The White Notebooks #1 ]

trolls to the left of me, assholes to the right, here i am, stuck in the middle with you [ the white notebooks #1 ] This Ain’t No Party, This Ain’t No Disco SO AM I KEEPING NOTEBOOKS AGAIN? You will need to There is another fundamental difference read my short essay ‘Castles in Spain’ in my forthcoming between then and now: before, it was a private thing zine Big Sky #5 to get the background on this, but to when I opened those pages and wrote; this time I’m summarise here: in my late teens and early twenties I using it as a communication tool. So what has inspired religiously kept blue notebooks. All of them were given me, you’re probably not asking, to do this as a fanzine? different (usually long, and weird) titles, inspired by the Inspiration in no specific order of merit includes: Andy off-the-wall imagination of American writers such as Hooper’s excellent Flag, Taral Wayne’s Broken Toys, Robert Anton Wilson and John Sladek. But to cut to the Joseph Nicholas’s one-off The Night Is So Black That the chase, the next issue of this periodic fanzine will, in Darkness Cooks, the Fishlifters’ Banana Wings and BW, similar fashion, have a different title to this one. That’s Fred Lerner’s consistently enlightening Lofgeornost, John how it works. Hertz’s Vanamonde, Pat Charnock’s Raucous Caucus, I ended up accumulating a drawer full of those Graham Charnock’s Vibrator. And others. Plus, constantly old blue notebooks, although I now have none and I at the back of my mind, Ted White’s comment to me that don’t know where they are. Actually, that’s not strictly I ought to write about life in Thailand. speaking a lie; I know exactly what happened to them – All the above fanzines are what have inspired think of a line from a Talking Heads song – so they are me as to what I could be doing other than what I already both anywhere and everywhere. They were full of crap, do with Big Sky. As for the reasons, there are several. The anyway. As much as I miss those notebooks, I don’t miss way genuine paper fanzines have been crowded out of their navel-gazing contents. their own category in the Hugo Awards tells me they may If you recognise the blue pattern above and on deserve a place on fandom’s version of the ‘endangered what kind of notebook it appeared, you may even know species’ list. Journey Planet, which I have occasionally co- what they looked like. The titles were written in blue biro edited, has once again appeared as a finalist for the on the blue cloth that wrapped around the spine. None of second year running, and is once again the only real this fancy, self-important Moleskine shite for me, oh no. fanzine on a shortlist otherwise full of blogs. So I’m considering these issues to be notebooks At Corflu 32 in Newcastle this year, concern was again, only this time on plain white A4 paper. They raised about the number of people voting in the FAAN function that way in my head although they might not Awards, which is far more specifically related to fanzine particularly look like, y’know, ‘notebooks’. It’s a reboot for activity than the Hugos. Are fanzine fans with an interest the twenty-first century of an old habit, and I hope in the heritage of fanzines really a dwindling group, whatever appears here will be better written and more holding onto paper fanzines as artefacts from history? enduring. I’ve said many times and in many places how necessary trolls to the left of me... [ the white notebooks #l ] June 2558 / 20l5 a print perzine for limited circulation, available for ‘the usual’, also at efanzines.com. edited by Peter Young email: [email protected] l36/200 Emerald Hill Village, Soi 6, Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan 77ll0, Thailand set in 9/l2 Didot and Letter Gothic [ 1 ] fanzines are to us as opposed to PDFs, yet I haven’t which is what fanzine fandom probably needs right now. actually been financially able to produce and distribute a As for the layout of this zine, in some ways it’s paper fanzine since Zoo Nation #7 in April 2006. an opposite reaction to the design philosophy I’ve Hopefully I’m now in a position to remedy this. Going up adopted for Big Sky; a push in a simpler direction that to someone at a convention or pub meeting and allows for less genre-oriented pieces when I want to physically handing them a fanzine has, believe it or not, include them. It is also deliberately under-designed, and actually been important for me. But speaking as yet shorter, as well as being less illustrated which means the another fanzine producer who these days produces PDF words have to work harder. It also has the added benefit zines specifically to avoid the cost of print and postage, I of giving myself space to write, with hopefully a shorter (probably like many other fan-eds) feel a little like Aron span between writing an article and its publication, Ralston, the climber trapped halfway down a canyon in which a bigger project like Big Sky doesn’t really allow Utah, who had to cut off his own arm in order to survive. for. I like the layouts and design philosophies of both Also, it now it seems the Nova Awards are no these fanzines for each of their virtues. more, announced at a time that many thought it was an I’m also enclosing with this fanzine another, April Fools joke. I know I have not been eligible for the briefer one: The Thai Literary Supplement #1. It’s my latest Novas since moving to Thailand and haven’t been able to attempt at finding a home for my reviews of books on attend a Novacon since 2006, but I lament this decision Thailand other than at Goodreads, Live Journal or and I’d like to see it reversed, even though I once won Fictionstream, where they mostly languish unread. I’ll two Novas and at the 2013 and 2014 awards I was (rightly) include a few fiction reviews every issue – not wishing to excluded from eligibility. bore people senseless about Thai literature and Thailand I have no answers for what to do about any of in general, but I do find it a subject well worth covering. this other than To Pub An Ish. Show that perhaps paper This is not produced for an APA, but I’ll aim for fanzines are not as endangered as we might fear, and that a quarterly schedule anyway. And Letters of Comment there’s still enthusiasm for them. If more fans did the are of course always very welcome! same we might even see a renaissance in paper fanzines, k The Search for Genre in Thailand The Almost-Secret Science Fiction of Tony Bitch ONE OF THOSE QUESTIONS I guarantee no one but me spoken and well-groomed, dressed in a smart beige suit, ever asked is, “Whatever happened to Tony Bitch?” sporting a fashionably chunky tie knot, and also notably …I rest my case. acerbic with his words. Well, I’ll tell you anyway. Nothing came of Tony Bitch beyond his initial TV viewers in the 1970s in the British Isles and fifteen seconds of fame, and Jake Anthony himself the Commonwealth may remember a comedy show seemed to disappear out of the media spotlight for the called The Goodies. It featured comedians Tim Brooke- next few decades. Indeed, except for a couple of minor Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden, a bunch of guys film roles visible at IMDb [2], he appears to never really who got into many surreal scrapes while dragging the have sought the spotlight ever since, instead con- studio audience behind them in fits of lafftrack mirth. centrating on journalism and penning a line of holistic Every episode had a cast of supporting actors paid health books you can now find as Kindle e-books, with ridiculous sums of money to trade their dignity for titles such as Big Pharma’s Experimentation on Our laughs at their own expense and play along with the Children, The Guerrilla Guide to Aids and The Politically hilarity. Incorrect Guide to Sex. One such actor was Jake Anthony, who in The However, the way I came to discover Tony Bitch’s Goodies’ 1976 sixth series episode ‘Hype Pressure’ [1] had connection to genre fiction in Thailand is one of those one of the more memorable roles even though his screen serendipitous things that only came about as a result of time could be counted in mere seconds: Tony Bitch, a being an ISFDB editor. talent show judge based on the composer Tony Hatch In 2011 at a small bookshop in my home city who regularly tore into below-par contestants on the UK Hua Hin I came across a science fiction paperback called talent show New Faces. From Other Worlds, by one Ian Quartermaine, a writer I Ditto for Tony Bitch (see photo above), well- had never previously heard of. The cover blurb describes [ 2 ] a story of alien invasion in Bangkok, in conveniently joins all the dots connecting which children are abducted and sexually Tony Bitch, Jake Anthony, Ian Quarter- experimented upon. There is also a warning maine… and, surprisingly, Pixar. about the graphic nature of some of the His most high-profile activity of scenes.

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