silly words written on the cast.

A few weeks later...

Leo developed a fever, reaching 105 degrees. His lymph nodes under his arm were swollen. We asked him if he got bitten by the cat,* no, but he did get bitten by a goat.

At hospital Leo is shivering under a blanket in the emergency room. The attendants try to get blood out of his arms. Normally they would have let it go, but the idea of a goat bite was a novelty to them and the concern was to find if the infection was new.

Giani held him firmly.

And the needle poked the skin and vein in the arm and Leo was so tense that only a few drops were taken. “We‟re going to need to use the other arm. Hearing that, Leo chomped down on Giani‟s wrist.

It hurt, she said. “I began to cry, because...” And the attendants had to pry his mouth open forcing their fingers onto both sides his cheeks.

“Leo, if you don‟t co operate, I‟m going to have to leave.” Leo indicated he would not co operate. Giani left. She sits in the waiting room weeping, She began , hearing shouts of “You‟re hurting me. Stay away! Leave me alone.” She feels really out of place. People are looking at her. A few moments later, two orderlies are appearing through the doors and say “We can‟t get any blood out of him. And he keeps hitting us with his cast.”

Let‟s see, thought my wife, he weighs forty pounds, he‟s got a broken arm, he has a temperature of 105 degrees and he fought off two hospital orderlies...no, he‟s not going to get kidnapped...

A prescription for antibiotics is given. He did get bitten by a cat, and a goat. It was the cat's fault.

Giani phone calls my Mom. My mother recalls my brother Jack breaking both his arms, four bones with the two wrists. He fell out of a tree. He comes home and decides to go to the Phillies game in Philadelphia that evening. His friends will drive and he will come back and deal with the broken bones,

18 commenting “All I ask is that nobody touch me.” I don‟t recall what game it was, or if his favorite team won. He waited it out and visited the doctor in the morning.

Giani called the genetics counselor and asked what was up. The answer was a condition called “Hyper- myelination of the large nerves.” It isn‟t that we don‟t feel pain, we can ignore it. It‟s a dominant trait. It explains why, when I was in three totaled car accidents (including a roll over), I was able to get out of the car and walk away and await the ambulance.

So when I watch a movie where someone is beaten and they get up and get up again and again until they defeat the foe, I know I understand why.

...Myelinated*

* another story entirely...

-- Robert Whitaker Sirignano

Bedside Reading shelf redux

I have been reading a fair amount of science fiction recently, and if you‟ve been following these capsule book reviews here, the quality of the writing is, shall we say, sometimes a bit suspect. Does that matter? Probably not. The way I look at it, it all depends on the mood I am in as a reader, and my current SF reading tastes have been a bit varied. Sometimes I like a well-told, literary effort ( a lá Ballard or Aldiss), or a good adventurous Space Opera (Chris Bunch‟s Last Legion series), or even pulp era dreck (the Professor Jameson stories by Neil R. Jones). It‟s all good, depending.

Thus it interests me when a young writer tries his or her hand at writing science fiction. This past April my wife bought a first novel from a student here in College Station during one of her substitute teaching stints. The book is called Breached Fallacy, and was written by Brent C. Green, a 17 year old senior at A&M Consolidated High School. It is self- published, which is one of the wonders of our modern age, and for a first effort, it is quite an ambitious undertaking. I began reading it the week before finals, but then had to put it down while all that madness raged at Blinn College. Needless to say, I haven‟t picked Breached Fallacy up again, but will once this issue of Askance is completed. Next issue will probably have a proper review of young Mr. Green‟s book. Stay tuned.

19 With apologies to Chris Garcia. Oh, wait a minute. Why apologize? – ed.

Why Aussies Don’t Throw a Pig on the Barbie

John Straede

Reprinted from Bill Wright’s fanzine Interstellar Ramjet Scoop Oct 2001.

In this article Australian fan John Straede shares with us an hilarious incident in his life.

Cheryl and I spent Thursday and Friday nights at a friend‟s house in the Blue Mountains. Ron‟s guest of honour for New Year's Eve was to be a roast suckling pig, paid for by Ron's brother-in-law, to be cooked by Ron on the gas barbecue.

I was under orders to light the barbecue at 7.30 AM, there being no instructions and nobody else admitting to be technically minded. I did this without burning myself or anything else, and Ron put the pig on at about 8.00 AM. But the lid wouldn't close as the pig was a bit too large. A little later fat started to pour out of the pig onto the hot stones, and then the pig caught fire. At this time the barbie was on the veranda. Ron was off feeding his chooks and I was getting worried.

Finally I turned off the gas, disconnected the gas bottle, and removed it to place of safety. The pig continued to burn merrily. Eventually Ron reappeared and we used two boards to carry the barbecue away from the house. The pig continued on its path to hell.

We found a small square of roofing iron which we cleaned and placed next to the barbie and tipped the whole thing over, hoping that the pig would roll out. It didn't, but the fire went out. Ron was then able, with the aid of a towel, to remove the pig which was then decarbonised and dismembered. There wasn‟t much pig left. The „roast pork‟ remnants were then cooked in a conventional oven.

The meat was very nice - pity about the crackling. In the meantime I am trying desperately to keep a straight face while Cheryl and Ron's sister Robyn are just about wetting themselves and Ron is threatening them with a meat cleaver. Eventually he could see the funny side of it.

- John Straede

“Not just sex -- mostly politics, surrealism, social commentary, adventure, urban angst and, yes, sex.”

20

Fanzine reviews

by Lloyd Penney

A few years ago, when Chris Garcia started up his steampunk-oriented fanzine Exhibition Hall, he wondered aloud if his was the first steampunk publication out there. He got his answer soon enough. Two other publications stepped forth to say no, they were out there first, thank you very much. With my own current interest in steampunk, I found out more about them, downloaded all current and previous issues, and decided to respond to them like any other fanzine. Here's a look at each of the steampunk zines; at least, the two others I know about.

The first one is The Gatehouse Gazette, edited by Nick Ottens in the Netherlands. The latest issue, 11, is about 18Mb in size, 28 pages, and certainly more of a magazine than a fanzine. This publication uses lots of illustrations and photographs, and takes up a lot of space doing it. (I think that fanzines were graphically tight in their layout because we had little paper to print the zine on…we‟re still not used to the idea of having unlimited space to lay out a zine via a .pdf.) GG uses lots of old Victorian era artwork, and illustrates the whole idea of steampunk, yearning for a time that never was, the pinnacle of steam technology, and how would we use it today if steam was the pinnacle of our modern technology…the artwork uses good graphic design, consistent fonts and headers, without using that heavy a line.

Zines like this one put for the idea of romance, adventure and delving into the unknown, and with that theme, there are columns on steampunk costume, themes and icons, what‟s going on at the myriad other steampunk websites, interviews with authors who have created steampunk novels and short stories, and much more. The latest issue of GG contains what has turned out to be a controversial article on what is termed Victorientalism, or the use of what might (by some) be called racist ideas and icons about the Chinese, Japanese, Arab and Indian cultures that back them provided the romanticized unknown into which adventurers representing the British Empire delved into. (I think some may have taken offence at some of the ideas in the article, and have carried the conversation onto the forum on the Gatehouse website, which supports the zine.) Among the zine‟s many contributors is Brigadier Sir Arthur Weirdy- Beardy, Ret‟d., who does provide a smile or two to wind up the zine.

It is a specialty interest, and it may not cater to your own, but I‟d still say have a look at it. It is nice to look at, and may give you some layout ideas. When I first started responding to this zine, I at first locced the first 9 issues all at once, and 10 by itself. Looks like this got Nick starting a Letters to the Editor column, just as a publication from that era should have.

The other steampunk magazine is called…well, Steampunk Magazine. The latest issue is issue 7, just recently out, about 20 Mb in size, just under 100 pages, which makes it about half the size of its biggest issue, and is just under a hundred pages in size. Like Gatehouse, there are a lot of contributors, and there are a number of editors, too. For this issue, the editors are C. Allegra Hawksmoor and Dylan Fox.

21 As does Gatehouse, Steampunk Magazine uses a wide selection of photographs, illustrations and artwork from a past era, but many of the illustrations are relatively modern. They‟ve got their hands on some talented artists. Its has a little colour, a little monochrome in the cover in it for some colour at least. Again, this publication is more magazine than fanzine, given its production values. It's got lots of white space, used in a very artistic vein. This magazine has had a very irregular release schedule, but is attempting to impose a regular schedule of each March and September.

The art within the layout then goes on to present the manifesto of the publication, to be more punk than steam. This editorial group of agitators, named vagrants Among Ruins, has its own political views and ideology, and they state them within this zine's pages. Just beyond that are articles on creating your own country, race and steampunk (with what I believe to be some response to the Victorientalism {sic} article referred to above in the newest Gatehouse Gazette), steampunk fashion (goggles and gears and pocket watches, yeh, yeh, yeh), the history of Germany in the 19th century, and even belly dancing with a steampunk edge to it.

And then, there's fiction, poetry, large illustrations (all original artwork, no clipart or reproductions from Victorian times), interviews with popular steampunk bands (with Sunday Driver, and The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing), and album and novel reviews. With perhaps a nod to the science fiction from which steampunk sprang, there is a good review of Ann & Jeff VanderMeer's Steampunk anthology. There's such a wide selection of things to read, I'd be a little afraid of the group burning out their sources of writing and artwork. I can understand their new every-six-months schedule...

Steampunk Magazine is also unique in that you could easily download the .pdf of the zine, but if you really want a published copy of the magazine, they will be pleased to sell you a paper copy. Vagrants Among Ruins will sell to the UK and Europe, and Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness will sell to the Americas. Also be careful when you download; single-page per screen .pdfs are available, as are two- page-spread .pdfs.

I am not sure which of these two steampunk magazines I prefer, but I do thank Chris Garcia for flushing them out into the sun where we can see where steampunk publishing is going. I am not sure if I agree with the idea that everything can be done with a steampunk flavour, but I think zines are one thing that can be, and all are doing it well. We might want to take some graphic nuances from these zines, and take them for our own fanzines.

The Gatehouse Gazette – available for download from www.ottens.co.uk. (For Trek fans…when you go to this website, the upper link on the main page takes you to the Gatehouse. The lower link takes you to Forgotten Trek, one of the best archives of information about early production notes of existing Trek projects, plus some which were never made.) Steampunk Magazine is available from the website at www.steampunkmagazine.com.

-- Lloyd Penney

RECENT FANZINES THAT YOUR HUMBLE AND DISOBEDIENT EDITOR HAS READ AND ENJOYED

Argentus = Steven H Silver, 707 Sapling Lane, Deerfield, IL 60015-3969 USA [email protected] Banana Wings = Claire Brialey & Mark Plummer, 59 Shirley Road, Croydon, Surrey CR07ES, UK Challenger = Guy H. Lillian III, P.O. Box 163, Benton, LA 71006 USA http://www.challzine.net eI = Earl Kemp, P.O. Box 6642, Kingman, AZ 86402-6642 USA or [email protected] Relapse = Peter Weston, 53 Wyvern Road, Sutton, Coldfield B74 2 PS, UK or [email protected]

Archived issues of Argentus, eI, and Relapse are available at http://www.efanzines.com

22

23

Lloyd Penney Presents

#16 - Science Fiction Saturday

In the 90s, Yvonne and I lived in Brampton, northwest of Toronto, and we had some ideas for conventions we wanted to hold. One was a literary Star Trek convention...bring in some popular Trek authors, but because we got exactly two pre-registrations, that didn't work. Another idea did, though.

Over the years, we came up with ideas on possible additions to a convention, different activities and different contents of rooms. We wanted to see something…different, and we were usually given reasons why we couldn't do that, or why it wouldn't be practical, or we were simply told no. So, we thought, let's run a convention full of all the things we were told couldn't be done.

We wanted to be careful with this, given that we had to borrow the corporate umbrella from our local convention, but stage it we did. We called it Science Fiction Saturday. Not the most original name, but there was no doubt what it was about. Our ProGoH was Edo van Belkom, the young adult horror writer, and nearby resident. The convention was dedicated to the memory of Marisa Golini, a young Ottawa fan and rising star in Ottawa radio broadcasting whose life was cut short by cancer. I still miss her.

We had a small dealers' room and art show, and we had a well-stocked con suite. We had a full-blown authentic English tea, thanks to the English hotel chef who hadn't done anything like it in years, and was only too happy to do it, and he cut the price, too. One under-appreciated part of the convention was the audio listening room. One local fan, who is a big fan of The Shadow, got into full costume as Lamont Cranston (in a coat Yvonne had made for him some years back), plus scarf and over-sized fedora, and with the help of a hidden tape player, he bade the good folks who wandered into his large room to sit and

24 lie back and relax, while he played wonderful old SF and mystery tapes from a bygone era. Everyone in the room rediscovered listening, a lost art to many, and one they found and enjoyed.

The video room played stuff we used to see at cons and love, like Marv Newland's classics Bambi vs. Godzilla, and Godzilla's Revenge, lots of wonderful stuff from Mike Jittlov, including The Wizard of Speed and Time, Dark Star, and Hardware Wars. Panels allowed one group to discuss the best websites to search out for fannish information, at least for those who were online, and at that time, there weren't many, while another group told another generation all about SF pulp magazines from the 30s, 40s and 50s. (The reaction to this pulps panel was so positive, the panelists decided to stage their own one-day pulps convention. It is still held today. The panel response gave them the confidence to try it, and they have succeeded beyond their expectations.)

The con suite was comfortable, and Edo van Belkom read to us from his latest book. It was close to Hallowe'en, so he scared us with his readings. Overall, one of the nicest little conventions I'd ever attended, and others thought the same. It was a popular success.

However... Brampton is outside of Toronto. It's a short drive away, but not easy to get to by regional transit. Not impossible, but not easy. Too many people said, oh, it's too far away, and they missed a good time.

We got about 40 people attending, and we did lose some money. But, we proved that all the things we were told couldn't be done actually could be done, if you cared enough to do it. There was never another SF Saturday, and many of the things we did were never again done at any local conventions, even though they were offered. However, Yvonne, as the chairman of the event, won an Aurora Award for Fan Achievement (Organizational) the next year. It may only have been a small trophy, but at least there was some reward for all the hard work.

- Lloyd Penney

Other dead tree and electronic fanzines recently received and viewed:

Alexiad #50 (Vol. 9, No. 2) Littlebrook #7 Ansible # 273-275 Lofgeornost #98-99 Ask Mr. Guess-It-All More Balls #5 BCSFAzine #443 MT Void #1588-1600 Beam #2 National Fantasy Fan Federation e-Fan #22 Cargo Cult Books & Notions (May, 2010) No Sin But Ignorance #50 Correscating Conundrums #1 Number One #16 Da Curl of my Hair Picofarad #20 Drink Tank #243-249 Pips #4 Einblatt! (April-June, 2010) Procrastinations #7-8 Exhibition Hall #8-10 The Reluctant Famulus #74 Feline Mewsings #40 Science Fiction in San Francisco #103-105 File 770 #158 Small and Far Away Fortnightly Fix #9.5-12 Taboo Opinions #115 Go Drop Dead To Walk the Moon The Great Wen Vanamonde #828-835 Griff #1 Visions of Paradise #151-153 Interstellar Ramjet Scoop #254 The Zine Dump #25 Journey Planet #5

25

Don‟t get your hopes up, people. This picture was not – repeat, NOT - taken by me on my way to a weekend of besotted debauchery, but was nicked from the „net, which is where I always find these header photos for the lettercolumn. Sometimes it‟s just fun to see what you can find on the Internet. Of course, this particular photo may have been taken somewhere in Nevada, where the famed Mustang Ranch is located. I expect a full report about the Mustang Ranch (illustrated, of course) from Nic Farey any day now.

But enough of that frivolity. There are some very interesting and thoughtful letters to respond to this time. Let‟s dig in by starting with Eric Mayer, who is probably deeply involved with another John the Eunuch novel with his wife Mary Reed at present, besides some other writing commitments:

Sun, March 14, 2010 Eric Mayer [email protected]

John,

First, I am very glad to hear that Josie's news is good, at least relatively speaking. Hopefully the surgery is something less than major and it eliminates the problem. {Thank you, Eric. So far, so good. Josie is still hurting a wee bit, but she‟s back to work and being active.}

Sad about Timmy though. Old indeed for a dog. Our cat, Sabrina, turned twenty last autumn. Not sure

26 what her exact birthday is but I know her age because she came from a litter a feral cat had in a neighbor's garage the year I bought my house (1989) in Rochester, New York. Sabrina has been with me through a lot. Through thin and thinner. I hate to think of her departing, but I know that healthy as she seems the time is drawing near.

I also should commiserate with Chris over the untimely demise of his beard. Although, actually, it sounds like some of it survived, enough so we can't really call it a close shave. Well, he has always published zines as if his beard were on fire. It makes me wonder whether I ought to get my hair cut. The past couple years I've just tied it back and I've got a good foot or so now. Not that I cook with my back to the stove, but I turn away from it and since it's gas there's an open flame. Joking aside, I'm glad Chris wasn't badly burned.

Probably I should say something about Joe Nathan at this point, but maybe that's enough gloom and doom. {As of today (Sunday, June 06, 2010), the Minnesota Twins are doing quite well; they are 3½ games in first place in the AL Central, so things are looking good. Their current problem happens to be that JJ. Hardy and Orlando Hudson are heading to the 15-day DL (disabled list, for you non-baseball folks) to recuperate from minor injuries.}

So you're on Facebook, too. The nearest I came to that was mirroring my blog entries on LiveJournal, but I gather that the only people who read those were you, Randy Byers, and Luke McGuff. A pretty classy readership but small, so I dropped that. Have pretty much dropped blogging actually. It's difficult for me to come up with enough to write to fill blogs/journals.

Needless to say I am amazed that you have managed 19 fine issues of Askance in a mere three years. {Pubbing bimonthly issues will do that, Eric.} Congratulations. Quite an accomplishment. I am impressed. Although maybe not as impressed as I am by the lady on the cover. Well, okay, maybe that's a different variety of impressed. {Alan White is a wonderful artist with a great sense of proportion. To my critical eye, that is so danged important when drawing/painting the human figure. Alan is certainly good at it!}

Interesting article by Arnie on faanfiction. To my mind, the best piece of faanfiction I've read, apart from the classic, “The Enchanted Duplicator”, is “Thru A Glass, Greenly” by Dave Locke which was in eI 14: http://efanzines.com/EK/eI14/index.htm#greenly It's a faanish time travel story which for me elicited a real sense of wonder and it avoids the artificial, cartoonish quality that most faanfiction seems to have. I used to write lots of faanfiction, but even when I was pleased with the underlying ideas and/or humor, I could never quite figure out how to make it seem like more than a cartoon. Well, I suppose if one is going to write about Claude Degler reappearing after spending years in Tibet or Francis T. Laney coming back to demoniacally possess young femmefans what can you expect? Not John Updike, I guess. Updike comes to mind because I just read The Centaur. Has anyone done a Brandonization of The Centaur? That could be interesting.

By the way, though I don't read much sf these days; I read and enjoyed Leiber's The Big Time after you mentioned it (and I had it around). Very strange book, but I consider that a compliment.

We're finally having our spring thaw here in the northeast and I have even got out to the grocery to restock the shelves. Only a couple weeks to go, of course, until life once again becomes complete. Oh the pain of not having box scores to peruse.

ERIC

27 {I haven‟t read anything by Leiber in a long time, so I can‟t say anything about The Big Time or anything else by him right now. Love his Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories, that‟s for sure. Those are a lot of fun to read. (*) I hope by now you‟re getting your fill of baseball box scores. The Yankees are doing well, but they‟re having a heck of a time trying to catch the Rays. Tough division, that AL East.}

One of the most prolific fan writers of our time – and a damned fine artist, to boot – had some interesting comments to make about Furry Conventions, which is something I have never experienced in their full- blown glory (if that‟s the phrase to use), but have seen some young fans running around Aggiecon wearing furry outfits. Well, you know what they say about SF conventions: pretty much anything is fair game.

Mon, March 15, 2010

Taral Wayne [email protected]

The early furry cons were a lot of fun. I remember meeting many of the artists I knew from comics for the first time, and finding them to be generally an interesting and sensible lot. One was an expert in telecommunications technology, one retired from the USAF, more than one were in the animation business, one lettered comics for Marvel and DC, another made his living as a commercial artist, some went to university, etc. By and large I'd say they were comics or animation fans who happened to have a special liking for funny animals, and had become inspired with the idea of using the subject for adult themes. Not just sex -- mostly politics, surrealism, social commentary, adventure, urban angst and, yes, sex.

There were debates on whether or not it was demeaning to be called a "furry."

But after ten years it was fairly obvious that sex had driven other themes out of the comics. There were a small number of specialty publishers at that point, who had replaced the single/author-artist comics like Galacci's Albedo, or Quagmire's Cutey Bunny. Primarily Radio/Antactic, Shanda Fantasy Arts, Mu Press, Vision Comics and United Publications in the UK. Most of them quickly realized that they always sold more of their sexy comics than the others, and geared their output accordingly. Mu and Vision marched to a slightly different beat, and went to the wall sooner.

After the big b/w implosion, followed by Marvel's bankruptcy, the furry comics mostly died or cut back to one or two titles, and have almost no influence in furry fandom anymore.

Animation on TV and the Big Screen no longer produced any iconic characters of note, either. Anime filled the vacuum. Furry fandom began to be full of bad fan art about Pokemon and digimon characters. Foxes always had nine tails after that...

The first conventions were pretty much like SF cons -- people talked a lot and there were panels. The only real distinction was the habit of passing sketchbooks around. At first it was one artist trading with another. Later, twenty dollar bills began to be passed around with the book, so that ordinary fans could start collecting. In those days there were only a handful of furries who wore fur suits -- usually just on the day there was the dance (if there was a dance). I knew one or two of the guys -- they were always guys, even when dressed up as girls. By and large the rest of us viewed it as an affectation. I viewed it as a nuisance when someone came up to me and expected me to talk to him as though he really was a six foot tall mouse with a 46" bust-line. I never had anything to say to him, but whoever it was wouldn't go away as a rule, until I was on the edge of becoming rude.

28 What happened to spoil furry fandom as it was, was that it was the fringe elements that appealed to most newbies. The old comics crowd lost their hold on the fandom as costumers, role-players and "otaku" flooded the fandom.

So this is one reason why I have little interest in the cons. I have little interest in seeing a bunch of kids -- say 17 to 25 -- whose raison d'etre there is to dress up as a goofy looking dog character, and who think neko-girls and Renamon are hot (but may never have seen Cats Don't Dance or read a Pogo strip).

I still interact with modern-day furry fandom on the internet. Believe it or not, I moderate a Yahoo group about Gadget, from Rescue Rangers. I was made co-moderator a few years ago, largely as an "honour." Then the owner of the group disappeared, leaving me holding the bag. Now and then I also post a bit of my art to one of the more civilized "chans." (It keeps them from pirating my work.) But my main interface is FurAffinity. You meet all sorts there, but it's easy enough to focus on those who seem more literate, more experienced, and more interesting. The others are mainly harmless. You still meet a few "beuats" though, who really do believe they are reincarnations of wolves, or think their furry persona is a philosophy of life. You ignore those as best you can.

If I didn't find it worth hanging out at FurAffinity, I wouldn't. In fact, it's turned out to be a major depository of my work -- I have over a thousand files stored there, including a lot of fan writing. I get more feedback on my fan articles, probably, from FA than I do from fanzines.

However, for the science fiction fan whose nose it put out by fawning cat girls, DeviantArt might be the better place to get a dose of my art. I have three or four hundred files stored there, and have focused more on SF-friendly material.

There was a local furry convention in Toronto in March. To show you how out of the loop I am, and how isolated local pockets of furry fandom can be, I didn't hear about it until it was over. And according to Lloyd Penney -- who I guess must have attended for some reason -- the con had no idea who I was either.

TARAL WAYNE

{Thank you for the insight into one of the odder interest groups to ever spin off main science fiction fandom. The interesting parallel here is how even Furry Fandom has splintered off as its grown bigger, much like SF Fandom into all of its media-related subgroups. I think Andy Trembley mentioned this effect way back in something like Askance #6 (must check that out to verify), but years ago I noticed the balkanization of fandom as SF‟s media growth took off beginning in the late 1970s. Splintering like this is inevitable as any population increases; I have witnessed this in Minneapolis Fandom (ca. 1979- 1983) and briefly experienced it in LASFS, when I lived in Los Angeles (1985). Reading fan histories and biographies by SF writers – any of the ones written by Harry Warner, Jr., Damon Knight, Sam Moskowitz, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, and so on – will likewise reveal this tendency.

29 {As for the local furry con not knowing who the heck you were is something which I experience every year when I attend Aggiecon. Of course, that is a student-centered SF convention, but enough fans come to it from far and wide to make it much more than a true localized event. It is a decent-sized regional con, usually pulling in 400 or so attendees. But this lack of notice doesn‟t bother me that much; I understand their focus is more SF media and gaming, so I allow for that and have been hanging out in recent years with the fannish folks I know who make it down to Aggiecon. It really has turned into a decent convention again, and I look forward to next year‟s edition.}

Now, here is a loc from Bill Wright; it‟s the first loc, in fact, to mention the give-and-take he had with Taral Wayne that resulted in the articles appearing earlier in this issue. After his introductory section about these bits, Bill gives Askance #19 a proper loc.

Wed, April 14, 2010

William Wright

John,

Most fan writers mature into accomplished wordsmiths who pun-ish loyal readers with puckish asides. Others favour the raw-edge rant. Askance is a great fanzine because it accommodates both. So, if you can publish Taral Wayne‟s blatant commentary from a Canadian perspective, you might be disposed to publish mine from an Australian viewpoint. Attached is a three-part „political philosophy‟ article that I dashed off, after reading Taral Wayne‟s rant in Askance #19, from notes I made a week ago after reading a newspaper article about an apparently successful Chinese acquisition of Australia‟s energy resources on the cheap. It‟ll be pretty clear to readers that I don‟t agree with everything Taral says.

Taral prepared a polished riposte (also attached, but Taral said he‟s sent his article to Walt Wentz for proofing and polishing so look for him to send the „final‟ for publication). I think it would appropriate if you ran these two ripsnorters sequentially in Askance. {Done deal – see pages 7-16, inclusive}

--Askance issue #19 April 2010 is the best ever. Besides a vintage Taral Wayne rant, you also have Arnie Katz extolling the virtues of Faan Fiction in such terms as would have enraged the late John Foyster who, way back in the 1960s, had decreed that none such would appear in Aussie fanzines, and so it has been and seemingly shall be forevermore. On the other hand, Australian fandom, largely due to Foyster‟s influence, has spawned any number of ephemeral small press outfits whose magazines provide publishing opportunities for home grown writers, a significant number of whom use the space to grow into established authors. An example is Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (see it at this link - http://www.andromedaspaceways.com/). Simon Petrie (whose brilliant inaugural short story collection „Rare Unsigned Copy: Tales of Rocketry, Ineptitude and Giant Mutant Vegetables‟ is reviewed on page 13 of my fanzine Interstellar Ramjet Scoop, April, 2010 on eFanzines) is the magazine‟s in-flight waste reconstitution officer. {So when the shit flies, he‟s the go-to guy, right?}

Con reports from yourself and Lloyd Penney were appreciated, as was the article by Chris Garcia explaining how his beard enabled him to save face when he caught fire constructing a chicken sandwich on a barbecue. It not only happens to Chris. Attached is an article by Melbourne fan John Straede titled „Why Aussies don‟t throw a pig on the barbie‟. {see page 20 this ish.} It was first published in Interstellar Ramjet Scoop, October, 2001. Republish it if you like as a foil to Chris‟s barbecue anecdote in Askance

30 #19, but I‟d be just as well pleased if you politely declined to do so. {Oh, it‟s too good to pass up. Thank you!}

I copied and saved Robert M Sabella‟s wonderful history of the best in science fiction since 1840 in diary form. Apart from containing much useful research material, it will also serve me well as a reading list. I enjoyed your conversations with correspondents in the lettercol and had a cursory ramble through the list of upcoming conventions. My list of upcoming Worldcons and Aussie Regionals in every issue of IRS is much shorter.

Regards from -

BILL WRIGHT

{Bob Sabella will probably feel really good about your last paragraph. You and I are of the same mind when reading his articles. They always give me ideas of books to read Some Day Soon when I have the time. It really does serve well as a recommended reading list of significant Science Fiction and Fantasy books. Many folks would probably disagree with Bob‟s selections, but overall I think he nails it well. (*) Your Aussie convention listing in IRS surprises me; I had no idea there were so many SF cons in Australia. Granted, it‟s nothing like up here in North America, but still – there are a lot of them!}

Hey! Here is a loc from a fan I have heard of, never met, and never received a loc from before, but it is most welcome and gives me hope that more Internet readers of Askance will decide to join the fray and write.

I can dream, can‟t I?

Wed, March 24, 2010

John Teehan [email protected]

70 Lenox Ave. West Warwick, RI 02893

Howdy,

It's nice when you see your own fanzine work out as something of a success, isn't it? Great contibutors. Good buzz on the interwebs. Gotta love a little egoboo, no question. And in the various readings of Askance's current and back issues, I can only say the praise is well-deserved. Well done.

I hear more about cons these days than in any other time I can remember. The main difference, however, is who I'm hearing about them from. Now maybe it's because I've only been on the fringes of proper fandom in recent years, but most of the time it's the "kids" who are doing the convention thang. The web cartoonists and indie comics people. The anime fans and devotees of various Adult Swim TV shows. The last convention of any sort I was able to attend was New York ComicCon last year and while there were a few people representing an older school of fandom (by which I mean pulp fans, golden age comics fans, and the occasional early underground comics fans), the vast majority of the experience was witnessing the gamers (not the classic D&D type, but either the CCG variety or video variety), contemporary comics, and a lot of Japanese or Japanese-inspired Manga. I've nothing against the last. I started collecting Manga back in the late 80s and it helped me learn Japanese, but maybe I'd getting too old for this game

31 now. I just don't like the new stuff as much as the stuff I read decades ago. I still prefer the good old fashioned SF conventions like Worldcon, Readercon, and the like. But I'm enough of a geek to enjoy a lot of different types of conventions when I have the rare opportunity. {That‟s me, too. The variety of folks that inhabit SF cons make people and costume watching one of my favorite con activities.}

Would I like to live to 100? Of course. My life pretty much rocks these days and I'd love to keep it rocking for a long time to come.

Fun piece there by Lloyd Penny. So we get a Sith Lord if it's set to "dark sided toast". What happens if it's set to "light sided toast?" {Yoda.}

You note the 100th anniversary of Edison's Frankenstein film. I had the opportunity to put together a fine book by Frederick Weibel on that very subject. He also has copies available on DVD for sale. Likewise, I've been working with Philip Riley on a bunch of old script reprints, including some by James Whale. Both can be found at bearmanormedia.com.

Kudos to Robert Sabella for producing such a comprehensive and fun historical anniversaries listing.

And great issue!

Cheers!

JOHN TEEHAN

{Thank you so much for the kind words, John. It was a wonderful surprise to receive your e-mailed loc. (*) I also thank you for the mention of Edison‟s movie, and the website link. The book on Frederick Weibel sounds intriguing, and a quick perusal of the website revealed that there are some other fun items for sale.}

Well, you know, gang, a fanzine just ain‟t a fanzine without a loc from Lloyd Penney in it. That being said, here is this issue‟s obligatory Lloyd Penney loc.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Lloyd Penney 1706-24 Eva Rd. Etobicoke , ON CANADA M9C 2B2

Happy third annish! A spiffy Askance 19 is in front of me, just begging to be commented on. Should I? Shouldn't I? What time is it again? Oh, heck, why not, rumours would just start anyway. Here come some comments on the issue at hand.

For the last week of winter, we had summer-like temperatures here in Toronto. Not unheard of, but rare for March. Now that the calendar says it's spring, we are having some very cold temperatures, but only for a day or two. How are you supposed to dress for this kind of weather?

32 Just a few days until the end of the DUFF campaign, and then the ballots are counted. Good luck, John, this is a tough race. Also, I am glad the display at Texas A&M is getting good attendance; one might think it's a very select group who would know who REH, Norton, and Heinlein were. If that group is less select than I think, good.

Who's in the issue...nope, that's me wondering "Who got me a beer? I specifically asked for Diet Coke!" I'm recovering from a long hop. The lot of us should get together and find an "Australian" picture of you.

You have certainly made an impact with this fanzine...it's one of the largest ones out there in terms of pages. The breaking of the Warner Collection story was a good scoop, and as you say, it needs a follow- up article. James Halperin must have done something with the collection by now; I'd hate to think it's still sitting on a pallet in a warehouse. {Actually, the boxes are all on storage shelves. And I REALLY have to contact him and get some kind of a follow-up written. Then again, FenCon VII is in September at the same hotel again, which means it‟s a short 15-minute drive to Heritage Galleries. As the days grow closer to con time, I will contact Jim and see if we can get together again.}

I must admit that I am a proponent of Big Tent fandom. It's not to say I would take part in everything within it, but I still figure that there's everything you might want to do within the Big Tent. Fanzine fandom may be at the Core of our Fandom, but I have friends who are costumers, mediafans, conrunners, club managers, filkers, furries, behind-the-scenes workers, dealers, artists, authors, agents, etc. I would not want to be the one to tell them that their interest is simply Not Good Enough, and I wouldn't have the ego to be the judge of such things.

The one place most people didn't go to see Taral Wayne's work at Anticipation was the fanzine lounge. If the average attendee had wandered through, they would have seen the fact that (I estimate) about one-fifth of all the fanzines I had for sale or for giveaway had Taral covers. Some of his artwork I had pinned to a drape, too. Like anywhere else, you can't make people come and see.

Transvestite Zombie Armadillo Superheroes...coming soon to a comic shop near you. I would have enjoyed the steampunk discussion, although I freely admit that the one part of steampunk I am really enjoying is the costuming part of it. (See what I mean? Big Tent.)

Taral is talking about Canadian federal politics. You don't understand it? I live here, and I barely understand it. But then, seeing Republicans advocating acts of vandalism and terrorism to show they don't like Obama's health bill is incomprehensible as well. (Yes, the Ferenghi are us. At least I have the short stature and bad teeth down pat, and working on my own personal Rules of Acquisition.) {No comment. It is just as good not to get me started on the polarization of American politics. Let us just say that the polls indicate that the public is getting really pissed off at it – at least, the intelligent public is.}

We don't have much in the way of faan fiction any more. I know Arnie writes it for the entertainment of his fellow Vegrants and his readers, and he may be the only real practitioner of this nearly lost art. We're too litigious a society; if there's something in the writing you might not like, you'll automatically assume the worst, and sue for defamation of character, or something. So, you'd better watch out, John, I've talked to

33 Floyd Pfennig, and he's already counting his settlement... There are lessons to be learned in "The Enchanted Duplicator", and I also have a look at Bloch's Eighth Stage of Fandom from time to time.

I had a chuckle when Chris Garcia announced he'd singed off a big chunk of his beard making dinner. I'd have to confirm it with the Lovely Linda Wenzelburger, but I've seen pictures of a younger, beardless Chris, and I think he looks to be about 15 or so. I think he'd better stick to PB & jelly sandwiches from now on. The kitchen is a dangerous place for him.

Let me know if you'd like another Tale from the Convention!. I still have a short stack of them left. They've been fun, and I have plans to write a few more of them to add to the collection. I may yet publish them in a collection, who knows...

The locol… once, there was a time where the odds were that you would get a job straight out of university, and be able to stay in that company for most of or you whole working life, and retire with the company's pension and gold watch. Those days are unfortunately long gone, and employment anywhere is uncertain at best, and unavailable at worst. I was able to get my employment at the Law Society of Upper Canada by not looking my age. It's what's kept me employed for some time now, but it appears that while there is work, no one wants to hire so that you can get those great for you, but expensive to the employer benefits.

My loc…I am always exploring options. If you can‟t participate all the way, why bother?

Looks like Lee Anne is plugging for my firing, John. If I can‟t supply a column for every time, why bother. If you‟d like others to take a stab at reviewing, that‟s fine. That would give me a bit more time for a column. I plan to have a look at steampunk publications next time.

Hey, just made it to the third page! Many thanks for a hook-filled fanzine, imho. I wish you a fabulous weekend, and I may have some interesting news soon. Can‟t say more than that, wish I could, but not yet. See you on Facebook?

LLOYD PENNEY

{Always good to hear from you, Lloyd. And a late happy anniversary to you and Yvonne (at the end of May, according to Facebook, where many fen congratulated you love puppies). (*) Lee Anne Lavell is not “plugging for (your) firing”, but merely giving thee and me and idea that might be an interesting take on things: select a topic or zines, get some advance feedback, and do a fanzine review dialogue. An interesting idea for a print-oriented fanzine, but it sounds more like an online chatroom discussion forum

34 that gets saved and reprinted in a fanzine. Seems to me it would lose some oomph in the translation. Still, an interesting idea.}

A long-ago fannish compatriot has resurfaced with a vengeance on Facebook and online (see his weblog http://personanonsequitor.blogspot.com to see what Robert natters on about) sent a loc that picked up on a couple items from last issue that others either didn‟t catch or ignored or (most likely) didn‟t give a rat‟s ass about:

Sun, April 25, 2010

Robert Whitaker Sirignano, [email protected]>

On keeping the weight down. I had this problem a few years ago, got up to a 210 weight and thought I looked hideous and developed a diabetic symptom of being thirsty all the time...spooked me. It takes a while, and in this age of “Instant”, something that takes a while is discouraging. Now I‟m down to a good moderate 170, and plan to loose a bit more. I‟m about 5‟7”....

On the aggressions of Harlan Ellison™ {Adding in the trademark after his name since he has registered his name; did you know that, Robert?}: HE likes to argue and he likes to set things up so he can argue. I read about his actions at one con where people were lambasted for using “short jokes” all these years, even though he used them with anyone everyone in bits and stand ups with other SF writers. And his fury at people about his writing: punching, kicking, and mailing dead gophers to people...what with no arrests over some of these, let alone lawsuits, I wonder if half of these stories are bullpucky. And his antagonistic views of fans doing things, even though he was responsible at one con for removing doors from their frames and dropping bags of water on people.

Harlan Ellison™ makes me understand the words of Tom Leher: “There are people in the world who do not love their fellow men, and I hate these people.” {I shall address this in two parts: 1) I respect and admire Harlan Ellison™, met him a couple times in the 1970s at conventions, and found him to be a highly intelligent, quick-witted person; and 2) his personality can be caustic. A couple years ago he was GoH at Minicon, and I heard some folks (who shall properly remain nameless) relate that he has definitely mellowed out over the years. Even so, I still wouldn‟t try to get on

35 Harlan‟s wrong side. Damn fine writer and one of SF‟s most unique characters. How‟s that for an understatement description of Harlan Ellison™?}

In my online blog – accessed at this URL http://personanonsequitor.blogspot.com - I mentioned that there are a few people I know, and a few who lived with me, who dropped the clothing when they got off from work. But I pointed out this is not a good idea if you are cooking something like bacon. A pop of hot oil on your chest won‟t feel good. Or elsewhere. Another lit a match and the head of it flew into his eye, melting the contact lens upon arrival. I have a beard, but it has never caught on fire, and I do cook a bit. {Oh, owwie! Cooking in the nude sounds like a dangerous avocation. Do not try this at home – or alone.}

I‟ve seen the original 1910 Frankenstein which is all of ten minutes, so I don‟t know what part of the story from the novel was left in. Maybe I should spend another ten minutes looking at it again. It‟s watchable, but not cleaned up. The man who owns the print wants to keep it that way so he can sell it on line.

That A. Merritt‟s Fantasy Magazine published only five issues should not be a suprise. It wasn‟t the paperback competition, but because he only wrote a handful of stories and seven novels.

I‟ve read “Nightfall” when I was a lad, from the thick anthology Adventures in Time and Space and liked it. Tried a few years back to read it again and found it uninteresting. The movie is even worse.

The rocket ship used in the Flash Gordon serials was first used in that SF “musical” Just Imagine, along with several minutes of the Martian Dance sequences. Out of circulation, missing for years, no one knew about this until a print of it was found. I don‟t think it‟s very good, and it seems to try to imitate the success of Rio Rita a few years previously, right down to trying to have a duo imitate Wheeler and Woolsey.

ROBERT SIRIGNANO

{Your last paragraph interests me, Robert. I have barely heard of “Just Imagine” and not at all of “Rio Rita.” Here is the capsule summary from the IMdb.com website describing “Just Imagine” (1930):

New York, 1980: airplanes have replaced cars, numbers have replaced names, pills have replaced food, government-arranged marriages have replaced love, and test tube babies have replaced ... well, you get the idea. Scientists revive a man struck by lightning in 1930; he is rechristened "Single O". He is befriended by J-21, who can't marry the girl of his dreams because he isn't "distinguished" enough -- until he is chosen for a 4-month expedition to Mars by a renegade scientist. The Mars J-21, his friend, and stowaway Single O visit is full of scantily clad women doing Busby Berkeley-style dance numbers and worshiping a fat middle-aged man. Written by Jon Reeves

{I think I saw this late one night at Minicon film room in something like 1981 or 1982. It sounds like something fans would enjoy watching at 3:00 AM.}

And with Robert’s loc, we come to the end of the lettercolumn. Some other folks I heard from were Linda Bushyager, announcing that her books Master of Hawks and The Spelltone of Shaltus have been reprinted (search her name www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com ); Steve Green, and Shelby

36 Vick, whose online fictionzine Planetary Stories #18 is now online at www.planetarystories.com . One of the stories in that issue is by yours truly. *kaff-kaff* Go, read, and enjoy. The other stories are even better!

The fine art of letterhacking, revisited

At Corflu Quire (Austin, Texas, February 2007) I was on a panel that I had suggested to Ted White, who was Man in Charge of Programming, the title being “The Fine Art of Letterhacking.” What I had first envisioned was a panel discussion of fandom‟s premier letterhacks – such as Mark Plummer, Lloyd Penney, Claire Brialey, Jerry Kaufman, and others – talking about what prompts a loc from a reader. Part of me wanted to talk about how a proper Letter of Comment was constructed. While that did happen in part, Ted turned the panel into a discussion with the audience of how to edit and build a lettercolumn in a fanzine, which was a good idea. Some fan editors like to plunk down the entire letter (which I do) and then comment afterwards, or they do like Chris Garcia and I and insert comments along the way in a different font/format to differentiate their comments from the loc writer‟s. Other fan-eds edit out irrelevant details – salutations and transitional natter, for example – to focus on a particular topic. Still others slam everything they get into their loccols. It all depends on each fan editor‟s vision of what they wish their lettercolumns to be.

Case in point: In The Zine Dump #25, Guy H. Lillian III described the Askance #19 lettercolumn as “breezy.” That sounds like a nice compliment. In fact, some of my favorite fanzines have loccols where the writers shoot the breeze back and forth, even carrying on full-blown dialogues. So Guy‟s comment pretty darned good. Here I am, trying to make this zine‟s loccol sound like a conversation, and I guess I have succeeded. Thinking about this resulted in some notes, which I just might turn into an article for next issue. We shall see. - JP

37

Wealthcare Reform Wikiphilia Article

WELTH-Kayr (n): From Old, Middle, High, Tucked and Darted English, meaning "Feed ME!"

Introduction

Wealthcare is a general rubric for standardized assistance and care of the filthy rich, generally understood to be sponsored or at least abetted by the community. This is in contrast to "you're on your own, sucker!" where the poor, unsubsidized multibillionaire is left to burden the immense weight and cost of their wealth on their own with no other parties to share.

General Principles

"Wealthcare Reform is understood to mean a broad, comprehensive change in a legacy of wealthcare institutions. It is generally understood to be, at least in part, directed by the public sector. The other part doesn't really care because they're not rich enough to afford wealthcare.

Historical Context

In prehistoric times, it was understood that if you had three pithecanthromoneypus on an island with three coconuts, then by the end of one year, one pithecanthromoneypus would have all the coconuts to himself, one pithecanthromoneypus would be renting from him (or leasing with option to buy), and the third one would be dead. This is what is known among anthropologists and economists as "laissez-faire" capitalism. "laissez-faire" is a French expression meaning "leave alone", but since none of the pithecanthromoneypus had taken French in either high school or junior college, the term basically meant "touch my f****n' coconut and I'll kill you!"

In the ancient world (c. 6,500 BC ~ 415 AD) the early, "fertile crescent" civilizations had evolved with city-states, highly structured religious institutions, and even crude currency. The currency typically depicted the face of the current ruler, but, because it was crude, it may, on occasion, have shown the current ruler picking his nose or loudly Pithecanthromoneypus breaking wind.

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Mehesh-Megish III, of the early Amakalites, was one of the early rulers to consider having the state have oversight over a comprehensive wealthcare system. In roughly 4215 BCE, or 1912, he constructed a "stele" or monument, of which part of the proto-cuneic passages survive:

"...and if a man lay with his Oxen as a concubine, let his overlord deduct more from his paycheck and let his wife and handmaiden be given to his overlord. But if he repent and payeth surge duty to his overlord and kisseth the Oxen upon the lips then shall he only be forced to give his overlord his firstborn sons and daughters and all his lands and all his children's and their children's inheritance unto the seventieth generation."

“signed: Mehesh-Megish III, Lord Ruler of the Amakalites and render of wedgies to the Cushites and Hittites Roaster of aging celebrities and Toastmaster to the Mannonites Annonites and Shriners of the Hosts of Zurah unto the thirty-second degree."

This new Wealthcare reform was quite popular and spread from the crescent to the river deltas. There, wealthy landowners would whine to the ruling class, saying "if you don't subsidize us we'll have to move all of the jobs out of the state!" Most rulers were intimidated by this and gave in, giving lots of wealth to the landowners who, in the end, sold out to the Delta civilizations and laid off the workers, while the Delta civilizations moved their hub to Atlantis. Once the fertile crescent civilizations were totally bankrupt and could tax the poor no more, they weren't sure what to do next, so they built a new stadium downtown.

Mehesh-Megish III

39 In the Middle Ages a large percentage of the population of Europe and the Middle East found that they were well into their late thirties and early forties, hence the term "middle ages". This was quite alarming. Even more so because alarm clocks hadn't really been invented yet. As the mercantile age approached and Kings were expected to take care of all of their wealthy people, the taxes became really burdensome. As an example, George III of England taxed the snot out of the colonies. Tax protests mounted. Finally, George, in exasperation said,

H.R.M. King George III

"Jeeze!" (Actually, he only spoke German, so he probably said "Mein Gott!") "What do they want? Tell you what: Let's just lay a tea tax on them. OK? Just a lousy, little, stinkin' tea tax. How mad can the colonists get then? Is that OK? One, dumbass, harmless, little tea tax? What harm could that do?"

For the irascible colonials, and a few native colonials, this was the final straw. They doffed their fashionable, knee-length breeches and silk stockings and three cornered hats and, to emphasize the "American-ness" of their position, dressed up like Glenn Beck and took to the streets. The British Parliament was at a loss as to how to deal with this, not to mention the fact that Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson looked totally stupid in cheap sports jackets and crewcuts. But the die was cast. Soon signs of “rebelian” and “inddipenddinse” showed up all over the “colonese”. People demanded “ilbertye”

40 and “justess”. They weren't going to be "pushet around by big guvermment no more". Parliament and the Monarchy were appalled at the terrible spelling on these protest signs and immediately dispatched a fleet to the colonies. The rest is “Hystery”: After eight hard years of fighting, Washington trapped Cornwallis' army at Yorktown. This was possible because the Hessian mercenaries couldn't find a retreat route through the protesters' lawn chairs. To exacerbate the tactical situation on the battlefield, the German- born Hessians couldn't even ask for reinforcements: "Guten Tag, mein Herr. Möchten Sie einige Verstärkungen haben?" The colonials would only sneer, "This is America! We don't speak no Spanish Wetback, so learn English if you're going to work as our CEO's gardener or nanny!!" For the time being, government-run Wealthcare was on ice.

Modern Era

The advent of the industrial revolution and the opening of the American West made millionaires out of many an entrepeneur. They settled huge tracts of land, laid railroads across the continent, subdued the native population which was made possible by walking with a slight limp and calling everyone "pilgrim", and opened the natural resources of half a planet. Then they staked ownership over half the planet. These rugged individualists had no need of government handouts and, in fact, the cash flow frequently went in the other direction. Sadly, this state of affairs broke down in late 1929 when the stock market crashed and fortunes were lost. The fortunes weren't aboard the stock market when it crashed, but had been misrouted by baggage handlers to Tuapamu, Borneo. Later, the FAA would insist that the crash was probably "instrument or pilot error" and closed the banks for a day.

Wealthcare in the U.S. began to decline as more and more government subsidies went for horrible communistic "programs" and very little money went back to the wealthy. Pretty soon there were wealth- related bankruptcies popping up, and the condition of many a wealthy person was in peril.

The advent of the Second World War, also known as WWII, which came after WWI, in case you're a history major named Trista or Muffy or Shawndra reading this, boosted many local economies as ships and tanks and planes and guns rolled off of the assembly line. Workers frantically stamped these things out, and meanwhile, outside of Mattell, in other factories, people were building things for the war effort.

At this time there was still no need for government-run wealthcare: Wealthy people who owned the ships, tanks, guns and airplane factories were able to sell their goods to the Allies at a hefty markup. They couldn't of course, sell it to the enemy countries like Germany or Japan or Italy or the Amakelites or the Hosts of Nubia because that would be illegal and wrong! No, they would sell it to the Swiss or Sweden or Mexico who would resell it to Germany or Japan or Italy at a hefty markup.

In the postwar era the corporate world began absorbing more and more slices of the pie of Wealthcare. This, however was overcome by the rapidly rising costs of Wealthcare: Yachts, Lear Jets, Mercedes Benz' and beluga caviar were getting more expensive by the day. As a result there came to be more demands for government run wealthcare. This was met with a vigorous protest by people who didn't think that the government should be subsidizing local trillionaires. This finally came to a head in 2009 when the stock market crashed like an aig dropped on concrete. The corporations most involved in the crash demanded immediate wealthcare from the administration because they were "too big" to fail. Congress immediately called their bluff and insisted that there would be no wealthcare coming off of the back of the U.S. Taxpayer. Then they bailed them out to the tune of about a zillion hundred ten google dollars. This was OK though because the wealthcare had a third party administrator, or "TPA", as they're known in the biz. The third party administrator was able to help by underwriting another thirty or sixty percent of the U.S. national debt. The U.S. could breath easy. A TPA had come to the rescue. Capitalism was safe.

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Third Party Administrators

Arguments About Wealthcare

The spectre of government subsidized wealthcare has become a very emotional issue. Several fears have surfaced which the general population has articulated. Among these, but limited to, are: Deaf panels, the pubic option, and black helicopters. Most of these fears have proven unfounded, as no one is sure what a "pubic" option is but it sounds really icky. Deaf panels probably wouldn't help deaf people hear any better and finally, since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, African-American people have just as much right to ride on helicopters as anyone else, and they do not have to sit in the back, either.

Minor arguments about subsidized wealthcare are more mundane. They typically take the form of this:

Woman "So... what do you think about wealthcare?" Man "!!?? Wealthcare? Huh? I dunno. Why're you asking me now?" Woman "You must have some opinion! If you loved me, you'd think about it!" Man "Fer ... look, Peg, I'm trying to watch a game here... I'm tired..." Woman "Oh sure, Al, hide in the stupid football game!" Man "Ahhhh jeeeze! Here we go again...! Just like your mother..." Woman "You leave my mother out of this! She has health problems!" Man "...(about 400 lbs worth...)" Woman "What did you say, Al?" Man "Nothing, my little thumbscrew..."

See Also

. Civil Rights Act (of 1964) . Deaf Panels . Third Party Administrator (TPA) . City-states . Currency . Laissez-Faire . Pithecanthromoneypus . Filthy Rich

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Okay. A bit of a change in this listing. What you will find listed this time are science fiction and fantasy related conventions that fanzine fans would probably be most interested in attending in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana. Theefore, this is not a complete listing because I have deleted many of the Anime, Furry, and Gaming conventions. If people still would like to see these conventions listed, just let me know and next issue (September) I will list those again. Of course, if there are any conventions not on this listing that you would like added, pass along the information and I will be happy to pub your con’s info. Most of this information is gained from perusing the Internet, notably the “What’s Happening Convention Calendar”. The URL for this site is http://www.cam-info.net/concalendar . It is a pretty good listing that focuses on this particular region in the USA. Maybe I will see some of you folks at one of these conventions! These are noted by the double-alien emoticons. SoonerCon 2010: A Bubba Odyssey

Science Fiction, Fantasy, Gaming Con June 4-6, 2010 Biltmore Hotel Oklahoma 401 South Meridian Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73108 Oklahoma City, OK area GOH: Joe Landsdale Artist GOH: John E. Kaufmann Toastmaster: Selina Rosen Guest: John Lucas Bubbas, Mummies, Zombies, Yumbies, Vampires, Elvis. It's gonna be STRANGE around here next year! Yard Dog Press 15th Anniversary Celebration 5th year of the SoonerCon revival Don't miss the Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Not For Kids SinnerCon and much more! This incarnation of SoonerCon is deliberately designed to celebrate all aspects of fandom. We don‟t intend to have a solely “books” or “TV” or “art” emphasis. The emphasis is on FUN. Events include: Film Festival, Art Show, Gaming, Cosplay and Masquerade. Charity. Panel and Workshops. Video Rooms.

43 ApolloCon 2010

Houston's Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Conference June 25-27, 2010 DoubleTree Hotel Houston Intercontinental Airport 15747 John F. Kennedy Blvd. Houston, Texas 77032 Houston, TX area GOH: Catherine Asaro Artist GOH: Keith Thompson Music GOH: Dave Weingart Fan GOH: Pat Virzi Also attending: Paul Abell, Lou Antonelli, David Carren, Rosemary Clement-Moore, Bill Crider, Scott Cupp, Rhonda Eudaly, Larry Friesen, Kimberly Frost, Bennie Grezlik, Teddy Harvia, K. Hutson Price, Julie Kenner, Julia Mandala, A. Lee Martinez, C. J. Mills, Cathey Osborne, Lawrence Person, Patrice Sarath, Lee Thomas, Kathy Thornton & Derly Ramirez, II, Victory, Donald Wolcott Panels, Art Show, Masquerade, Dealers Room, Gaming (including LARP), Filking, Book Exchanges, Short Film Contest, Media Room. Writer's Workshop. Sponsored by the Houston Science Fiction Association, a 501(c)(3) organization.

Several Unlimited Summer Fan Party

Club event (Presumably July 2010) Southwest Houston area Meet with fellow fans! Book Swap! Party Activities! Please RSVP at Web site

Houston U-Con

Comic Books, Gaming, & Collectors one-day con. (Presumably August 2010) Northwest Community Unitarian Universalist Church (NWCUUC) 5920 Hwy 6 North Houston, TX 77084 (Bear Creek area / northwest Harris County) (Greater Houston metropolitan area) The convention will primarily be Comic Books and Gaming but there is sure to be some Anime, Manga, Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Goth vendors and guests.

44 Reconstruction: The 10th Occasional North American Science Fiction Convention

August 5-8, 2010 Raleigh Convention Center 500 Fayettville Street Raleigh, NC 27601 GOH: Eric Flint Artist GOH: Brad Foster Fan GOH: Juanita Coulson Toastmaster: Toni Weisskopf Four days of programming on hundreds of topics from books to media, from art to costuming, from movies to television to anime, from science fiction to science fact, as well as an art show, masquerades, dealer's rooms, and much more!

ArmadilloCon 32

Literary Science Fiction Convention. August 27-29, 2010 Renaissance Austin Hotel 9721 Arboretum Blvd Austin, TX 78759 Austin, Texas area GOH: Rachel Caine Artist Guest: Cat Conrad Editor Guest: Anne Sowards Fan Guest: Elspeth Bloodgood Toastmistress: Nancy Kress Urban Fantasy Special Guest: Ilona Andrews Steampunk Special Guest: Michael Bishop Panels, Art Show, Gaming, Charity, Full Day Writer's Workshop, Dealer's Room, and more! ArmadilloCon is a literary science fiction convention held annually in Austin, with several hundred attendees. The primary focus of ArmadilloCon is literary science fiction, but that's not all we do -- we also pay attention to art, animation, science, media, and gaming. Every year, dozens of professional writers, artists and editors attend the convention. Sometimes they come to make deals, but more often they come to have fun! Sponsored by the Fandom Association of Central Texas, a 501(c)(3)nonprofit organization

45 Bubonicon 42

Science Fiction & Fantasy Convention August 27-29, 2010 Albuq Grand (Sheraton) Airport Hotel Albuquerque, New Mexico area GOH: Peter David Toastmaster: Mario Acevedo Artist GOH: Sarah Clemens The Theme for the Con will be Hitchhiker‟s Guide to the Galaxy as this is Bubonicon 42 - the answer to “Life, the Universe, and Everything.” 2010 also is the “Year We Make Contact,” according to the writings of Arthur C. Clarke. On Saturday, we‟re encouraging people to wear their best bathrobes (over clothes or full pajamas)! Make sure you know where your towel is - and watch out for the return of any Monoliths. Panels, Art Show, Dealers Room, Gaming, Auctions, Film Screenings, Readings, Autographs, Filking, Science Talk, Costume Contest, Green Slimes, Audience Participation Events, and more! Each year, proceeds from Bubonicon go to worthy causes. In 2006, proceeds from Bubonicon 38 benefited the Roadrunner Food Bank, the Children‟s Hospital of New Mexico and the Williamson Science Fiction Library at Eastern New Mexico University.

AussieCon4, the 68th WorldCon

September 2-6, 2010 Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre Melbourne, Australia Guest of Honor: Kim Stanley Robinson Guest of Honor: Robin Johnson Guest of Honor: Shaun Tan Five days of programming on hundreds of topics from books to media, from art to costuming, from movies to television to anime, from science fiction to science fact, as well as an art show, masquerades, the Hugo Awards ceremony, dealer's rooms, and much more! {Okay, so this is not exactly in the American Southwest, but directionally, Australia is very southwest of here! – ed.}

FenCon VII:

A Fan-Operated Science Fiction and Fantasy Literary and Filk Convention in the Dallas/Fort Worth Area September 17-19, 2010 Crowne Plaza Hotel North Dallas/Addison 14315 Midway Road (Near the Dallas Galleria) Addison, TX 75001 (Dallas / Fort Worth Metroplex area) Guest of Honor: Spider & Jeanne Robinson (see note at the end of this section)

46 Music Guest of Honor: Ookla the Mok Fen Guest of Honor: Kevin Roche & Andrew Trembley Artist Guest of Honor: John Picacio Toastmaster: Joe R. Lansdale Special Guest: Ginjer Buchanan plus many more guests... Fan-run convention featuring dedicated Filk Track and Costuming Tracks, Demos, Gaming, an Art Show & Auction, Panel Discussions, Science Programming, our annual Short Story Contest, Open Filking, the legendary FenCon Cabaret, a Writer's Workshop, over 100 Program Participants, and Much More! FenCon is a production of the Dallas Future Society, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of science, literature, and music for the future of all mankind.

Re/Max Ballunar Liftoff Festival

October 29-31, 2010 NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, Texas Visit this exciting and educational family-oriented event at NASA/Johnson Space Center and enjoy hot air balloon competitions, evening balloon glows, skydiving exhibitions, commercial exhibits, concession booths, food from local restaurants, arts & crafts exhibits, entertainment and various aviation equipment displays. Ballunar Liftoff Festival, Inc., is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Its mission is to help the public learn about aviation and space exploration, and to sponsor and fund educational activities that encourage young people to learn about aviation and space and to study mathematics and the sciences.

Sad to say, on May 30, 2010, Jeanne Robinson passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was due to be co-Guest of Honor at the upcoming FenCon in Dallas, Texas on September 17-19 this year, and I was looking forward to seeing her again. Many years ago, at conventions in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Kansas City, I met Jeanne and Spider, and thoroughly enjoyed their company.

I remember one night at IguanaCon – the Phoenix World Convention in 1978 – sitting in a room party with Spider, Jeanne, Gordy Dickson, Dennis Jarog, and a pile of other fans, and Spider borrowed my guitar and played, among other songs, literally the entire second side of Abbey Road without a break. It was great. Everybody was singing along, and I was eye-tracking the chording Spider was playing, hoping that his fingers would leave marks on the fretboard so I could replay the songs. Let it be known, if some of you haven‟t known this before, that Spider is a wonderful musician and singer: a rounded entertainer. And Jeanne was all smiles that night.

47 Over the course of the next decade I saw Spider and Jeanne at a number of conventions. The best part of it all was having the chance to talk with both of them – sure wish I could recall some of those conversations now – and got to know them much better. Jeanne Robinson was always the nicest lady, full of energy and all sorts of fascinating information. She was one awesome woman. My heart breaks for Spider right now at the pain he‟s going through.

I certainly hope that the FenCon VII program book will include a tribute section to Jeanne. That would be a nice touch. She might think it‟s too much to-do over herself, but it would be a fine way to say thank you for her friendship and presence over the years. All I can say right now is that Jeanne Robinson will be missed by many of us not only at FenCon VII, but throughout all of SF fandom. God speed, lovely lady.

The Time-Binder’s Wife

It was another quiet night at home. At one end of the couch Valerie was fine-tuning a steampunk-style wrist band, craft table in front of her, and I was eye-tracking the two latest issues of Fred Lerner‟s Lofgoernost that had arrived in that day‟s mail. The television was on “the First 48 Hours”, one of the many crime shows that Val and I enjoy watching.

I glanced at the wristband she was working on. “That‟s looking pretty cool,” I commented. “Lots of tiny „Alice in Wonderland‟ trinkets on it.”

“Yes, that‟s the idea,” she replied, her fingers deftly attaching to the band an itty-bitty spotted ceramic mushroom with black thread. “Hopefully I‟ll have some of these ready for Apollocon, but by Armadillocon I should have a full table of these and other handmade jewelry in the art show.”

“Yeah, I am really looking forward to getting to these cons this summer. You‟ll like them. The people watching is most of the fun, besides meeting old and new friends. That‟s why I‟ve always enjoyed cons so much: the friends.”

“Hmm-mm.” Valerie nodded distractedly, which wasn‟t a surprise: the task she was concentrating on looked like she was performing open-heart surgery on a gnat.”Damn! My fingers are cramping,” she said, shaking out the kinks in her right hand. Glancing over at me, she asked, “Is Fred going to be at any of these cons?”

“No. He lives in Vermont. In fact, I don‟t think I‟ve ever met Fred; mostly he‟s been a correspondent or apa-hack. We were both in Minneapa back in the 70s, that I know.”

“It really amazes me,” Valerie said, “at how many people you only know in print.”

“Yeah. That‟s another big plus for cons: they give you the chance to meet people you‟ve only been writing back and forth with in fanzines or apas. Remember when we were at Minicon in 1992? That‟s where you met Rusty Hevelin and some other fanzine fans I knew.”

48

“”Sure do. I also remember those Demicons we went to in 1990 and 1991. Weren‟t those the first ones? And what was the name of that one guy you knew who looked like a young

Gandalf-in-training? He always carried around that gigantic walking stick.”

“Yes, I think they were, and that was Dean Gahlon. Man, I haven‟t seen him in many a year.”

“Sure takes you back, doesn‟t it?”

I absently glanced at the February, 2010 issue of Lofgoernost in my hands, flipping through the pages, noted the names: Lee Gold, Lloyd Penney, Dave Langford, Joe Major… With a sigh, I said, “It sure does. Sometimes I just like to look at old fanzines and remember…”

SHOOMPF!

We jumped out of our seats at the sudden noise. “What the hell was that?” I asked.

“Beats me,” Val said, “but it sounded like it came from the kitchen.” We both went to investigate, saw the refrigerator door wide open with clouds of frost-vapor rolling out, coating the floor. To our surprise, two animated figures jumped out: first, a poorly-drawn beagle wearing dark horn-rimmed glasses and a black bowtie, followed by a large-headed, bespectacled boy wearing gray knickers, sneakers, and a black-and-white horizontally striped shirt.

“Golly, Mister Peabody,” the boy was saying, “that sure was a rough landing!”

“That‟s what happens, my boy,” explained the smug beagle, “when the time-stream hasn‟t been adjusted correctly. Observe the dial at the back of this particular Way-Back Machine™: notice it is set just barely after the 3 instead of on the exact setting of 3.14159; a small discrepancy like that can make all the difference when one is entering or exiting the time- stream, which results in such a turbulent….”

By now, our Labrador, Duckie, had figured out what was happening and charged into the kitchen, barking furiously, fangs dripping froth.

“EEK!” Cried the boy. “It‟s a dinosaur, Mr. Peabody! One of those caninus devouruses!”

“Quickly, Sherman! Get back in the refrigerator!”

SLAM!

Valerie and I stared at the closed refrigerator door. A half-dozen magnets had fallen to the floor and tiny paper notes fluttered in the air. Meanwhile, Duckie growled and barked at the base of the now-quiet appliance.

“Good boy, Duckie. That‟s a good doggie,” I consoled our pet, scratching behind his ears to quiet him down. “Thank you for defending our home from the cartoon dimension, there‟s a good boy…” Duckie made a sound like Humphrey the Bear scratching his back on a tree, looked very pleased with himself while Valerie muttered, “What in the world happened?”

Valerie finally said, “Really? So GE makes Way-Back Machines™?”

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All I could do was shrug and say, “Beats me. You have to admit, that was danged strange.”

“Since when has this been going on? We‟ve had this refrigerator ever since we moved in, and nothing like this has ever happened before.”

Nodding in agreement, I said, “I know. But when you stop and think about it, that would explain a whole bunch of things around here. You know, like how some of your stuff always disappears for no apparent reason, then suddenly you find it someplace where it shouldn‟t be because you would have had no reason to put it there?”

Valerie‟s eyes grew in sudden comprehension. “Of course! That would explain everything! Like that old-fashioned alarm clock Aunt Polly bought at a garage sale shortly after we got married. Couldn‟t find that clock after we moved down here, then last month there it was in a box of denim fabric out in the garage. Now it all makes sense!”

“Exactly,” I replied. “That‟s the sort of stuff I‟m talking about. And why the dogs bark at the oddest times of the day and night, and nothing is going on that we can see.”

“But why our refrigerator? That‟s just plain stupid.”

“True. But Doctor Who‟s time machine is an old phone booth, so why not?”

Val thought for a moment. “You know, while knowing this makes me feel a bit better, I still think it‟s scary.”

I put an arm around my wife‟s shoulder. “I agree. But so long as nothing supremely

dangerous comes out of the refrigerator, we‟re fine.”

SCHAWUMPH!

Once again, the refrigerator door sprung open, and out with the frost clouds jumped a

madman dressed in black boots, slacks, and a powder-blue knit body shirt with a gold insignia over the left breast, screeching, “ASSASSINS! MURDERERS!!”

He wheeled maniacally, searching for an escape, then his wild eyes locked on mine. Pointing a bony finger at me, he screeched, “YOU! What is this place?”

Oh, Christ, I thought and sighed. Shrugging, all I could say in response was this:

“My life.”

- JOHN PURCELL

This fanzine supports the Texas in 2013 WorldCon Bid, hosted by Alamo, Inc., to be held in San Antonio.

Personally, I think these people are nuts.

50 Perhaps the nicest thing about having (call it) three months between issues is that now there is more time available to rap knuckles for contributions and even write some of it myself. In just over two weeks Apollocon will be happening down in Houston, Texas, which Valerie and I plan on attending. It should be a good time, and I shall endeavour to take copious notes and photos for a proper con report.

Other upcoming events in these environs are the Navasota Blues Festival on August 13-14, a mere twenty minute drive from home. Some of the scheduled performers are Don Kesee and the Blues Masters, Steve Howell and his Boys, Texas Johnny Boy, Milton Hopkins, and many others. On that Saturday from 11:00 AM until noon there is a free guitar session with Michael Birnbaum, which sounds like a combination lesson/jam session. I am so bringing my acoustic guitar to this festival! Needless to say this event will probably be written up in the next issue, unless I decide to send it off to another zine, such as Beam, where it would fit in nicely.

Two weeks after the blues festival is Armadillocon just over in Austin. That con appears to have a Steampunk theme, and Valerie is getting some of her steampunk jewelry and artwork ready for the art show and auction. The guest line-up is a good one, too. Check out their website, even though the basic information about the con is in this issue‟s Regional Convention Listing.

Then over the weekend of September 17-19 is FenCon VII up in Dallas. Again, a good time should be had by all. One of the guests is Joseph R. Lansdale, who was featured in Askance #9 ( July, 2008); in fact, Joe seems to be hitting the convention rounds big time this summer since the movie version of Jonah Hex is due out next weekend. I can‟t wait to see it, and I am kind of hoping to get a review of it James Bacon. Unless, of course, somebody else beats him to it. That would be great to have a review of the movie in the next issue since I will be at FenCon and it would be awesome hand the issue to Mr. Lansdale.

It therefore appears that this new quarterly schedule will work very well for getting to cons and writing about them. Also, with Valerie kicking into production on her artwork and handcrafts, she will be coming along to set up her wares in convention art shows. Neither one of us has any real inclination to sit in the huckster room all day long – you miss so much of the convention that way, even though it‟s a great place to meet and chat up folks – so Val‟s plan is to buy one table for her craft work and one display panel for paintings/sketches she has done or is working on. Readers of this zippy not-so-little fanzine have seen some of her work in the past; come out to one of these cons and see what else Valerie‟s fevered brow and talented fingers have created.

So until next issue, enjoy the summer con season, y‟all.

John Purcell

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