fraught, with occasional peril
[ the[ thewhite white notebooksnotebooks #2 ] #2 ]
The Lost Café
DESCRIBE YOUR PERFECT CAFÉ. Is there such a thing? I’ve Kong currently has The Pacific Coffee Co., a good venue encountered so few that come close, yet I inhabit them as with a variety of coffees, books to borrow, free computers, much as my home, hotels or aeroplanes. plenty of seating and always open late. It would have a large front window like that in the Possibly the closest to my ideal café is in San short animated film Lost and Found (pictured, next page), Pedro, Los Angeles, called Sacred Grounds [1]. I hardly with giant capital letters COFFEE in pale paint. ever go there now because it’s a long journey from my Mine is not a slick, conveyor belt place like a usual stay in Long Beach. Spacious, community-run, a boring Starbucks chain. It has big, old Persian and focal point for San Pedro residents, old sofas, a stage, Indian carpets hanging on the walls and lighting that chess and backgammon boards, art, and a place that provides highlights in an otherwise dark and almost takes coffee seriously. Nightly events, bands, poetry and secretive place, with hidden corners, nooks and crannies. book readings for the 21st century Ginsbergs and This café must know how to do decent Turkish, Arabic Bukowskis (Bukowski used to be a down-and-out in San and Vietnamese coffees. There are shelves of books (all Pedro). short story collections or anthologies, categorised by Which cafés disappoint you? Bookstore cafés have country), magazines and comics – stuff that people would largely missed an opportunity to be a focus for local be interested in sitting down and reading for half an literary activity. Apart from author signings, it’s like the hour. There’s free soya milk for the lactose-intolerant and bookstores are actively not interested, they’re only there anyone else who dislikes cow juice. I prefer knowledge- to provide a place for people to park their backsides able staff concerning coffees and teas. while showrooming books they’ll later get cheaper on Which cafés have come close to your ideal? I Amazon. Borders on Oxford Street in London used to remember one dark but colourful café in downtown have author interviews with Pat Cadigan; although this Auckland, New Zealand, had the kind of busy, fun, wasn’t actually in the bookstore café it used to be a good interactive and deeply cultural vibe of immigrant focus that brought people in, and it’s that’s kind of thing customers who had all come to know each other via that that more bookstore cafés ought to do. But not everyone place. Damned if I can remember its name. Another in gets it wrong. Borderlands in San Francisco now has a Toronto, Canada, called The Plantation on King George cool café next door, linked through an entrance via the Street: a large square space with a high ceiling, an store. Trident in Boston’s Newbury Street also takes emphasis on service and decor revealed their ambition to coffee seriously, and is always busy for breakfast. be high-end with prices to match. Causeway Bay in Hong Hard Rock Cafés are generally a disappointment,
fraught, with occasional peril [ the white notebooks #2 ] September 2558 / 2015 a print perzine for limited distribution, available for ‘the usual’ also available a month later at efanzines.com. email: [email protected] 136/200 Emerald Hill Village, Soi 6, Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan 77110, Thailand set in 9/12 Didot and Letter Gothic above: ‘Flat Black’, 2015
[ 1 ] inhabited by Lonely Planet and Rough Guide back- packers. Places to recharge a little before inevitably moving on to somewhere else. On relocating to Thailand, I imagined a small chain of franchised cafés, again on remote beaches and tourist haunts, called The Barefoot Café. I still think that’s actually doable. But so far these ideas have all just stayed in my head, never venturing any further until writing about them now. Any idea why coffee resonates with you? Not really, but I could refer you to Mary Doria Russell’s description how a gift of coffee beans broke the ice between two alien races in The Sparrow. Here, Hlavin Kitheri, an alien poet, is smelling coffee for the first time: Opening the flask, breaking its vacuum, Kitheri was met by a plume of sweetly camphoric enzyme full of expensive memorabilia, boring booths with by-products giving off notes of basil and tarragon, ketchup and mustard, serving chain restaurant food and by chocolate aromatics, sugar carbonyl and with a predictable souvenir store. They’re not interested pyridine compounds carrying the suggestion of at all in coffee, despite their ambition and despite the vanilla, by hints of nutmeg and celery seed and ‘Café’ in their name. These days I just avoid them. cumin in the products of dry distillation created The focus of community socialising in the British during roasting. And, overlaying all, the tenuous Isles has usually been the remit of pubs. Despite there odor of volatile short-chain carbons, the saline now being a Starbucks, Costa, Prêt à Manger or Caffè memorial of an alien ocean: sweat from the fingers Nero on just about every town-centre street corner in the of Emilio Sandoz. UK, again they’re just there to sell you half-decent coffee A poet with no words to describe organic and panini. The best community experience you will get beauties whose origin he could not possibly is a pinboard for local events and businesses, if that. suspect, Hlavin Kitheri knew only that he must Have you ever seriously thought about running your know more. And, because of this, lives were own café? Never. When I was generally ascetic (in fact changed again. almost hermetic) in the early 1990s I once envisaged a few cafés in remote places called The Temperance Café. From these words, I think Russell has the same Places generally as sparse as their surroundings, kind of appreciation of the meaning of coffee as myself.
[1] https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sacred-Grounds/134568123254772
Rick Deckard Rides the Unicorn
At age 5½ Miles had, by then, outgrown Duplo and has Miles: “No.” since preferred the intricacy of Lego minifigures and “A truck driver?” especially Mixels, which offer far more scope for his “No.” imagination. But that doesn’t stop him from occasionally “What about a policeman?” hauling out the boxes of Duplo to make giant robots and “A policeman?! Policemen don’t have unicorns!” dinosaurs with his dad. “True,” then to myself, “Well, unless you’re Rick Deckard.” In April, it was a little different: he wanted to make “Who’s Rick Deckard?” a unicorn. So we made one (above), then he wanted a “Er… a policeman who dreamed of unicorns.” Duplo figure to sit on its back and ride it. “Okay, it’s Rick Deckard. Put him there.” Me (holding up a figure): “How about a farmer?”
[ 2 ] Tr a v e l s
Acres of Books, Long Beach, Los Angeles
IN 2014 THERE WAS much hand-wringing about the among over a million books covering every subject under destruction of the late Ray Bradbury’s house in Los the sun. The second thing that hit you was the smell: that Angeles. Apparently even the new owner had mixed familiar mustiness of used bookstores was rather more feelings about having the bulldozers clear space for his emphatic here. 6½ miles of wooden shelving and 1,500 new development. It was a telling moment in the apple crates saw to that. posthumous ‘life’ of Ray Bradbury, an author who many Filing was sometimes idiosyncratic and also looked towards for evidence that America’s more inconsistent, but with so many books to house there were innocent past could be protected from the pragmatisms some inevitable lapses of categorisation. The place also and injustices of the present and future. had a genteel humour: there used to be a handwritten sign Bradbury’s favourite bookstore was always Acres on the front desk that read something like “Please ring of Books [1] in nearby Long Beach. He immortalised the bell for service by surly assistant who doesn’t want to be store in an essay ‘I Sing the Bookstore Eclectic’ in 1982, disturbed by person ringing bell.” I’d actually describe the which, as far as I know, hasn’t yet appeared in print service as anything but surly. anywhere other than in its original form, although it was Inevitably I always gravitated towards the science on the bookstore’s website for many years (although that’s fiction section in the dark, far depths of the building now gone, too). Bradbury was a regular visitor to Acres (above). It was big and long and always fully stocked and campaigned for the store’s protection, first in the mostly with American paperbacks, but this was also the 1980s when it was under threat of demolition, and again place to pick up plenty of decently priced American when it was announced by the owners that they were hardcovers and assorted rarities as well. calling it a day in 2008. If his own house couldn’t survive The narrow aisles throughout the store never long after his death in 2012, at least he could (if he were really allowed for two people passing each other, and the around) claim better success with his favourite bookstore, further back you went into the long brick warehouse, the which after its closure was to be redeveloped into an arts more precarious the shelving seemed to become. I’m sure venue. So far as of 2015, this has never happened. Acres of many thousands of books had languished untouched way Books is now a recognised Long Beach landmark, back there for many years. protected from redevelopment for the time being. I was lucky enough to visit Acres during its I first came upon Acres of Books by chance closing sale, weeks before the doors finally shut on 18 sometime around 2000. At the time, Long Beach probably October 2008. The science fiction section was pretty much had a dozen used bookstores scattered along Pine Avenue all cleared out of anything interesting by then, and the and it was mostly because of them that I looked forward to long shelves were mostly empty, however I did find John every visit. Finding Acres of Books that first time was Clute’s rare The Disinheriting Party [2] on that last visit. happenstance: I was looking for a decent café where I One of my own favourite photographs was taken could sit and read some cheap DAW and Ace paperbacks at Acres of Books in August 2006: Penny, the bookstore cat, I’d just bought. Acres was a couple of blocks away from sleeping on a copy of Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Pine on Long Beach Boulevard so I was just exploring the Caterpillar [3]. Penny, formerly a stray who lived at the streets, but I quickly realised this newly discovered store store for almost a decade, went on to reside with the was something special. I probably bought at least a dozen store’s owner Jackie Smith after Acres closed [4]. pulp SF titles, and also dropped by again quickly the next Secondhand bookstores comparable to Acres of day for a handful more. That trip ended with a suitcase Books are, sadly, getting fewer and farther between – crammed full of dusty old paperbacks winging their way almost comparable for variety was Avenue Victor Hugo in across the Atlantic to a new home. Boston which closed in 2004, and which was also another Walking though the door of Acres for the first favourite haunt. All of which begs the question: are time was, as just about everyone has ever attested, a secondhand bookstores thriving or just surviving? With memorable experience. The first thing that made an the advent of digital copies, one would hope that there is impression upon you was the realisation that you were still a use for the hard copies, other than as landfill.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acres_of_Books [2] Reviewed in Big Sky #5. [3] https://www.flickr.com/photos/ascendent/315586506 [4] http://lbpost.com/life/1411-next-chapter-for-penny-the-future-of-the-acres-cat
[ 3 ] The Search for Genre in Thailand
Genuine Thai Fakes: Prof. Dr. Verawat Kanoknukroh
IN AUGUST 2011, the late ISFDB moderator Bill Longley University in Melbourne also named him as a Doctor of gamely fielded an attempted edit into the database from Honoris Causa in Environmental Science. He also found what we call a common or garden variety of personality in time in 2012 to be awarded Doctor of Honoris Causa from Thailand: the Genuine Thai Fake. I’m not talking of the National University of Singapore. He has also been ‘Benjanun Sriduangkaew’ – that’s a whole other can of “Professor of Biodiversity and Creative Writing” (!) at ugly worms that spread far and wide that I will examine in Bangkok University for seventeen (!) years. the near future – no, I’m talking here of Prof. Dr. Verawat As for literary awards, his Goodreads profile [3] Kanoknukroh, the self-styled Thai “Prince of Scifi”. tells us he has won the Lulu Award, the Amazon Award, Mr. Kanoknukroh currently has several online the Nautilus Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award and the profiles at Facebook, also he’s at Tumblr, LinkedIn, Flickr, Costa Book Award. He claims to be “one of the top five About.me, Portfolios.net and many others, and the last scifi and fantasy writers in Thailand”, and as of 2011 had dated post on any of these was around February 2014. He published 105 books and over 1,000 short stories, once had a Live Journal and of course an ISFDB account, sometimes under the pseudonyms ‘Tommy Veka’ or ‘Peter which is how I first came across him, but the Live Journal Lamberto’. has since been deleted and his brief ISFDB presence Where are all these books? Single copies of two resulted in no accepted edits – he basically provided no titles are available as “used” at Amazon. Fourteen useable information about any publications of his, and paperback titles are listed at Amazon UK, all “currently probably thought ISFDB was a forum where he could unavailable”, all as published by Verawat Kanoknukroh publicise himself. In 2011, Bill, a patient man (rest in with no ISBNs or any other visible details. It is fair to peace, sir), asked on Live Journal for some help: he was assume that none of these exist… trying to establish what was known about Prof. Dr. …in English. So, I naturally then wondered, what Kanoknukroh, in order to help this guy who had a poor about his presence in Thai literature? command of English to understand how the ISFDB His ‘official website’ [4] (one of a large number on works, what it’s for and how to enter information into it. just about every social media platform available) shows Living where I do, I tentatively offered to help if I could, at many Thai book covers, none of which bear his name in least with translation, although given what can be found Thai (วฒน กนกนเคราะห). That’s because in most cases the on the internet about him I suspected Bill was dealing covers have been cropped to exclude the names of the real with a Grade A bullshitter, and said as much. Nothing authors (there’s even a cropped cover of Arthur C. Clarke’s came of it, of course; out of the blue LJ user ‘verawat’ 2001: A Space Odyssey). However, although books may exist descended on Bill’s LJ post [1], offered up the comment (probably directed at me) “Dunt br jealousy and use under ground talaative very low method and bullshit”, and promptly disappeared. Despite his evidently poor command of English (note that his LinkedIn profile [2] states he has ‘full professional proficiency’ in the language), Verawat Kanoknukroh is clearly a man of many, many other talents. As he says everywhere, he is “a famous Thai writer, author and researcher”. Most of his educational and professional ‘background’ is visible on LinkedIn: he claims he has a BSc in Biology from Chiang Mai University, an MSc in Industrial Microbiology from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, he is (and I especially like this one) Professor Emeritus in Metaphysics at the University of Andorra. He has also received more than twenty-five awards, including in 2011 a Professor Fellowship in Creative Writing from Calamus University (which is either in the Republic of Vanuatu or the UK, depending on which profile you’re reading). That year, the same university also awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, and Victoria
[ 4 ] online with his name on the front, this is no guarantee he academic books. actually did any writing or research. He has seven pages at I don’t wish to be harsh – I prefer to encourage. the self-publishing site lulu.com [5], where his ‘About’ He’s not hurting anybody. Regarding his background, he profile states in English “He stress to write and create in appears to be on a kind of fantasy ego trip that no one is Scifi and Fantasy novel which he practice and do it taking seriously, or just having a laugh at everyone’s everydays”, and where a dozen diverse titles – covering expense. But I’ve never before seen such rampant self- jazz history to gay fiction, plus what looks like a smattering promotion interwoven with such complete bullshit that of supernatural fiction – are listed in different formats. Not anyone with two brain cells would be able to see through bad for a “Professor Emeritus in Metaphysics and it immediately. This “famous writer and researcher” very Researcher in Molecular Biology.” likely sells nothing at all in the way of books. Photos of Mr. Kanoknukroh attached to his Please trust me when I say finding genre in profiles are either of a twenty-something Thai (usually Thailand is a journey fraught with occasional peril, and sans chemise), or a poorly photoshopped image of a man in often leads to encounters with time-wasters failing to starched white military uniform, sometimes standing (or is engage meaningfully with the real world where the rest of that floating?) in front of shelves of expensively bound us live. Case in point.
[1] http://isfdb.livejournal.com/9377.html [2] https://www.linkedin.com/in/verawatkanok [3] http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4616123.Verawat_Kanoknukroh [4] http://www.bim-mover.com/verawat%20site/mainpage.html [5] http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/verawatkanok
Tr a c k s
‘Salsalito’ – Fania All Stars, Social Change, 1981
ONE MUSIC CREDIT from science fiction television always for the next ten years, one of which was the New York impressed me: for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep latin ensemble the Fania All Stars. Their appearance on Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, Paramount Studios Fusion 3 was the track ‘Salsalito’ [2], a mid-tempo, secured the talents of the composer Jay Chattaway [1]. somewhat romantic composition infused with depths Given that musicians who do film and TV scores aren’t that, at the tender age of 21, spoke to me of hope, usually cited as being all that influential on people’s lives melancholy and beauty. It remains to this day one of my (I might make an exception for Angelo Badalamenti here), favourite pieces of music. In fact, truth be told it’s my citing of Jay Chattaway deserves some explanation, probably been up there at #1 for the last thirty-four years. because it goes way back. On the sleeve notes for this pirated compilation I first came across something composed by they also credited the composers, but the name Jay Chattaway after I landed a job in Saudi Arabia, as long Chattaway meant little to me then; I knew nothing about ago as 1981. Shit job, good tax-free pay, but unlike most him other than the fact he had composed a piece of ex-pats there, I didn’t stick around long. One place I music of such personal significance that it quickly spent my money down at Jeddah’s old soukh was in the became part of ‘the soundtrack of my life’. It’s one of overcrowded tape stores: the Saudis had their own brand those compositions that, I’ve realised, you simply must label of pirated music called ‘747’, and places like this not over-play endlessly on repeat because its riches are were actually the only way to find any recorded music – not to be squandered. The Fania All Stars did justice to vinyl was never seen anywhere. There were even a few the song, complete with a guitar solo that never fails to decent compilations to be found, one series of which turn my heart inside out. were the jazz fusion anthologies called simply Fusion 1, 2 Sometimes I think it was worth going all that and 3. I still have Fusion 3, because it introduced me to a way to the deserts of Saudi Arabia, of all places, just to wider gathering of musicians that I continued to explore discover this one piece of music. Thanks, Mr. Chattaway.
[1] http://startreksoundtracks.com/composers/chattaway.html [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGub9ZiQluI
[ 5 ] Markers
First LoC kudos goes to: (two sons) we lived in a town of 14,000. Since 1999 we are living in a city of 700,000-plus, a piece of the Greater NED BROOKS (R.I.P.), Lilburn, GA; 2 July 2015 Toronto Area (GTA) puzzle. I prefer bigger, for movies, Thanks for the zine! Probably the only one I have that and live theatre, and cultural institutions. was published in Thailand. I remember when it was But we don’t have to drive for our every need. Siam, and read Anna and the King of Siam as a child. Five minutes on foot from our house is a plaza with Since it became Thailand, the news seems to be mostly many basic services. I walk to my doctor appointments in about corrupt government and sex tourism. But this is a different direction. Etc. Yet I understand and applaud just the sort of impression one gets from reading. In the the impulse that took you to New Zealand to see The 1950s the news about school segregation and “massive Hermitage. The Canadian equivalent to The Hermitage resistance” in Virginia left me with a dark mental picture would be Banff Springs Hotel in Banff National Park in of the state – but when I moved there in 1959 to work for Alberta, but more expensive than The Hermitage. NASA (the only job I ever had), I found it much like Re. Jim Godbolt and jazz, to me a good non- anywhere else. fiction writer is a person who can make me enjoy reading I did add it to the Fanzine Index as “The White about a subject in which I had no previous interest. Notebooks #1”. I suspect the cyber-zine will replace the Interjection of personality makes I suggest what you and paper fanzine, but there are still as many paper zines as I I mean by fannish writer. Travel writers particularly do so. can comment on, and the Index is only for zines that Surely Chorf (not all CAPS) predates Brad have a paper version – I could not keep up with any Torgersen as an invented alien race by Larry Niven or more. The same with e-books – I have none of the gizmos Eric Frank Russell or Keith Laumer,, etc? for reading them, and have only read things such as the I append here the tale of my effort to meet offerings on Gutenberg. It’s not clear if the buyer even Somtow Sucharitkul: owns an e-book or has just rented it. I’m a collector and want the physical object – I have large collections of MURRAY MOORE’S OPERACON REPORT typewriters and staplers as well. Hilton Milwaukee City Centre, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ~ Like everyone, I was shocked at Ned’s sudden death at March 12-15 2015 the end of August. We corresponded a little, but not Operacon was described on the event’s home page enough, and this was a conversation cut short. ~ thusly, “A four-day relaxacon in conjunction with the world premiere in Milwaukee of The Snow Dragon, the MURRAY MOORE, Mississauga, ON; 6 July 2015 latest opera by award-winning sf and horror writer “Fanzine!” indeed as you wrote on the back of the Somtow Sucharitkul (aka. S.P. Somtow). envelope. Santa Ana, CA? I wondered, seeing the “Events will include opening night at the opera postmark. The lost notebooks of Peter Young: I foresee and a post-show party on Friday, March 13, talks by the the wails of future literary scholars. directors and composer, hanging out in the con suite You live in Emerald Hill Village: is any of those with Somtow and other fans and enjoying such three nouns accurate? Milwaukee specialties as cheese, fish fry, cheese, bratwurst, cheese, summer sausage, cheese, beer, cheese, ~ The only accurate one (sort of) is ‘Village’ – it’s a gated German fare, cheese, brandy old fashioneds, cheese, community of thirty-six houses, a good mixture of Thai frozen custard, cheese curds and more cheese.” and European residents. Otherwise, it’s not a precious What’s not to like? jewel, and the streets are pretty flat. ~ But there’s more. Chaired by Leah Zeldes Smith Fanzines (what you and I mean when we use the & Dick Smith, aided and abetted by Jeanne Bowman & word) collectively never have been of better quality. The Alan Rosenthal in charge of the con suite in a “classic art fanzine community within the larger SF community is deco structure built in 1927” with an AAA Four Diamond not growing as the larger community grows. But would rating and an Operacon room rate of $100 a night. you want one thousand LoCs on your Every Issue A I RSVPed to be a member of the Friday Night Different Title fanzine? Here’s one. Fish Fry dinner party; opera-attending Operacon My impression, looking at the reproductions of members had the option to go in the Operacon bus at the two Ian Quartermaine books, is that John D. Berry 5p.m. (group dinner plus opera) or at 7p.m. (only opera), was not involved in their design. to be in their seats in the 50-year-old Skylight Music I grew up in a village (a community of fewer Theatre before the 7:30p.m. curtain. than 2,000 people). Between 1980 (married) and 1999 Another notable Operacon event was celeb-
[ 6 ] ration, on Saturday evening, of Dick and Leah’s 30th I could talk to him about his writing. In wedding anniversary. January and February I read Opus 50, his 50th book, a I describe Operacon as a medium-size Corflu selection of his fiction and his non-fiction. I could ask (75-80 members) of whom 14 would know me if I sidled him if more of his diary written during the days when he up to them and started talking. I was looking forward to was in Buddhist monk boot camp has been published. talking to ‘Orange Mike’ Lowrey. Earlier in the week on a Where was Mary Ellen in all this? I had bought mailing list discussion occurred of the Mark Rich memberships including opera tickets for both of us. biography of Cyril Kornbluth. I started reading my copy Driving meant two days each between Mississauga and of Rich’s examination of Kornbluth and I soon read, in Milwaukee. Mary Ellen wanted to go, not so much for the the Preface, that Rich had bought a paperback edition of opera but for the people, but the time in the car was a the Kornbluth story collection titled Miles Beyond the turnoff for her. I thought to check my total of through- Moon “in a place that was quite the anomaly: a used many-years accumulated Aeroplan points. I learned that I bookstore located in an airport.” (Alas for the had enough points for a free return ticket via Air Canada, biographer’s credibility, the Kornbluth collection’s title is plus a payment of $189 in taxes and fees. A Mile Beyond the Moon not Miles Beyond the Moon.) So occurred my flying to Milwaukee and Mary The fact that biographer Rich lives in Cashton, Ellen staying home. Subsequently a wedding/baby Wisconsin was the clincher for me that his used book shower for one of her nieces was announced for the store in an airport is Renaissance Books in the General Saturday of Operacon. “But,” Mary Ellen enjoined me Mitchell International Airport, i.e. the airport which was “say Hello to everyone and that I wish I was there.” my destination. Orange Mike works part-time in Transportation was via Air Canada Express – Air Renaissance Books. I explored it during my 2005 visit to Georgian, Air Georgian being a small airline based at Milwaukee, when I attended a Ditto. The Ditto hotel in Pearson International Airport. Air Georgian appears to 2005 was close enough that I walked between the con be a sub-contractor for Air Canada. hotel and the airport. A couple of weeks before my flight I received an In the first of the two Operacon progress itinerary change: my flight on Thursday 13 March was reports, under the heading Occasionally Asked changed to 6:30pm, from 8:35am. Mary Ellen pointed Questions, was this question: “What’s a relaxacon?” out, two days before my flight, that Pearson might be Answer: “A relaxacon is a low-key science fiction busy, inasmuch as the following week for Ontarians was convention, basically a weekend-long party with little or March Break. Indeed at the airport on Thursday I saw no formal programming and an emphasis on conver- large groups of teenagers, and families. But I was relaxed. sation and collegiality. When we heard that Somtow’s Mary Ellen was not keen to drive me to Pearson. I opera was premiering in Milwaukee, we thought it was a checked in on-line. I printed my boarding pass at home. I great excuse to throw one.” could carry on board my single item of luggage. I left You could have attended Operacon without home in good time, riding on Mississauga Transit, with attending the opera, by paying a proportionately reduced one transfer. My return to Canada was quick, too. membership price. Other than Somtow (Bangkok, Do you know, if you go through security then Thailand), the member of Operacon with the most learn that your flight is cancelled, you have to join the distant address was Michael Proudfoot, Reading, Berks., stream of real arrivals, complete a declaration card for UK. A majority of the members live in Wisconsin and Customs (although you have not left the terminal), and Illinois. Laurraine Tutihasi, a fan who I know to be also be processed by a customs official, as if you have actually an opera fan, lives near Oracle, Arizona. been for X hours in a metal tube high in the sky? I was disappointed that I could not revisit the I emailed Dick & Leah “I am okay with one less under-renovation Santiago Calatrava-designed Mil- day in Milwaukee *cough*. I will have three days, with my waukee Art Museum. I had visited it during my previous departing flight wheels-up late Sunday.” visit to Milwaukee. Oh well. My re-scheduled 8:35am next day The Snow Dragon was to be my first opera. I Friday flight would deposit me in Milwaukee at 9:15am debated whether, if I had the opportunity, pre-premiere, Wisconsin time. I would have to arise at an un- to ask the composer a question, should I ask “Inasmuch accustomed hour. I had my boarding pass. And I had as this is my first opera, my only important question is, learned on Thursday that I was overdressing, and that I how long is it?” prefer pulling a small wheeled suitcase to carrying a bag. Or should I show Somtow my copy of the And the shoes I wore Thursday were not walking shoes: fanzine Vorpal Sword #2, editor Jack Howard Lechner there was room for them in the suitcase into which I (1978), including Somtow’s short story ‘The Music of the transferred my clothes and etc. and I wore comfortable Spheres’, to potentially thrill, or embarrass, the shoes to travel Friday. composer and conductor who also is the World Fantasy Flying between Pearson* and General Mitchell Award Best Novella 2002 winner for writing ‘The Bird airports is not a long-haul flight: 671 kilometres in a Catcher’. straight, up-and-down flight of 1 hour 37 minutes in a Somtow’s first professional fiction, the novel 50-seat Bombardier CRJ 100/200 passenger jet. Google Mallworld, was published in 1981. Would he be happy to Maps claims a driving time of 9 hours 23 minutes. In the be given a copy of a fanzine, his copy of which, perhaps, real world add time for crossing the border, plus he no longer possessed? Or would he be happier not to stopping every 60 to 90 minutes for Mary Ellen to walk be presented with a sample of his juvenalia? and loosen her spine, plus stops for gas and food.
[ 7 ] (*Pearson International Airport is in the City of Coincident to your Sladek mention, I am Mississauga, not the City of Toronto. When we are out-of- gradually working my way through a battered, country I explain “We are from Mississauga. (pause) secondhand copy of his Keep the Giraffe Burning Mississauga is next door to Toronto. If you fly to Toronto collection of surreal/xperimental slipstream fic. First time you probably land in Mississauga.” I am not sure that I’d read anything of his since years back, after getting a every person hearing my Mississauga-Toronto speech has review copy of Maps, Dave Langford’s collection of JS heard of Toronto.) miscellanea. Mary Ellen drove me the next morning, that is, I Anyway – commentish responses in roughly linear drove to Pearson and Mary Ellen drove home. Not many order. Nice to be reminded of The Goodies – I recall the minutes after we set out (6:37am to be precise) Air King Kong/Godzilla take-off where a giant cat attacked Canada emailed me a message beginning “Unfortunately, London’s Post Office Tower, to blame perhaps for the part of your itinerary has been CANCELLED.” IRA putting it on its target list and the GPO closing its Specifically, the part of the trip that was the beginning, revolving restaurant – though I saw somewhere it’s the leaving Toronto and landing in Milwaukee, part of my getting a brief reopening this summer for the deep- itinerary. pocketed. I was rebooked for a same day 6:35pm Interesting re. reindeer in Scotland – a further departure, arriving in Milwaukee 6:52pm Wisconsin time. back reintroduction of the species? Wild boar and beaver Remember, curtain time for The Snow Dragon were here ’til the late Middle Ages, and there’s much talk was 7:30pm? of the reintroduction of wolves, but reindeer were last An Air Canada ticket agent told me she could here just post-Ice Age. ~ See my comment to Joseph send me to Milwaukee through Chicago but I wouldn’t Nicholas, below. ~ The Hermitage – I immediately arrive significantly sooner and only, she noted, if I made thought of the famous museum in Russia, but that’s an my connecting flight or flights. I did not obtain details. institutional building, not a place name. Your mention of As I did the evening previous, I returned home via Brits being the first people up Mount Cook set me Mississauga Transit. wondering why Maoris never climbed it previously – did The time is 2:30pm Eastern Standard Time. they avoid South Island, or were they not into climbing, Wisconsin is Central Standard Time, so 1:30pm at or was it religious tabu, or…? Operacon. Six hours to go before the premiere of The Amusingly different twist on Puppygate, ie. taking Snow Dragon. I wish I was there. on its roll as and ugly acronym breeder. I was intrigued You have read now the first trip report I have that the whole hassle got a full page in The Guardian, written without the advantage of leaving home. which is interesting proof of how far SF has entered into “Mundania”. FRED LERNER, White River Junction, VT; 9 July 2015 Somtow Sucharitkul is a name marginally familiar Many thanks for Tr o l l s . I gather from hints dropped in its to me, though I’ve not read any of him. I did include in pages that you work for BA in a position that entails a my genre poetry newsletter Data Dump a couple of years great deal of travelling, which you do from a base in back a mention of a verse play of his getting performed Bangkok. Have you written something that gives more here. (Mentioning Data Dump, herein enclosed is an detail about your airborne life and how you came to it? example though it may not Venn your interests, but you did quote a poem in your ‘Hermitage’ article; DD is a ~ Not quite – I work from Heathrow in London, so it’s a token gesture of exchange as this LoC will doubtless be 9,000-mile commute. I’ve not written anywhere yet about sub-WAHF. that lack of quality is why I got dropped off how I came into the job, but I did mention the transition the Journey Planet distribution list after a handful of ishes briefly (moving on from my earlier life as an illustrator) – or did it go e-only?) in my article ‘Kitchen Appliances in Zero-G’ in my fanzine Zoo Nation #2 in 2002. ~ ~ I think the last print issue of Journey Planet was probably around 2012 (and my Blade Runner issue that I enjoy traveling, writing about my travels, and year certainly had a print edition), but I haven’t seen a reading accounts of other people’s travels. So far the print edition since then, only PDFs. Journey Planet is up most distant place from Vermont that I’ve been is to #24 now, all available at efanzines.com. ~ Hattusha in Turkey, but that will change in October when my daughter and I will go to Japan. (She’s been to China Not heard of any other Thai authors you review, before, but this will be my first face-to-face encounter though very intrigued by the account of crimes set in the with the Orient.) We’ve only got ten days — unlike me, Muslim provinces. They seem obscured and almost Elizabeth still has to work for a living — which we’ll be totally marginalised in our media. Presumably the only spending in Kyoto, Takayama and Tokyo. If you’ve been to way to get a media profile is if insurgents were to declare any of these I’d be happy to have any suggestions; I’m allegiance to Islamic State – this didn’t even get a doing my usual extensive homework, but there are always mention in the accounts of the discovery of trafficker things the guidebooks overlook. camps for Muslim refugees from Myanmar in the same border area. STEVE SNEYD, Huddersfield, UK; 11 July 2015 Interesting that Jim Godbolt collected examples Speedy response to your 2 fanzines before kipple gets of his name getting garbled – my surname gets so many ’em (if you can’t read the horrid handwriting, file under variants. Years back I filled a sheet of A3 with ’em, and of W for Wastebasket, natch). course Claire Brialey occasionally suffers an intrusive ‘r’
[ 8 ] in her surname – I once did it for her and got the JIM MOWATT, Cambridge, UK; 12 July 2015 traditional bollocking! I remember Brian Stableford Awfully nice to hear from you, and I do hope you’ll write gently whingeing how often his surname turned to again soon. And it did actually feel almost like a piece of ‘Stapleford’ though doubtless other SF writers suffer far personal correspondence without the “how are you and I more (Eando Binder? Fanthorpe’s myriad aliases?) hope Mrs and kids are all doing well.” Interesting you’re an ISFDB editor. A few years [ Now that we are all swept up in the short back I looked at my own entry – a lot of biblio omissions attention span nature of the Internet it becomes all too easy but so it goes – and several other folks I know, some of to veer of in another direction for a while. I wrote ‘drop me whose biblios were far more thin; K.V. Bailey’s I recall as a line’ up there and immediately wanted to know how that being particularly sparse, almost none of his books or phrase came into being – The answer is that the Internet information re. his poetry. I’m not on the Internet at isn’t entirely sure. The consensus seems to lie with it home, I only use it time-limited at the library, so I referring to the lines of text in a message so it suggests that couldn’t have realistically started adding to his even though you may be fantastically busy you can maybe bibliography, though I had the information as compiled send just a line or just a couple of lines of text. Another when I reprinted his Arthurian SF poetry sequence ‘The view which I suspect is wrong but that I quite like is of Sky Giants’ soon after his death. If there’s been a snail- dropping a rope down to someone to connect the two mail address for the ISFDB I’d’ve sent one on paper and people. Highly unlikely but an interesting thought someone could’ve scanned it in, but there are no nevertheless. ] addresses given for that site. So it goes. I recognise the pattern from the notebooks but never had one of those myself. I think that whenever I ~ That’s a project I’d be interested in taking on myself, wrote similar things it was usually in things that looked Steve, so please send me a copy. The ISFDB has no like school exercise books except for one time that I got central mailing address – it’s a loose group of editors all fancy and used A4 white sheets of paper and put them around the world who add the information on a in a slip case display book. I was around 6 or 7 years old voluntary basis. Anyone can be an editor, although it’s a and wrote a story that I was very proud of at the time. I pretty steep learning curve to begin with, when it comes never showed to anyone though and it has now vanished to data entry and the standards editors need to adopt. ~ into oblivion along with its slip case loveliness. It’s kind of strange – I was reading through your JOHN HERTZ, Los Angeles, CA; 12 July 2015 introduction and there was a little part of me that was Thanks for The White Notebooks #1 with its kind mention being the jaded old critic saying, here we go again with of Vanamonde, and also your Thai Literary Supplement #1. the same old stuff. This is a fanzine, inspired by fanzines I’m with ‘Right tool for right task’. Sometimes and it has kind of fanziney stuff in it. Then I took another you want a paintbrush. Sometimes you want an airplane look at myself to suggest that I stop whining as this ticket. Paper fanzines are right for some things, we editorial voice stuff is exactly what I like about fanzines. should do them there. It gives a character to a zine and makes it easier to put I often quote this Saigyô poem (‘Mountain Hut’ the rest in some kind of context. So yes, the intro no. 937; trans. D. Keene, Seeds in the Heart p.678, rev. 1999, covered very similar ground to other zines but that’s Japanese literature from earliest times to the late 16th something that should be there, as with a detective Century): homicide story it would make sense to have the murder tou hito mo A mountain village fairly early on so that you have something for the omoitaetaru Where there is not even hope detective to work upon. yamazato no Of a visitor – Speaking of detective stories, it sounds like you sabishisa nakuba If not for the loneliness, had a considerable amount of fun tracking down Ian sumiukaramashi How painful life here would be! Quartermaine. I think your story needed more Homburg hats, rainy nights and beautiful blondes dressed all in Bill Porter has been an important author, and translator red to be a proper detective story, though. under the literary name Red Pine (after the Taoist I’m avoiding anything to do with Puppies or Immortal so called); I have his 2003 translation of the Wombats, etc. Soft furry animals shouting about some T’ang and Sung Dynasty Ch’ien Chia Shih – because the award or other seems too banal to contemplate. I’m sure Chinese could be rendered A Thousand Poems by the you were more interesting than most on the subject but I Masters or Poems of a Thousand Masters, and in any event just couldn’t bring myself to read it. The world has so “thousand” is figurative like “A hundred million miracles many more interesting things than this in it. Such as jazz are happening every day” or “a thousand pardons” he of course. I loved the Jim Godbolt memorial. He sounds just called it Poems of the Masters. He has just (2014) a fascinating character although probably also an revised his translation of the Mountain Poems of Shih Wu irritating pain in the ass. I discovered a fannish crossover (1272-1352; literally “Stone House” where he lived) and recently into the world of jazz when I went along to see a (2009) of the Tao Te Ching, both of which I hope to see jazz band at one of the villages around Cambridge, and soon. there was Wilf James (who I’d been in an apa with a few A 5-star hotel called The Hermitage, or the years ago) right up there next to the performers soaking Hermitage in St. Petersburg, remind me of the song in up the music. He spotted me a little later and rushed up the Lerner & Loewe Camelot, ‘What Do the Simple Folk with, yes you guessed it, a mini fanzine. He’d been Do?’ But as you say, hospitality is a great human quality. collecting information about upcoming jazz perform-
[ 9 ] ances in the area and putting them together into a zine. so much “enclosed” as “attached”. Whew! I could stop The urge to spread the word about the stuff you enjoy worrying about my fannish cred for at least another week along with the desire to communicate is strong indeed. or so... So, many thanks Pete, and the wife and cats are Liked the piece on Tony Bitch. Heck, it just goes fine.
[ 10 ] a LoC archive. There are still plenty of fans on LJ. I have listed as one of your inspirations! to wonder about some blogs and LJ accounts, if they I of course recognised the mangled quote from have readership of approximately zero? Stealer’s Wheel at the head of the first, but my heart sank a bit when I saw that it was attached to a short piece on ~ I don’t think my LJ achieved anything great in the way The Rabid Puppies Affair. (Now there’s a title for a Man of readership. I haven’t used it publicly for over a year, From U.N.C.L.E. episode. I note that, like many an old and haven’t really blogged there for around two years: it’s television series, it has now spawned a big-screen film, all part of my haphazard distancing of myself from social although the advance publicity seems to substitute the media. But I do still use it privately for keeping all kinds CIA and the KGB for UNCLE and THRUSH. In which of lists, which I might make public someday. Live Journal case, what’s the damn relevance of the U.N.C.L.E. tag?) I could be a fun way of conducting a kind of feel as though I have read so much about this particular uncoordinated perzine, but (in case you hadn’t noticed) shenanigan that I never want to see or hear of it again, I’m more into the idea now of swinging back towards even though my reading actually extends no further than actual publications rather than pixelated ephemera: the first few weeks after the Puppies’ success in the Hugo blogging didn’t ‘stick’ with me. When it comes to nominations process had become clear – I read the publications, even as PDFs, there’s something more blogposts, and the counter-blogposts, and the counter- permanent that attracts me more. ~ counter-blogposts because I thought I should and I haven’t travelled as much as I would have liked because it’s an important issue for skiffy fans, but after to have done... most of us are like that. It’s a huge world, that first few weeks I had come to two even more and we’d all like to see some of it outside of the important conclusions: firstly, that the Bad Guys were television screen. Money is usually the reason why we incapable of expressing themselves without descending stay home. I used to live on Vancouver Island, which at into ad hominem-inflected bile and vitriol by at least the the time was quite different to what I was used to. We end of their third sentence; and, secondly, the Good have been scraping up our cash, and we will be in Guys were incapable of expressing themselves other than London in August of 2016. at extraordinarily repetitive and self-exculpating length. I guess I’ve never really thought about the idea As I recall remarking in April this year, in response to yet of fanwriters outside of science fiction, but it is good to another Facebook comment on the shenanigan from know that there are such beasts, and they are out there, someone else, it really is time everyone shut up about the still there. I know of some connections between SF and Rabid Puppies and their make-believe grievances, jazz, like Ted White, and other fanwriters. because all the two sides were doing was talking past The Puppies... I’ve already said too much each other anyway, and concentrated on revising the elsewhere, but we will see next month if they have made Hugo process so that future instances of their hijacking a lasting mess, or if they were merely misbehaving by could be avoided or at least made more difficult to attempting to stuff the ballot box. I will not be in achieve. But then again, perhaps it’s not possible to Spokane for the Worldcon, and I doubt I will ever go to revise the Hugo process in such a way: it’s a popular another one. award, anyone who wants to buy a supporting Ah, egoboo in my time. I try my best by membership can vote, QED. attempting to respond to almost everything I receive. The Also then again, your piece was not about The heart of fanzine fandom? That’s what I am told, but I do Rabid Puppies Affair, but about the stupid acronyms the have my doubts. Puppies are coining. I had forgotten entirely what Interesting books in the Thai Literary Supple- CHORF was supposed to mean, so thanks for that ment #1. I wouldn’t have thought that English-language reminder; but of course I’d forgotten because no one else SF would come from Thailand, outside of Somtow is using it. In fact, it’s exactly the sort of stupid name that Sucharitkul, but there is something new to learn every would be attached to a communist-leaning alien species day. Maybe these books need distribution outside of hive-mind in the gung-ho militaristic space operas the Thailand? puppies prefer – which in turn reminds me, among other things, that one of the early puppy complaints was that ~ Apart from Somtow, any English-language SF here has it’s no longer possible to judge a book by its cover. But come from ‘farang’ authors (and that also pertains to my when was that ever possible? If these dorks think the personal conviction about the overseas origin of dissonance between cover art and the text inside is a real Benjanun Sriduangkaew’s stories). Translations of Thai issue, no one should ever show them Cyril Judd’s Sin In science fiction are rare indeed, but that could also be Space, what? said of any Thai literature – can you think of any Thai Changing the subject, I feel that I must point out novel that has been translated into English before – I am perhaps the 94th person to point this out, as publication in the West? ~ Private Eye might have it – that the reference to a reindeer in the second sentence of your travel article is a JOSEPH NICHOLAS, Tottenham, UK; 29 July 2015 Huge Clunking Error. Unless there really was a solitary, Many thanks for the first issues of The White Notebooks non-native reindeer which had escaped from captivity and The Thai Literary Supplement – and apologies for the and was still roaming uncaught, what you would have tardiness in sending this response. I should add, before I seen in that documentary on Scottish wildlife was a red go any further, that I am of course dead chuffed that my deer, a species which is native to the Highlands… one-off The Night Is So Black That the Darkness Cooks is
[ 11 ] ~ Red deer, reindeer – guess I must have misheard it, but out ‘what we think went wrong’, seeking their advice ‘as I remember the deer itself was certainly more of a rutting Wise Old Men of the British science fiction scene’. stag than a Bambi. ~ (I will pause here to allow you to appreciate that word ‘old’ in this context. As I recall, you’re about my …and, presumably, a male filmed either after the age, so you may derive some amusement from knowing autumn rut had finished, otherwise he’d have been on that in 1987 the oldest of these Old Men was Peter the rutting grounds protecting his females and duelling Nicholls, then 48. Clute was a little younger, just shy of with other stags, or an older male which had lost several 47. Malcolm Edwards was 37. And Dave Langford, who fights with younger stags and, having been driven off, didn’t in the end attend the subsequent meeting, was 34. was no longer in breeding mode. Not that this I don’t doubt that there are all sorts of ways in which it misidentification of the animal would have made any took more effort to be a fan back then, but it was at least difference to the sentiment you took from it, but in the considerably easier to be old.) interests of pedantry and accuracy (etc. etc.). And I Having been assured by Nicholls that Budrys enjoyed the travelogue, too, although I don’t have really had used the phase ‘Wise Old Men’, Clute anything else to say in response to it. immediately abbreviates it to WOMs. Nicholls then As, I discover, I don’t have anything else to say further observes that given the international nature of about the other contents (“ray binks”, as used to be said the group (Edwards and Langford being British, but in apas – I wonder if they still exist). Clute being Canadian and Nicholls Australian) they ~ Tony Cullen, Mark Plummer and myself were might be further described as Wise Old Men (Britain discussing this very subject at July’s Tun. As far as we And Territories), thus WOMBATs, hence the title of the could tell, The Women’s Periodical is the only current Clute essay ‘Lunch with AJ and the Wombats’. apa that British fans (that we know of) have any I recommend Conspiracy Theories, by the way, also connection with. Anyone know different? Clue us in. ~ available as an ebook at http://taff.org.uk/ebooks.php although both that and the web version omit a couple of MARK PLUMMER, Croydon, UK; 29 July 2015 pieces that appeared in the 1987 print edition. Thanks for Trolls... etc (actually, I think I might stick with There are all sorts of generally interesting things The White Notebooks #1 for ease of typing). I was about to in WN#1, lots of little snippets of knowledge and say that I can’t remember the last time somebody handed opinion. I’d never heard of Jim Godbolt, nor Tony Bitch me a fanzine at the first Thursday, but that’s unnecess- – and for what it’s worth I bought a copy of Sightseeing arily dismissive of the relentless Alan Sullivan who’s off the back of the TLS. The prospect of getting been handing out his variously titled perzines there, and something like WN quarterly is very welcome round as far as I know only there, every month for years. Still, if here. not unique then you are at least select. And a print fanzine with an address in Thailand is WAHF . . . something of a first, at least for me. Nic Farey, Bruce Gillespie, Robert Eggleton, John Hertz I agree with you that CHORF doesn’t really cut it. again, Earl Kemp (“Good job. Thanks for the pass-along. In particular it’s that ‘o for obnoxious’ that kills it, Keep it up.”), Dave Langford, Jim Linwood (“When the because it just feels lazy, a random pejorative inserted by envelope arrived Marion exclaimed ‘You aren’t sending somebody who couldn’t be bothered to think of anything for a Thai bride, are you?!’”) Somtow Sucharitkul, Taral better. It seems to me that just about anybody can pick a Wayne, and David A. Hardy (“Ruth was disappointed wordalike and assign negatives to each of its letters. because it had a UK stamp on it!”) – Dave also sent along But you didn’t go where I thought you were going some great artwork he’d done for Brian Aldiss’s 90th with ‘Plagued by Acronyms – The Puppies and Wombats birthday card from the Birmingham Science Fiction That Will Kill Us All’. Group – despite my intention to reproduce it here, it Forgive me if you know this already, There’s an kinda got squeezed out by LoCs. essay by John Clute in Chris Evans’s Conspiracy Theories I’m especially grateful to correspondents who (http://ansible.uk/misc/ct-contents.html) in which he take the trouble and expense to mail stuff to my Thai describes an episode from the aftermath of the 1987 address – Andy Hooper mailed every issue of Flag here, Brighton Worldcon. As I’m sure you’ll know, that and kudos also to Steve Sneyd who took the trouble to Worldcon had its own Hugo controversy – quite minor mail his LoC to Thailand with just two second class UK by modern standards, I suppose – as part of a wider stamps. It’s reassuring when stuff arrives – makes me feel kerfuffle concerning sponsorship from Bridge/New Era that maybe I’m not so off-the-beaten-track as I used to and the promotion of the Writers of the Future think. If you would prefer to send mail to my UK programme. In particular, Algis Budrys had delivered a address, it’s as follows: c/o 22 Tippings Lane, Woodley, speech before the Hugos which was the cause of some Berkshire RG5 4RX, England. I’m there every other contention, especially in the light of the heavy Bridge/ month. New Era branding at the post-Hugo official photocall Seven pages of highly interesting LoCs isn’t a and party. bad haul at all for a first issue. Thanks to all A few days after the convention ended, Clute had correspondents! a phone call from Peter Nicholls, warning him to expect a phone call from Budrys. He wanted to meet with Clute, Nicholls, Malcolm Edwards and Dave Langford to find
[ 12 ] I Ask the Questions
What was the identity of ‘The World’s Most Travelled Who originated the quote “We are a star’s way of Man’ mentioned unfavourably in Simon Winchester’s knowing about stars”? Was it actually, as I have long book Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the assumed, Carl Sagan? British Empire? It certainly sounds like something Sagan would have I wrongly disposed of this book many years ago, and as said, and I probably first heard this quotable line around far as I could recall the actual name of the World’s Most 1980. But no, it was the biology field’s Nobel Laureate Travelled Man was never mentioned during Winchester’s George Wald. The best online reference to this I can find account of their landing by ship on Ascension Island. I is New Scientist’s report from November 1973 on a thought this question would be hard to resolve as a few lecture [5] he gave at the National Academy of Sciences people have adopted this self-proclaimed title (most in Washington: ‘“Matter has reached the point of recently Albert Podell, author of Around the World in beginning to know itself.” Mankind, made of the material Fifty Years [1]) but it turned out to be easily researchable of stars, “is just a star’s way of knowing about stars.”’ as Outposts has been scanned by Google Books. I was Wald also said “It would be a poor thing to be an atom in mistaken – Winchester does indeed mention him by a universe without physicists. A physicist is an atom’s way name: Parke Thompson, a lawyer from Akron, Ohio, who of knowing about atoms.” Which is the same observation after another search, also turned up in an archived as that contained in Neils Bohr’s quote, “A physicist is interview from People magazine in 1986 [2]. In Outposts just an atom’s way of looking at itself.” Winchester wasn’t putting up with the rudeness and arrogance of the man so merely referred to him I’ve seen street signs in Bangkok that direct drivers to repeatedly and acronymically as ‘the WMTM’, and that’s RMUTT. Is there a fantastic undiscovered connection how it’s always stayed with me. Winchester’s chapter on to Marcel Duchamp here? Ascension Island was a lovely piece of travel writing that Unfortunately, a coincidence. It’s the acronym for the I’ve never forgotten. Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi [6]. And despite what I’d like to think, Duchamp has already Why does a shower curtain billow inwards when I turn explained the origins of the name R. Mutt. [7] on the shower? I’ve been asking myself this probably on a daily basis for I’ve seen street signs around Thailand that appear to be more than a decade, and have only today got round to telling the rich where to go. Are the peasants revolting? making more of an effort to find out the reason. I remember some time in the 1990s this was a query in New Scientist’s ‘Feedback’ section, where readers can ask frivolous scientific questions that others may be able to answer. The speculation ran for many weeks (and consisted mostly of eggheads spelling out equations to each other), because it was impossible to find anyone who actually knew. Scientific American [3] attempted a full explanation in 2001, although after reading the article’s comments, it was not as definitive as its author would like to believe. A partial solution to the question was also Despite what I’d like to think, the signs are actually for a an Ignoble Prize winner the same year, and there’s now a nationwide chain of old entertainment complexes called Wikipedia page on ‘the shower curtain effect’ [4], which The Rich [8]. Damn. indicates that even now, no one has yet produced a conclusive answer.
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32731044 [2] http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20093321,00.html [3] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-the-shower-curta [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shower-curtain_effect [5] http://tinyurl.com/mwwn2p6 [6] http://www.university-directory.eu/Thailand/Rajamangala-University-of-Technology-Thanyaburi-RMUTT.html [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)#Interpretations [8] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aewoVsquuys
[ 13 ] Paralipomena Listopia
ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE / EVERYWHERE / EVER SO NEEDING WHERE’S IT ALL LEADING / TELL ME WHERE / NOTHING INSINCERE —Roxy Music, While My Heart Is Still Beating, 1982
This fanzine was pieced together between 23 July and Further fanzines received / read in 2015: 7 September 2558 / 2015, and so say all of us. Here’s the recent mixture of past and present: Banana Wings #59 – CLAIRE BRIALEY & MARK PLUMMER The Lost Café Broken Toys #38–41 – TARAL WAYNE This essay was partly inspired by Caroline Mullan’s article ‘A Dream House’ (1994). Data Dump #209 – STEVE SNEYD Journey Planet #21–24 – JAMES BACON, CHRIS GARCIA ET AL. Travels Lake Geneva #5 – PABLO VASQUEZ Never one to turn away from a bit of bibliographic investigation, I enquired of the Long Beach Public Nice Distinctions #27 – ARTHUR HLAVATY Library if they had a copy anywhere of Ray Bradbury’s OBIR #3 – R. GRAEME CAMERON essay ‘I Sing the Bookstore Eclectic’. After ten minutes of Opuntia #310–318 – DALE SPIERS searching it was found in their downstairs reference Purrsonal Mewsings #3 – R-LAURRAINE TUTIHASI section: California magazine, July 1982, page 89. I read it Vanamonde #1095, 1129, 1133, 1134, 1141, 1145, 1150 – first several years ago on the Acres of Books website, and JOHN HERTZ I read it again there in the Long Beach Public Library in May 2015. Several personal congratulations are in order: The current best place for secondhand SF/F in to Laura J. Mixon for her Hugo-winning research on Long Beach is Planet Books on E. Anaheim Street, and the disgrace that is RH/BS – I’m honoured to have played even though it’s a bit of a trek from where I stay on Pine, a small part. Also to fellow editors of on it’s worth the visit. Journey Planet their Hugo win, and especially to James Bacon for the The Search for Genre in Thailand most entertaining speech of the Hugo Awards… Being ‘Fraught with occasional peril’ sums up my experience of funnier than Robert Silverberg ain’t easy. searching for genre in Thailand; however to title the whole series that way would be to do an injustice to the Further to my grumble in Big Sky #4 about the disabling genuine stuff I occasionally come across. I worry that this of document linking in Pages 4 (which I have used for the article may appear too harsh on Mr. Kanoknukroh (he’d creation of all my recent fanzines), Apple have since certainly agree with that assessment), but it’s accurate released the latest Pages to coincide with the release of and verifiable (and he’s been notified of this article via OSX Yosemite. I’m also now working on the latest Facebook – no response as yet). As I said, he’s not MacBookPro, but Pages 5 now has a very different user harming anyone, just claiming he’s many things he interface, with other design features also disappearing clearly isn’t, including the “Prince of Scifi”. Spare me such that it now resembles something more like Word in from these people. the way documents are assembled. I’m not a fan of it at all: too many bugs, and there’s still no linking available within I Ask the Questions a document. All in all, Pages is now quite a bit worse, and I’m not satisfied with Duchamp’s retcon explanation of it’s harder to lay out pages in anything other than the most “R. Mutt”, by the way. It seems too contrived, as if an straightforward way if you don’t wish to use Pages’ explanation was being offered or belatedly constructed templates. It’s hard to figure why Apple went down this where none was needed. route for an otherwise popular program. While this ‘The Rich’ are indeed a sad old assortment of fanzine may look simple and straightforward it’s actually venues, almost like the UK’s old Top Rank chain without been quite a bit harder to achieve the simplicity that I the bingo (gambling is illegal here apart from the want rather than what the program wants. All of which National Lottery). The venue shown in the YouTube video leaves me feeling a little… fraught. is a couple of kilometres from my house; the management may even have closed down most or even all of them – no one seems to bother with them any more.
Above: David Hayward/nakedpastor.com
[ 14 ] THE THAI LITERARY SUPPLEMENT, #2 TLS SEPTEMBER 2558 / 2015 Edited by Peter Young THAILAND, IN ENGLISH [email protected]
136/200 Emerald Hill Village, Soi 6, Hua Hin, Prachuap Khiri Khan 77110
CONTINUING MY TOUR of the seedy nightlife of Patpong, Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy, here are several more reviews of Bangkok’s bars and clubs of the kind that would never get surveyed in the Michelin Guide. Plus a book review or two.
Prabhassorn Sevikul Collin Piprell Letter from a Blind Old Man and Other Stories Bangkok Knights 2009 | Nilubol, ISBN 978-974-8285-80-1, 350 baht 1989 | Asia Books, ISBN 978-974-8303-45-4 Translated by Pratya Swetvimon Hammond Thailand has a boisterous Sevikul is something of a big and sometimes shady breed name in Thai literature, having of expat fiction, something written around sixty novels with which you take your with some adapted for film and chances and inevitably court television, as well as serving as disappointment. Canadian head of the Writers’ Assoc- author and journalist Collin iation of Thailand. Only now is Piprell started out writing his work being translated into guide books for Thailand’s Spanish and English and while diving community then that is indeed a good thing, worked his way into getting there are several stumbling his short fiction published in blocks apparent in the process the Bangkok Post. These are of making his work available bar stories, yet their quality e l s e w h e r e, n a m e l y p o o r may be a cut above the rest in this often seedy sub-genre translations served by weak copy-editing (and the of world literature because Bangkok Knights has already publishing house, Nilubol, looks like it’s Sevikul’s own). received three different editions from three different Sevikul is known as someone who has a mastery publishers. If so, this collection probably sets a good ‘bar of nuance in Thai however the translations of these story’ standard: all of them are gently humorous or stories convey none of that famous subtlety, being bittersweet in tone, neither outlandishly sexist nor rendered mostly into rather flat sentences, and sometimes patronising, and they share a cast of fairly well this gives the impression that the translator’s first characterised (if sometimes rather clichéd) expat Western language is not English. males combined with an assortment of colourful (if also But, to the stories themselves: gentle and rather clichéd) Thai females. What I expected to find, and sensitive are the watchwords here. In readership terms certainly did, is that uneasy distrust that often sees these they mostly fall somewhere between adult and young clichés eyeing each other warily over the cultural adult, as if Sevikul is trying to impart lessons, or at least barricades while still needing each other for various pre- reminders, of the importance of family and friendships. determined selfish reasons, in fact it’s often this cultural Occasionally he does let his imagination run free such as frisson that informs each story’s plot. in ‘Two Skulls’, an almost metaphysical contemplation of The first-person narrator of all the stories how people seem to replace their heads in the transition remains largely invisible throughout except for a couple from child to adult, and the best story is probably of episodes, one which describes a journalistic trip up ‘Departed Son’, a story of parental angst following the the Maekok river that goes disastrously wrong (in fact the Bangkok student massacre of 1976. only non-bar story in the collection and probably the I will probably give his novel Time in a Bottle a best), and the final outing which is an interesting mixture try if I can find it in English (given that it’s on the list of of relationship and identity crises running in parallel, 100 best books about Thailand and was also turned into something that probably comes upon any emotionally an award-winning film), but on the strength of this unattached, long-time expat resident of Thailand. Piprell collection I can’t raise my expectations too high. has also written several novels – I expect I’ll be reading them all.
[ 1 ] Tew Bunnag Jane Vejjajiva Fragile Days The Happiness of Kati 2001 | Mettavisions, ISBN 978-616-90514-4-2 2003 | Piggy Bank Press, ISBN 974-94312-0-0 Translated by Prudence Borthwick
Nine stories that work well Kati is a nine year-old Thai together as a cross-section girl from Ayutthaya whose of lives lived in Bangkok, hospital-bound mother is from the poorest to the dying of Motor Neurone richest. These are less tales Disease, and the story charts of status and stasis than her upbringing by her stories of the different grandparents and how she social strata intermixing and connects to the world encountering each other, immediately around her and such as in ‘The Flower Girl’ beyond, including how she in which a street orphan is chooses to deal with the adopted by a rich widow, or possibility of reconnecting ‘Jeed Finds Her Brother’ in with her estranged father. which a country girl finds The setting is unashamedly out the truth about her missing brother’s life in Bangkok. middle class and presents an idealistic, almost perfect These encounters inevitably leave the characters environment for Kati that cushions her separation from changed, yet somehow everyone at some point is a victim both her parents, and this blunts the story somewhat of the city itself, the Big Mango, for the better as often as although it’s still undoubtedly realistic. The author for the worse. Vejjajiva is clearly sticking to the strata with which she’s It’s hard to pick any story that stands out above most familiar: herself cerebral palsied and wheelchair- the rest, although for characterisation the final story bound, and apart from running a Thai publishing agency ‘Love Heals Tammy’ is the one that puts across best how and translation bureau her writing also won her Thais are prepared to look to the positive and be Thailand’s 2006 SEA Write Award (two years before her transformed by it. Bunnag also caps off the stories with a brother became the country’s Prime Minister). non-fiction epilogue titled ‘An Ode to the City’ in which The Happiness of Kati has also been translated he spells out his feelings on the ugliness of Bangkok into six languages with a Thai film adaptation released itself, while declaring an undying admiration for the early in 2009. This gentle story also illustrates how Thai people who would dare to live in such a place. This is a extended families can function in more close-knit ways lovely collection. than they do in the West. Recommended.
Tew Bunnag After the Wave Chart Korbjitti 2005 | Mettavisions, ISBN 978-61690514-3-5 No Way Out 1980 | Howling Books, ISBN 974-91385-1-1, 150 baht Translated by David Smyth Tew Bunnag was a relatively new author on the Thai scene when this collection A short novel that describes appeared in 2005, and the the almost systematic dis- six stories are all centred mantling of a Bangkok around the 2004 tsunami family, as a result of the which devastated Thailand’s poverty trap they find them- west coast. As mostly stories selves in when the father of ordinary people whose tries to take them out of lives are disrupted by that rented accommodation and extraordinary event, this into a corrugated metal-and- being Thailand it’s perhaps wood shack of their own. inevitable that ghosts also Korbjitti is spare with the make an appearance as a details, although through the thread that Bunnag uses to subtly link several of the multiple viewpoints of the stories. This was the side to his writing that I found the family he provides more than most enjoyable – how the tsunami somehow also became enough information to give a clear picture of their intertwined with the lives of Thailand’s ghosts; also his circumstances while at the same time leaving it to the frequent references to the sea-gypsies known as the reader to decide where the blame may lie. A sad but very Moken, whom Bunnag clearly knows well. A good true book for many, Korbjitti has won two SEA Write collection that’s hard to find in stores outside Thailand Awards for his explorations of Thai social issues that few but is available from the small press Mettavisions. Westerners get to see, let alone experience.
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