Issue No. 33, December 2016. Edited and published by Robert Lichtman, 11037 Broadway Terrace, Oakland, CA 94611-1948, USA. Please send trade fanzines and letters of comment to this address (or [email protected]). Founding member and Past President1991: fwa. This fanzine is available by Editorial Whim for The Usual (letters, contribu- tions both written and artistic, and accepted trades), or $5.00 per issue (reviewers please note!). An “X” or "?" on your mailing label means this may be your last issue. All contents copyright © 2016 by Trap Door with all rights reverting to individual contributors upon publication.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE: Doorway Robert Lichtman 2 Waiting for the Golden Age: John W. Campbell Jr. at the 1939 Worldcon Andy Hooper 4 Stare With Your Ears: A Radio Reminiscence John Baxter 18 The Cracked Eye Gary Hubbard 24 The À Bas Story Boyd Raeburn 31 The Queen and I Roy Kettle 34 The Ether Still Vibrates the Readers 44

ART & GRAPHICS: ATom (2), William Rotsler (17, 23, 30, 55, back cover), Dan Steffan (2, 44), Steve Stiles (cover, 4, 18, 24, 31, 34) & Steve Stiles/Pat Patterson (31).

Welcome to the always hope for more letters second 2016 issue of of comment than I actually Trap Door! This is receive. However, echoing the first time since what fanzine fans have 1993 that I’ve pro- frequently said over the duced more than a decades, response is the single issue in the name of the game. It gives same year, and no one writers and artists feedback could be more sur- – and yes, egoboo – for prised and pleased their efforts, creates and than I am: surprised maintains interactivity even because after publish- in a letter column as infre- ing back in March I quent as mine, and makes was completely out of material except for the editor feel that the effort and expense of this issue’s cover and Boyd Raeburn’s held- publishing is worthwhile. over article, and pleased because I had a Although it would be easy to do, I don’t good response to the feelers I sent out, and want to succumb to an image of myself an additional article turned up out of the standing over the readership cracking a whip blue. Steve Stiles came through with out- and screaming “LoC now!” Instead I’ll standing headings for all of them, and Dan simply hope that this low response was Steffan resurfaced with a couple of beauti- atypical. ful column headings. I hope you will all enjoy the result, and that you’ll let me and And speaking of Boyd, as I was before my contributors know about it. my Big Kvetch, I mentioned last time that I I say this because response to the last would relate the full story of how his article, issue was the lowest it’s ever been “The À Bas Story” – originally intended to be (surprising since I thought it was a very published in the seventh issue of my fanzine comment-worthy one), only a little over half Frap in the fall of 1964 – is only now (at of what I typically hear back. Of course I last!) appearing. First, a little personal history. I became Fast forwarding to 2015, I heard from aware of Boyd extremely early in my Greg Benford that he’d run across Boyd’s fannish career. The penultimate issue of À letter in a pile of fanzines and sent it to me. Bas was among the first fanzines I’d ever It occurred to me that what Greg had was a seen. It made a distinctly positive impres- small portion of my original fanzine collec- sion on me in large part because of his long tion, and I wondered what winding trail it and intriguingly titled lead article, “The took to reach him. Back in 1971, when I was Moth and the Arctic Steamroller.” It was an divesting myself of “material plane” accumu- engrossing travelogue of his 1957 European lation before moving to Tennessee, perhaps visit to five European countries, with a brief the dumbest thing I did was to give away my report on the first London worldcon embed- entire fanzine collection (even including file ded in it. I was a big fan of travel writing copies of my own stuff!). I must have mind- back then, mainly from having discovered lessly tucked Boyd’s letter into that large pile Richard Halliburton at an early age, devour- and then forgot about it. ing every book of his available from the I’m so glad – and grateful to the fannish library, and then moving on to other travel ghods – that Greg found Boyd’s letter and writers. But I found Boyd’s writing livelier thought to send it on to me. A mere fifty-two than that of the others, and it has stuck with years late, here is the article that Boyd “told” me all these years. In retrospect it was also me. very fannish in ways I really didn’t get at the time because of my utter neofan- Everything in this issue is new, except for nishness. Andy Hooper’s piece which, like the three I didn’t meet Boyd until the 1964 installments reprinted in previous issues, Worldcon in San Francisco. I asked him appeared first in a distribution of WOOF (the there if he would write about À Bas for Worldcon Order of Faneditors, one of the Frap, and he agreed. But later that year I enduring legacies of the late Bruce Pelz), had a letter from him in which he con- which have a very limited circulation. fessed: This is a somewhat abridged version. “I burnt some papers this afternoon, and Omitted are more detailed plot descriptions I have just realized that amongst them was of the stories in the July 1939 issue of the draft of the article for you on À Bas – Astounding which, to quote Andy, “many How It Began and What It Was and all that. critics now consider…one of the finest single I haven’t the time to rewrite it as a formal issues of any SF magazine ever published.” article, and I’ve held you up long enough. In addition to taking a close look at the All writers are taught to look for conflict. ferences that would take a lifetime to settle, if So, in this letter I’ll just give you the back- events at the first Worldcon from yet another Whether their chosen field is fiction, history indeed they ever were. There was a more ground and a few thoughts and if you wish perspective, Andy has painstakingly pro- or journalism, conflict is where the story lies. friendly rivalry between the New York and you can write the article yourself – ‘by duced the most extensively detailed Camp- And one finds an abundance of conflict in Philadelphia fan clubs, with the former eager Boyd Raeburn as told to Bob Lichtman,’ bell family history and biographical chrono- considering the first “World Science Fiction to impress the latter. And there was an aes- just like the SatEvePost.” logy ever – an important piece of scholarly Convention” of July 1939. There were many thetic rivalry under dispute, a struggle to Unfortunately, what happened next was research. This is further augmented by rivalries on display on the afternoon of July determine the quality and purpose of science that instead of creating the article from details of Campbell’s professional career, 2, 1939, when roughly 150 people gathered fiction. The earnest intensity of this fight Boyd’s extensive notes, I focused on the and in addition a look at the careers of the in the fourth floor auditorium of Manhattan’s seemed almost absurd in the context of dime conclusion of my final – and very demand- men behind the magazines competing for Caravan Hall to celebrate what was then pulp magazines and paperback anthologies, ing – semester at UCLA, followed by my readers with his. merely the “Fifth Convention” of science fic- but it would have the most far-ranging move to the Bay Area, getting my first full- This installment is definitely more sercon tion enthusiasts. There was the famous feud effects, on fiction, on science, and on the time job, and living with A Woman for the than its predecessors – and some may be between the fans who were “supposed” to “World of Tomorrow.” first time. In the process I put Frap on surprised to find it here in a mostly fannish organize the convention, and those who actu- In the context of world events of 1939, the hiatus (from which it never returned) and fanzine – but I found it just as engrossing a ally did it. This split had resonance with question of science fiction’s future seems put Boyd’s letter away – out of sight and read as the others. mundane political conflicts, ideological dif- petty at best, but actual science and engineer- definitely out of mind. (continued on inside back cover) —4— ing that had been nothing but speculation a remarks, establishing a tradition that persists man Campbell (1853-1927) of Napoleon, seems to have improved after she divorced decade before would have an immense effect to this day. Ohio. Trained as an electrical engineer and her step-brother. She then married James on the course of the World War that was to But the single person that most of those employed by AT&T as a technician, the elder Alfred Middleton in 1928, and John and his begin on the first day of September. If gathered in Caravan Hall really wanted to see John was not affectionate toward his son, but younger sister Laura Philinda Campbell science fiction was only the escapist adven- and hear was John W. Campbell Jr., the the boy still inherited a fascination with Krieg were living at their house in South ture stories that had dominated the field over editor of Astounding Science Fiction since science and engineering from him. Camp- Orange, New Jersey, when John began its early history, it would likely have faded the fall of 1937, as well as one of the more bell’s mother Dorothy Harrison Strahorn attending classes at the Massachusetts into the relative obscurity enjoyed by other respected professional writers in the field Campbell Middleton (1888-1954) was the Institute of Technology. specialty genres of the era, such as ranch since the beginning of the decade. Campbell daughter of Henry E. “Harry” Strahorn Middleton was a native of England, the romances and nurse novels. But among its brought some unique gifts to his editorial (1865-1931) and Laura Augusta Harrison son of a London greengrocer, and a decorated enthusiastic readers, there was a growing career, and would likely have done well in (1864-1919), both natives of Napoleon. and twice-wounded veteran of the First belief that science fiction and the future were any area of literature or journalism that Family lore indicates that the couple married World War. His brother had married one of closely linked. It would have been difficult to caught his attention. But he happened to and divorced before Dorothy turned two. Dorothy’s Harrison cousins, and he attended determine if more of them believed in the believe that science fiction was capable of Laura then married Joseph Bancroft Kerr the wedding ceremony in Napoleon, where genre’s ability to accurately forecast the great things, both as an art form and as a tool (1861-1935) in 1891, and had two children the newly-single Dorothy Campbell caught future, or in its power to suggest innovations for social and cultural engineering. And he with him, Bancroft Jr. in 1893 and Mary his eye. Laura Campbell Krieg and her and advances that inspired real researchers was a man of profoundly strong convictions, Elizabeth in 1895. The Kerrs apparently children recalled his presence in their life and inventors into experimentation. They who would never consider the task of altering divorced between 1895 and 1898, as Laura with great affection, and it seems very prob- simply knew that the future that science a literary community’s perceptions of itself married Vermont native William Wildman able that he had a positive relationship with fiction promised them was the world in beyond his grasp. With a mind that seemed Campbell in the latter year. John W. Jr. as well. which they wished to live. perpetually at work imagining the hitherto W. W. Campbell had several older chil- Campbell’s early interests included In the late 1930s, most of the people who unimagined, and the tireless self-confidence dren from his earlier marriage to the late aviation, astronomy and engineering, but he held these ambitions for SF had very little to convince others to share his conclusions, Florence Van Campen, including John Wood did his undergraduate work in Physics at power to make them a reality. Most of them he was the ideal example to inspire the young Campbell Sr., named for his paternal Duke University and MIT, and he received a were teenagers, a demographic that would readers and writers who filled the Hall that grandfather (1823-1898). William and Laura Bachelor of Science from the former in 1932. not become commercially important until Sunday afternoon. also had one son together, William Harrison But by that time, he was eighteen months into after World War II, and still desperately poor “Teddy” Campbell (1905-1969). In the 1900 a career as a professional science fiction after a full decade of economic depression. Campbell was six foot, one inch tall, with U.S. Census, both John W. Sr. and Dorothy writer, and he would only increase his com- Most professionals working in speculative thick, fair hair cut bristling short, and a are residents in the Campbell house in mitment to that field. fiction thought that the passion of the fans broad-shouldered frame that grew stouter Napoleon, with “stepdaughter” given as Dor- One of the more positive aspects of his arose from a sort of shared hysteria; almost with a life spent behind a typewriter. His othy’s relationship to the head of the house- early home life had been a generally unfet- none of them believed that writing about steady, demanding stare was mentioned by hold. The two step-siblings were married in tered permission to read what he liked, and spaceflight would help us actually achieve it many who endured it. His natural mode of September 1909. She was 21; John Wood Sr. Campbell testified that he had become one day. But the fans had one invaluable, conversation was to lecture any willing lis- was 24 and John Wood Campbell Junior was obsessed with the science fiction pulps the irrepressible, irreproducible ally on their tener. And any interaction with him was born in Newark, New Jersey, the following moment that he discovered them. But by side. In many ways, he was the man of the invariably conducted through a thick pall of June. passing through the “golden age” of early hour that July weekend in New York. Acker- cigarette smoke, as he plugged one after In a profile published in Amazing Stories adolescence before organized fandom had man and Morojo had come all the way from another into his characteristic holder. His in 1963, Campbell claimed that his mother arisen, Campbell’s ambitions were channeled Los Angeles and wore scientifictional outfits reputation led many, like Alfred Bester, to was warmer than his father, but changeable, directly into writing science fiction and space for the occasion, but they were still primarily expect that he would be “like a combination and that she had a twin sister who was fre- adventures stories for the pulps. T. O’Conor consumers of science fiction, just like the 14- of Bertrand Russell and Ernest Rutherford,” quently present and who did not like young Sloane, editor of Amazing Stories, bought year-old Harry Harrison, or the 16-year-old but in real life, he was more entertaining, John. He described how he would approach Campbell’s submission “Invaders of the Erle Korshak, who had come from Chicago challenging and demanding than most people the person he thought was his mother, only to Infinite” in the fall of 1929, but subsequently for the event. (And despite their youth, Kor- could imagine. And in July of 1939, he was be rebuffed by his aunt. There is no evidence lost the manuscript. Sloane quickly made shak and his friend Mark Reinsberg were also just 28 years old. that this twin actually existed; vital records amends by buying Campbell’s story “When the “official representatives” of Amazing Campbell’s boyhood had elements that do not indicate that Dorothy Strahorn Camp- the Atoms Failed,” and published it in the Stories at the event.) Frank R. Paul, a much- would have been at home in the work of bell had any full-blood siblings of either sex. January 1930 issue of Amazing. liked and successful cover artist, was the con- Charles Addams or William Faulkner. His It would be tempting to assume that Camp- Over the next three years, Campbell’s vention’s official guest of honor, and he father, John Sr. (1884-1959), was the second bell created the story to explain a bipolar stories of super science and galactic would be indulged in a set of rather lengthy son of U. S. Representative William Wild- personality. If so, his mother’s mental health adventure made him the only serious rival to E.E. “Doc” Smith as the master of what series of articles on astronomy and the solar real life would face a series of exciting and or reject stories, Margulies was also very would come to be called “space opera.” His system that were published under Campbell’s potentially deadly challenges, which they quick to send payment, which made him a characters Arcot, Morey and Wade were as own byline. Tremaine edited fifty issues of would overcome through the set of skills most figure of reverence among writers working in indefatigable and resourceful as any in the Astounding, and he made it into the most appropriate to the genre – personal grit and a the 1930s. He was small in stature but active genre; their saga was a series of ferocious respected SF monthly in the field, publishing quick trigger-finger in the westerns, a world- and aggressive, and his nickname reflected a encounters with hostile alien powers, met the best established writers of the period, as weary expectation of betrayal in the mysteries, pugnacious quality, as well as his profes- with an increasingly implausible succession well as the first stories by L. Sprague de and a propensity for inventing or discovering sional standing. of wonder weapons. They were collected as Camp and Eric Frank Russell, among others. the device needed to solve any technical chal- When Standard Magazines introduced the The Black Sun Passes in 1953. One of his innovations was the introduction lenge in science fiction. Neither antagonists “Thrilling” line of 10¢ pulp fiction titles in Campbell met his first wife Dona Louise of what he called “Thought Variant” stories, nor protagonists were generally given the 1931, Margulies was appointed the managing Stebbens (she also used her mother’s maiden which looked at a familiar premise in a space to ruminate on their motivations, or editor of the entire chain. Titles like Thrilling name, Stuart) (1913-1974) as an under- different way, or imagined the second- and question why the universe seemed arrayed Detective and Thrilling Ranch Stories sold graduate at MIT, and she was still 18 when third-order consequences of an invention or against them. It was a clever, but emotionally well to Depression-era readers, and the line they were married in 1931. She followed him discovery. When Tremaine had to give up stunted world. expanded steadily. In 1936, Standard’s from Cambridge to Durham and back, as he Astounding in order to become the editorial Over the next fifteen years, the combined manager Ned Pines acquired Wonder Stories continued to do post-graduate work at Duke supervisor of a brace of Street and Smith effects of comic books, paperback fiction and from Hugo Gernsback, who had started it and and MIT. When he began to write stories of magazines, his personal choice to replace television were going to slowly strangle the Air Wonder Stories after losing control of the far future with a more measured pace, him and continue his work was John W. pulp magazine market, and the stories they Amazing Stories in 1929. Retitled Thrilling with settings and description characterized as Campbell Jr. told would become the purview of grind- Wonder Stories, the magazine would be one “moody” and “poetic,” he used a variation on house and drive-in cinema. But few would of the last of the pulps to succumb, persisting his wife’s name, “Don A. Stuart” as a pseu- In the general atmosphere of congratu- have predicted this in July of 1939. Some of until 1955. donym. Beginning with the story “Twilight,” lation and good feeling that prevailed in the fandom’s earliest stirrings had coalesced Thrilling Wonder was always rightly seen in the November 1934 issue of Astounding auditorium, it might have been difficult to around Weird Tales, hoariest of the pulps, as a poor relation to ASF, but after Margulies Stories, he used the Stuart pseudonym to convince anyone that there was any conflict and it was still important to many at the formed an editorial partnership with Mort write with a more mature and literate voice. within the genre. Most fans greeted even Nycon. Virtually every working professional Weisinger (1915-1978), who knew both fan- He would also use the pen name Karl Van mediocre stories with rapt delight, eager for in the room owed their livelihood to the dom and the field, the quality of the fiction Campen, an homage to his paternal grand- any foray beyond the mundane. The proli- pulps. And though a number of present and improved. In January 1939, the bimonthly mother Florence. feration of pulp fiction magazines in the future editors were present in the Hall (and Thrilling Wonder began to alternate with a John and Dona Campbell’s first daughter, 1930s had included many titles devoted to several more were cooling their heels out- new title, Startling Stories, which also car- Philinda Duane Campbell Hammond was fantasy and speculation. And a whole new side), there was really one man who personi- ried on until 1955. When Weisinger left in born in August of 1940. Dona and little medium of story-telling – comic strips and fied the pulp establishment in the same way the summer of 1941, he was replaced by pulp “PeeDee” became very close with Leslyn comic books – was coming to life. It included that Campbell represented a new, more rigor- veteran Oscar J. Friend, who had more exper- Heinlein, the SF writer’s first wife, and little many fantastic and futuristic characters and ous style of science fiction. This was Leo ience with westerns. But Sam Merwin, who sister Leslyn Campbell Randazzo, born 1945, settings in series like Buck Rogers and Margulies (1900-1975), the “Little Giant of became editor in 1945, brought better fiction was named in her honor. (Philinda was Superman – people sometimes forget that the the Pulps.” to Startling Stories, and made some consider named for her paternal great-grandmother, latter is the story of an alien refugee on Earth, it a true rival to Astounding. Philinda Hubbard Campbell.) and certainly an archetype of SF. Aviation- The son of Romanian immigrants Jacob (Mort Weisinger left the pulps to work in John and Dona divorced in 1949. She re- themed fiction, much of it wildly speculative, and Esther Margulies, Leo was born and edu- comic books; he was one of a number of married in 1950, to the electrical engineer was popular enough to have its own sub- cated in Brooklyn, and briefly attended writers present at Nycon who would shape and frequent Astounding contributor George genre, one that attracted many readers also Columbia University, before taking a job many of the most classic characters of that Oliver Smith (1911-1981), who was a 1980 interested in science and the future. It would with the Munsey Publications chain, selling field’s golden age as well. But that is a story inductee to the First Fandom Hall of Fame. In have been easy to conclude that science subsidiary rights to their stories. He also best left for another chapter, very possibly 1950, John married Margaret “Peg” Winter fiction was thriving. opened his own literary agency, and in the titled “Weisinger’s Worldcon.”) Campbell Kearney (1907-1989), a native of Some fans, many of whom would later turn late 1920s was employed by Fox Pictures as Few of the pros in the room would have Lansing, Michigan; the two would remain into professional critics, had their reservations. their east coast head of research. While at credited the difference in editorial policies together until his death. The need to fill the pages of so many maga- Munsey, he was mentored by the legendary present as any kind of conflict beyond the The “Stuart” stories appeared exclusively zines every month meant that a certain adher- pulp editor Bob Davis (b. 1869), who had usual competition for readers and sales. Mos- in Astounding, under the editorship of ence to formula was accepted, by both editors worked with popular writers like Max Brand, kowitz and the triumvirate organized the Frederick Orlin Tremaine (1899-1956) since and the majority of readers. Characters of sig- Edgar Rice Burroughs and Ray Cummings. convention to celebrate the contemporary 1933, and Tremaine also commissioned a nificantly larger stature than one encounters in Notorious for his swift decisions to accept generation of science fiction writers; very clearly, Moskowitz wanted to be part of their Its contents: Nelson S. Bond (1908-2006), Ross Rock- issue of Wonder Stories Quarterly. Working number, and by many definitions he suc- “Black Destroyer,” A. E. Van Vogt lynne (1913-1988) and Nat Schachner (1895- on his own, Schachner also wrote under the ceeded. What probably was not appreciated “City of Cosmic Rays,” Nat Schachner 1955) were all established pros by 1939. names Chan Corbett and Walter Glamis. His by most of the people in the room was that “Greater than Gods” C. L. Moore Bond was raised in Philadelphia, and began transition from the “Superscience” era was another generation of writers was sitting in “Lightship Ho!” Nelson S. Bond his writing career reviewing plays for the imperfect at best, and “City of Cosmic Rays” the audience, and they would realize and “The Moth,” Ross Rocklynne Philadelphia Inquirer while still a high is a good explanation for Schachner’s impen- continue Campbell’s plan, for ASF and “Trends,” Isaac Asimov school student. He worked in journalism and ding exit from the genre. (He would later science fiction at large. “When the Half-Gods Go,” Amelia R. public relations concurrently with his fiction write a series of successful biographies of Long career, contributed to both the pulps and American historical figures.) Campbell took over Astounding Stories in “Black Destroyer,” was the first science “slick” fiction magazines, and later worked Bond and Rocklynne were both certainly September 1937, and his first issue is dated fiction sale for Alfred Elton Van Vogt (1912- in radio and television. He also became a in the room that afternoon for Campbell’s December of that year. In 1938, Street and 2000). A son of the Minnesota prairie, Van noted antiquarian bookseller. His story in the remarks; Schachner apparently was not. Smith agreed to change the name of the Vogt’s early life was peripatetic, as his July 1939 Astounding, “Lightship Ho!” Two other fiction writers appeared in the magazine to Astounding Science Fiction, a father, a lawyer, moved the family fre- included a problem with a scientific solution July ASF, but neither of them were present at title which it would retain until 1960, when quently. Van Vogt began writing for the designed to attract Campbell’s eye. His pro- the Nycon. Amelia Reynolds Long (1904- Campbell changed it again to Analog. He pulps, particularly True Confessions, in the tagonists are clever Campbell Competent 1978) was perhaps better known as a writer magnified Tremaine’s policy of publishing early 1930s. He was moved to try writing Men. But his villain, the improbably-named of mysteries, but she also published numer- “thought experiments” into the defining pur- science fiction by reading the 1938 issue of space pirate Red Armitage, would be consi- ous works of science fiction. Her story pose of the magazine, and shared a dialogue ASF that contained “Don Stuart”’s last story, dered mono-dimensional in a Flash Gordon “When the Half-Gods Go” is a sly tale of of ideas with his writers which had previ- “Who Goes There?” Inspired, he tried to serial. Still, “Lightship Ho!” is a step above colonialism on an improbably habitable ously driven his own work in fiction. That write something in a similar voice; “The typical pulp fare. planet Venus. Refreshingly, the Earthmen are came largely to an end as he became editor of Black Destroyer” was his second submission, Ross Rocklynne was the pseudonym of relatively respectful of the locals, while their ASF, although his single most famous story, and a memorable debut. Ross Louis Rocklin, a well-liked Ohio-born partners, the overbearing Martians, attempt “Who Goes There?” was not published until “Trends” was, by Isaac Asimov’s (1920- writer who worked hard at his craft, but never to impose their religious beliefs on the the January 1938 issue. The tale of an Ant- 1992) own reckoning, the tenth short story he found the fame or success that many of his Venusians, with self-destructive results. It is arctic research colony that discovers a shape- completed and the third to be published, but friends and contemporaries enjoyed. His a fun story, but more space-based fantasy shifting alien menace trapped in the ice, it has the first to appear in Astounding. (His previ- story “The Moth” is a tale of rivalry and than science fiction. been made into three feature films, and signi- ous efforts, “Marooned off Vesta” and “The espionage between two aerospace firms The last author was someone who was to ficant elements of it have appeared in numer- Weapon Too Dreadful To Use” had appeared struggling to build a space drive. Rock- be a critical participant in the impending ous other stories and features. It was also earlier that year in Amazing Stories.) It is an lynne’s narrative voice seems startlingly Golden Age, Catherine L. Moore (1911- anthologized repeatedly, and appears in ambitious piece of future history, told from contemporary, or at least like the model of an 1987). Moore is seldom referred to without several “Best Of” collections. In the wake of the perspective of a writer in the year 2008 “Analog-type story.” His characters include mentioning her husband and collaborator, sharing the story of his mother and her recalling the tumultuous struggle to reach strong and intelligent women, and he favors Henry Kuttner (1915-1958), but she had been “twin,” various analysts have found a parallel space in the 1970s. Asimov’s narrative and problem-solving over gunplay and other selling stories, particularly to Weird Tales between the alien’s ability to change its form descriptive skills were far from fully action. Only the ending seems a bit disap- editor Farnworth Wright (1888-1940), for and the confusion Campbell experienced at developed at this point, so “Trends” is hon- pointing, turning on ideas that were simply five years prior to her marriage to Kuttner. his mother’s behavior. It was a memorable estly rather clunky, and the villains all too wrong. Rocklynne continued to plug away The two met through their mutual coda to his career as a science fiction writer. pitiful in their opposition to progress. But it into the 1950s, then left the field for more participation in H.P. Lovecraft’s correspon- Campbell cultivated new contributors, but was still the kind of story that Campbell was than a decade. He had a brief comeback in the dence “Circle,” and their collaborations also published work by his established looking for. It portrayed the sciences in a 1970s, and his novelette “Ching Witch!” would include some of the signature stories colleagues, who often struggled to meet positive, almost messianic role, and sug- appeared in Harlan Ellison’s 1972 anthology of the wartime period. Campbell’s desire for realistic science and gested how foolish it would be to resist its Again, Dangerous Visions. But the story “Greater than Gods” is recognizable characters. Less than a month advances. As Asimov observed many years Nat Schachner was a lawyer by training, entirely Moore’s work, and it is quite unlike before the Nycon, the July 1939 issue of later, Campbell had been trained in the and he had begun writing in collaboration anything else in the issue, or really almost Astounding had appeared; many critics now scientific method, and was familiar with the with another pulp author who had left a any story of the period. Her protagonist is consider it one of the finest single issues of culture and customs of real scientists; and he career in the law, Arthur Leo Zagat (1896- both blessed and cursed with the ability to see any SF magazine ever published. Its contri- wanted writers to portray them so that they 1949). Zagat was remarkably prolific across with perfect clarity the future lives and butors were split between new authors (new might recognize themselves. And “Trends” several genres, and he and Schachner pub- characters of his possible offspring, to ASF, at least), and those who had been was the beginning of a writer/editor collab- lished eleven stories together, beginning with depending on what woman he chooses to working in the field for some time: oration that would last for years. “The Tower of Evil” in the Summer 1930 marry. Although it does not use the specific vocabulary we recognize today, this is a story present at the event. and Frank R. Paul was probably Abraham doubled” appeared in Astounding Science about genetic engineering, and also about There were several young writers at the Grace Merritt (1884-1943). A. Merritt was Fiction in 1938, and may be the earliest having the freedom to determine your bio- Nycon who would enter the Campbellian primarily employed as a journalist and editor, incidence of a temporal loop. His “Bullard of logical destiny in a way that few had sphere in the upcoming months. In addition one of the most popular in the country; in the Space Patrol” stories drew heavily on considered at the time. It also raises the to Asimov, and the teenaged Ray Bradbury 1919, he earned a remarkable $25,000. His Jameson’s service experience; they were possibility of multiple or alternate realities in and Harry Harrison, an extremely impressive first fantasy story, “Through the Dragon collected posthumously in 1951, and won a a very direct and emotional manner. 32-year-old L. Sprague de Camp was in the Glass,” appeared in Munsey’s All Story in Boys Club of America award. He published In his editorial to this superlative issue, hall. His credits were already sufficient to 1917. Novels like The Moon Pool (1918) and as many as 25 stories and essays in his peak Campbell followed his usual practice of induce Moskowitz to introduce him in the The Face in the Abyss (1923) influenced year of 1942, but his cancer eventually summarizing his research into one or more roll call of working fantasy and science virtually every writer working in the pulps. claimed him only seven years after his writ- scientific disciplines which had caught his fiction writers in the room. Julius Schwartz His large income allowed Merritt to explore ing career began. interest. He left assessments of his writers’ (1915-2004) had helped organize the con- world travel and exotic hobbies, such as cul- His younger brother, House Baker Jame- work to the fans, which populated the “Brass vention and was responsible the for the pro- tivating orchids and plants associated with son, was an actor on radio, the stage and on Tacks” column at the center of the magazine. gram book; he was another fan who would magic and witchcraft, including wolfsbane, television, working from the 1930s into the Titled “Addenda,” his editorial was a sequel become most famous for his work in comic monkshood, peyote and cannabis! late 1960s. His presence in New York pro- to his piece in the April issue titled “Jackpot,” books. He was also partnered with Mort Ray Cummings (1887-1957) was pro- bably inspired the Malcolm Jameson family which summarized the era’s rapidly changing Weisinger in a literary agency, the Solar bably the most prolific writer present, at least to relocate there from Texas in the 1930s. understanding of atomic energy. Enough Sales Service, that represented several to that point in time; he would publish more Alfred Bester wrote of meeting Jameson changes and corrections had come to Camp- writers at the convention. than 750 stories and novels in his career. His in 1939: "Mort Weisinger introduced me to bell’s attention since the April issue that he Ironically, there was possibly more future reputation among science fiction fans had the informal luncheon gatherings of the felt it was important to address them. And in talent excluded from entering the hall than been sealed with The Girl in the Golden working science fiction authors of the late his conclusion he offered this remarkable there was inside it. Six members of the Atom, written as a short story in 1919 and 1930s… Malcolm Jameson, author of navy- prediction: “The techniques needed for bal- Futurian group were explicitly barred subsequently expanded into a novel. By the oriented space stories, was there, tall, gaunt, ancing it at a commercial, useable level are because of a pamphlet prepared by David A. time Moskowitz introduced him, the program prematurely grey, speaking in slow, heavy not developed, but that is the province not of Kyle questioning the committee’s intentions seemed to stretch out to the horizon. tones. Now and then he brought along his the atomic physicist, but of a new technician and authority. Moskowitz attributed the work Cummings rose and acknowledged the pretty daughter, who turned everybody's yet to come, with a new type of Degree. The to his nemesis, Donald A. Wolheim (1914- applause with a wave, then sat back down head.” A. E. – the Atomic Engineer.” Few other 1990), and barred Wolheim and five of his again without saying a word. This was Vida Jameson Cartmill Skinner editors were even capable of knowing when companions from the con. Jack Gillespie, Several writers present were particular (1916-1988), who also happened to accom- they had made a technical error, let alone Cyril Kornbluth, Robert W. Lowndes, John fan favorites, including Edmond Hamilton pany her dad to the Nycon, and signed the explaining how the mistake was made in such Michel and Frederik Pohl were also (1907-1977), Harl Vincent (1893-1968) and registration sheet on the line below him. an entertaining manner. excluded. Pohl’s brother Julius was allowed Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986), who After high school, Vida attended college into the room, as was Kyle, who had anon- was already beginning to resemble a seer of while working part-time as a clerk for an Campbell could have easily made his case ymously started the commotion. So a antiquity in 1936. Raised in Portuguese West industrial firm. In 1944, she joined the for the future of science fiction by simply remarkable convergence of talent was left Africa by a missionary father, his life had Women’s Army Corps, but returned to handing a copy of the July ASF to everyone outside to greet their friends as they began contained events that seemed quite at home civilian life after the war. In 1949, she in Caravan Hall. But that would likely have their ascent to the fourth-floor auditorium. in pulp adventure. married SF author Cleve Cartmill (1908- been redundant, as almost every fan at the After a while, the excluded repaired to a Lex- Many names that are nearly forgotten 1964), whose collaboration with Campbell con would already have been familiar with its ington Avenue cafeteria, and it is an even- today were up and coming members of the we will consider further below. contents. money bet that they enjoyed themselves science fiction scene in 1939. One of the And the August issue of ASF was going to more than they would have at the convention. most interesting names on the Nycon regi- Things got underway at about 2:30 p.m. feature a new writer who would outshine Ray Bradbury referred to sharing conver- stration sheet is that of Malcolm Roush on the afternoon of Sunday, July 2nd. Mos- virtually anyone who had appeared in the sations with Henry Kuttner in his report on the Jameson (1891-1945). A native of Waco, kowitz opened the convention by observing magazine to date: Robert Anson Heinlein. convention, but if Kuttner was at Caravan Texas, Jameson was a career officer in the that science fiction fans were unique among Heinlein was not present at Nycon, but he did Hall, he avoided signing the registration sheet. United States Navy; Campbell claimed that followers of genre literature, because lovers apparently send the committee a dollar to All the writers and editors present who he “had much to do with the development of of western and detective fiction had yet to support their activities. Therefore, his name identified themselves as such were intro- modern naval ordnance.” He had taken up organize themselves in a similar way. He was added to the list of “Scientifictionists” duced to the audience by Moskowitz, and writing in his 40s, when complications from gave the floor to Will Sykora, who tried to printed in the official convention program, some of these were undeniably pioneers in throat cancer had limited his activity. His explain what the committee meant by creating the misapprehension that he was the field. The best-known pro after Campbell first published story “Doubled and Re- referring to itself as “New Fandom.” The response was apparently muted, but Camp- fainting and other spells in the stressful the appearance of new magazines, he other two-thirds. bell may have found it interesting, parti- environment of the Worldcon, as if the sheer declared. The two main types of readers at Dave Kyle finished the formal event by cularly when Sykora asserted that New intensity of his anticipation was more than he this time were those who were interested in speaking briefly on the progressive potential Fandom was “trying to bring Science Fiction could endure. ‘new ideas’ and those interested in ‘adven- of science fiction, then begged Moskowitz to to life.” When Paul finished his speech, the next ture on other planets’ as written by Wein- relent and allow the six excluded fans to The first person outside of the committee item was a showing of Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent baum. The present phase of science fiction, enter. Leslie Perri proposed the idea as a to be introduced by Moskowitz was Leo film Metropolis. Although the film was twelve he concluded, is characterized by new ideas formal motion, but Moskowitz replied that Margulies, “the editor of Thrilling Wonder years old, a significant percentage of the con- plus new and better characters. In the stories motions were not allowed at this convention, Stories.” Margulies expressed a gratifying vention had never seen it, and there was about Johnny, the bear, one of the new kinds and adjourned it, promising that the auction degree of admiration for the event and the applause at the end of the screening. The other of characters, the world is portrayed, said Mr. would follow shortly. And from the per- fans assembled for it. Julius Unger quoted picture to be shown was the 1925 silent version Campbell, not as human beings view it, but spective of most of the professionals in the him as remarking “I didn’t think you boys of The Lost World, starring Wallace Beery. In as Johnny, a non-human, sees it.” room, that was the end of the First World were so sincere.” Although it was only just 1939, operating a film projector capable of While Unger’s summary is a bit clumsy in Science Fiction Convention. getting underway, the success of the conven- playing sound was a complicated task gener- places, his transcription of Campbell seems After the program, John and Dona Camp- tion had made him see science fiction fans in ally undertaken by professionals like Bob perfectly congruent with the ideas and bell probably went somewhere to eat with a new and different light. Later, the corre- Tucker, and older, silent pictures were much policies the latter expressed as editor of ASF. one or more writers he wanted to talk to, and spondent from Time magazine, improbably more within the committee’s budget. Some years later, in his history of early fan- then almost surely caught a train back to their sent to cover the event, sought out Margulies After Metropolis, it was Campbell’s turn dom The Immortal Storm, Moskowitz home in Newark. With the Independence as one of the few recognizable faces in the to speak. It isn’t clear how much preparation recalled Campbell’s presentation this way: Day holiday falling on Tuesday, and having crowd. Margulies repeated his assessment of he had put into his presentation – it was “…John Campbell of Astounding spoke given up a Sunday for what was unques- the convention, but when published in Time, extemporaneous enough that he made ref- next on ‘The Changing Science Fiction.’ He tionably work, its likely he didn’t return to it read “I didn’t think anyone could be so erence to Metropolis and other elements of pointed to Metropolis as an example to show the office until Wednesday the 5th. sincere,” which might come closer to his real the program just completed. But he also pre- how science fiction was advancing. He com- feelings. sented a summary of the history of science pared the crude description accompanying the Having made his ambitions for the field Next, pro Kenneth Sterling read a letter fiction up to that point, as well as some of the early science fiction character Hawk Carse known to anyone who would read or listen to from Donald Wandrei about the upcoming ways he wanted to change it. In his review of with that utilized in present-day stories. Camp- him, Campbell would realize most of them H.P. Lovecraft omnibus. Then Moskowitz the event, Julius Unger wrote: bell stated that science fiction must continually over the next six years, roughly the same introduced the convention’s Guest of Honor, “John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of advance, and that there be no holes in the years that spanned the Second World War. the artist Frank R. Paul. Paul was eager for Astounding Science Fiction, traced the development of plot and story; and his Wartime shortages made publishing a the opportunity to address his fans, and had history of science fiction from the period of magazine, he declared, was dedicated to magazine challenging, but the war was also prepared a speech titled “Science Fiction and the first issue of Amazing Stories, until the presenting 'modern' types of science fiction the most intense episode of rapid techno- the Spirit of Youth.” Most observers charac- present. Before the first issue of Amazing and keeping abreast of the times.” logical development in history, and “new terize this presentation as “long,” but given Stories came out, said Campbell, there were If Campbell actually praised Metropolis ideas” became a matter of national security. that the entire program barely lasted as long no science fiction magazines and no regular as Moskowitz states, it is a little ironic that a Campbell’s success in collecting the most as Philip Jose Farmer’s speech at the 1968 science fiction writers. The first few issues of film released in Amazing’s second year of creative new and established writers to his Worldcon, standards may have been some- Amazing had, for the most part, reprints of publication was an example of how SF was magazine was like a vindication of the faith what different in 1939. Dave Kyle later the Jules Verne, Edgar Allen Poe and H. G. evolving, but that’s just a quibble. If there that the first generation of science fiction fans fantasized that Paul might have been talking Wells classics, he stated. The stories tended was a fight brewing over the future of science had held for the future of the field. By the about the Exclusion Act in his endorsement to be fantasy rather than science fiction, he fiction, Campbell was ready to win it, while summer of 1939, Campbell had purchased of fannish youth, but there’s no real evidence asserted. After Amazing had been on the Margulies and his colleagues were barely the first SF stories by Lester Del Rey, Robert that Paul even knew about it – the short plea newsstands for some time, continued Camp- aware that the fight was even happening. Heinlein, Ted Sturgeon and A. E. Van Vogt, from Kyle and Leslie Perri to allow the bell, new American authors and new ideas After Campbell finished his presentation, and he attracted favorite pros including de excluded to enter did not come until near the appeared. E. E. Smith, he said, was the first to Mort Weisinger got up and told some humor- Camp, L. Ron Hubbard, Murray Leinster, end of the program. introduce atomic power to science fiction. ous stories about the way some science Clifford Simak and Jack Williamson. Several Sometime during the first ninety minutes The ‘rocket ship’ was ‘another entirely new fiction pros had entered the field, and then of Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore’s best of the meeting, Campbell’s wife Dona noted idea.’ Astounding came on the field in 1930, Will Sykora introduced the other 18 to 20 collaborative stories also appeared in ASF in that Forry Ackerman was looking pale and Campbell told the audience. Characters were professional writers and editors in the room. the early 1940s. unhappy; he later gratefully noted that the introduced at the time. Action on other Then another two dozen or more well-known For roughly the first eight to ten years of aspirin she offered him was exactly what he planets was developed to a ‘further extent’ fans were also introduced. By the end, at least his work at Astounding, Campbell had no real needed. Ackerman had a propensity for than ever before. The next period began with a third of the room had been applauded by the competition for the more cerebral areas of the fantasy fiction field. That certainly ended editing The Magazine of Fantasy and Science moving to rural New Mexico had already and the community of authors worthy of his with the advent of The Magazine of Fantasy Fiction in 1949. H. L. Gold was even more indicated to him that the government attention shrank as the field burgeoned with in 1949 and Galaxy Science Fiction in 1950, openly imitative in editing Beyond Fantasy probably had some very technical project new voices in the 1960s. but the field also evolved away from the Fiction, which published ten issues between underway there. Many would claim that Campbell had not magazine to the paperback following the end 1953 and 1955. The mentoring, paternal manner and the actually changed at all in more than three of World War II. Campbell’s passion for futurism and tech- seeding of story ideas that made Campbell so decades of editing ASF. He had always been He had muddied the waters himself by nology was irrepressible. Street and Smith effective in his first decade as the editor of ASF overbearing, a lecturer and monologist. He introducing his own fantasy-heavy magazine, convinced him to edit a hobby aviation and gradually became more and more autocratic as had a distrust of socialism that deepened into Unknown, in March, 1939. Campbell’s model airplane magazine in September 1946, science fiction grew far beyond the linear paranoia with the passage of time, and object there was to publish the kind of Air Trails Pictorial. In the November issue, problem-solving stories he favored most. equally little patience with Freud and modern sophisticated fantasy tales that appeared in he published a long article on rockets in Despite his avowed preference for concrete psychoanalysis – both swept aside by Dia- “slick” mainstream magazines like Collier’s space flight, by Willy Ley; by January 1947, fiction describing the exploits of Competent netics, of course. But it could also be argued Weekly. But what he produced was a new he had changed the title to Air Trails and Men, Campbell was prone to belief in that he was the dictator that science fiction strain of fantasy that was just as inventive as Science Frontiers. It was passed on to pseudoscience, particularly extra-sensory and wanted at the end of the pulp era, then the science fiction in ASF. another, more terrestrial editor in 1948. “psi” powers. As an undergraduate at Duke populated by cardboard characters and Before wartime paper shortages forced Campbell was also a dedicated ham radio University, he had been aware of the work perpetually turning on technical miracles him to fold Unknown in 1943, Campbell hobbyist, call sign W2ZGU, and he wrote done by Dr. Robert Rhine in the Para- with no relationship to reality. published many of the stories that made L. material on technical aspects of radio for a psychology laboratory, and would refer to it in Isaac Asimov, who credited Campbell Sprague de Camp a favorite in the field, variety of magazines. the story “Who Goes There?” He encouraged with the generation of the Three Laws of including “The Wheels of If” (October The most notorious example of Campbell’s his writers to incorporate these ideas into Robotics, among many other devices, had an 1940), “Lest Darkness Fall” (December attempts to plant ideas about contemporary stories, and some complied. The history of apostolic reverence for his contribution. In 1939), and “Nothing in the Rules” (July scientific advances with his writers came with Hubbard’s “Dianetics” began with an article his introduction to “The Father of Science 1939). De Camp’s collaborations with Cleve Cartmill’s story “Deadline,” published that appeared in Astounding in 1949, and Fiction,” Asimov wrote: "By his own Fletcher Pratt, “The Roaring Trumpet” and in the March 1944 issue of ASF. In 1943, which Campbell assured his readers was one of example and by his instruction and by his “The Mathematics of Magic,” were com- Cartmill approached Campbell with the idea of the most important ever published. Although undeviating and persisting insistence, he bined into The Incompleat Enchanter (1941), writing a story about the building of a futuristic his interest did not propel him into the nascent forced first Astounding and then all science probably the single most popular fantasy super-bomb, and Campbell enthusiastically Church of Scientology, Campbell did claim to fiction into his mold. He abandoned the novel written in the United States since the encouraged Cartmill, providing him with have positive results from the techniques earlier orientation of the field. He demolished days of Baum and Burroughs. Many of excerpts from articles proposing the fission of Hubbard described. the stock characters who had filled it; Campbell’s regular “stable” of writers also Uranium-235. The story was so heavy with While these excursions did not elicit the eradicated the penny dreadful plots; extir- contributed to Unknown, including Heinlein, technical detail that it barely worked as a same storm of contempt that greeted Ray pated the Sunday-supplement science. In a Kuttner, Sturgeon and Jack Williamson. L. narrative, but it caught the attention of the Palmer’s publication (in the pages of Amazing phrase, he blotted out the purple of pulp. Ron Hubbard contributed some of his most intelligence service, which wondered how Stories) of Richard Shaver’s delusion-induced Instead, he demanded that science fiction famous works to Unknown, including “Fear” Cartmill had come so close to describing what tales of Lemurian midgets living beneath our writers understand science and understand and “Slaves of Sleep” in 1939, and “Type- was going on in Los Alamos, New Mexico, at feet, they did serve to erode Campbell’s people, a hard requirement that many of the writer in the Sky” in 1940. A. E. Van Vogt’s the same time. reputation, particularly among the writers who established writers of the 1930s could not “The Book of Ptath” first appeared in The FBI interviewed Cartmill and Camp- worked with him. In the 1950s, Campbell meet. Campbell did not compromise because Unknown, as did the first stories to feature bell, and investigated several of their friends, spent increasing amounts of energy and time of that: those who could not meet his require- Fritz Leiber’s characters Fafhrd and the Grey including Asimov and Heinlein. At first, they preparing his editorials, often taking positions ments could not sell to him, and the carnage Mouser. Leiber’s story “Conjure, Wife,” has demanded the issue be pulled off the news- guaranteed to garner a wealth of angry letters was as great as it had been in Hollywood a inspired at least four feature films and three stands, but Campbell convinced them that from both fans and professionals. His views on decade before, while silent movies had given TV series, and was first published in the this would only draw greater attention to its race now seem particularly problematic, if not way to the talkies.” April 1943 issue. contents. They concluded that Campbell and contemptible; he opined that slavery is and has While it was widely acknowledged that There was an effort to refloat the maga- Cartmill were loyal Americans, but requested been the natural state of the majority of his art was much diminished from its war- zine after the war, and an anthology, From that they refrain from writing any further humanity across history, and spoke favorably time heyday, and that ASF was a shadow of Unknown Worlds, that appeared in 1948, but stories about nuclear technology for the dura- of George Wallace’s segregationist run for the its former splendor, Campbell was still nothing else emerged. Anthony Boucher was tion. Cartmill was largely embarrassed by U. S. presidency in 1968. When readers con- lionized by fandom as it expanded its institu- also a contributor, and it was partly the desire how bad the story was; he referred to it as demned his views, he took credit for stimu- tions in the postwar decades. When the Hugo to fill the void left by the demise of Unknown “that stinker.” Campbell did not tell the FBI lating them into reply. He was less accepting of award was introduced, Campbell won the that led him and J. Francis McComas to begin that the sudden cluster of ASF subscribers contradiction from the writers he worked with, prize as Best Editor eight times between 1952 and 1964. The Hugo for Best Professional Century literature across all genres. Some- Magazine was bestowed between 1953 and what confusingly, two annual awards are 1972; Astounding/Analog won the award named after him, the John W. Campbell seven times. Award for Best New Writer, and the John W. The most ironic example of Campbell’s Campbell Memorial Award, which recog- resistance to prevailing opinion was his nizes the year’s best science fiction novel passionate rejection of the health risks asso- published in English. ciated with tobacco, particularly cigarettes. I appreciate all that Campbell did, but He denounced the connection between smok- might admire the writers who had to work ing and cancer as “esoteric,” and remained with him just a little more. Still, if there is skeptical right up to his death from lung ever to be a true Science Fiction Hall of Fame cancer in 1971. – a brick and mortar building dedicated to the While critics characterized Campbell’s celebration of the genre and no other style as reactionary, and justifiably claimed purpose, like similar institutions in Coopers- he came to resist the “new ideas” he had town and Cleveland – then mark me down as solicited so passionately in 1939, he is still voting to build it in Newark, New Jersey. regarded by many as having been the pre- eminent science fiction editor of all time, and —Andy Hooper one of the most important figures in mid-20th

In the late 1970s, when I lived in London, could only belong to Alastair Cooke. I would much of my time was spent working for the have given up the studio anyway, but not to British Broadcasting Corporation, either as a surrender it to the face and voice that critic on its arts programs or, periodically, as launched uncounted editions of Masterpiece a producer of documentaries. One day, while Theatre verged on the unthinkable. I was compiling one of these in the subterra- Before I was halfway out of my chair, his nean depths of the BBC’s headquarters, producer was leaning over my shoulder and Broadcasting House, a man stuck his head talking to Glasgow. At the other end of the around the door. line, a voice aged in single malt and raised to “Sorry to bother you,” he said, trying not the sound of bagpipes was saying, “We have to sound desperate, “but I’m producing an Alastair Cooke…” (In thick Glaswegian, his interview next door for Radio Scotland and surname emerged as “Kewk”) “…on the line our studio has crashed. Could we possibly from London…” use yours?” But Cooke wasn’t listening. Instead, he As he spoke, a famous face appeared in was saying to me, “Now you’re quite sure the door behind him. The slicked-down white this is all right?” hair and expression of genial abstraction “Of course,” I said, “A pleasure.”

—18— I held out the earphones which he’d need narrow thoroughbred head. day to Friday, a procession of soaps marched A lifetime of Chesterfields (an addiction to hear Glasgow, but he didn’t take them. “…erm…,” he said again, as if pondering through the living rooms of the nation, each that finally killed him) had cured Conover’s Instead he fumbled in the pockets of his the question. Staring into the middle dis- sponsored by some deep-pocketed manu- husky baritone to the suppleness of an old baggy tweed suit. tance, he went on, “…one might say…” facturer. The night was for game shows, with tobacco pouch. His nocturnal murmur, as “It really is extremely good of you…” he Taking another drag on the cigarette, he laid Sunday night reserved for an amateur hour of instantly recognizable as Charlie Parker’s said. it on the ashtray with the deliberation of a the kind pioneered on NBC by Major alto sax or Billie Holiday’s voice, articulated By now, the presenter in Glasgow was golfer addressing a 30-foot putt. “…that I Edward Bowes. On weekends, sport took like no other the sadness of that “dark night asking her first question and the producer, don’t so much write a book…” His left hand over, with blow-by-blow descriptions of of the soul” where, as Scott Fitzgerald wrote, having vacated the chair at the console, was adjusted the headphones while the right cricket, football, tennis and, particularly “it is always 3 a.m.” Augmented by Bill shifting his weight from foot to foot like a reached again for the cigarette. “…as the tedious, horse-races. Evans playing In Your Own Sweet Way or schoolboy in need of a bathroom. book writes…er…” The comedy shows so central to thirties Peggy Lee singing Black Coffee (“Feeling Cooke found what he was looking for, a Writes me, everyone in the studio sub- American broadcasting were regarded as too mighty lonesome, haven’t slept a wink…”), pack of Winstons, extracted one, put it vocalized. Writes me. But Cooke just let the specialized for Australians. It was years before melancholy had no more lulling medicine. between those famous lips, and patted his pause build while he took another drag. I became acquainted with Fibber McGee and Almost unknown in the United States, pockets for a lighter. “…that, as I say,” he went on, expelling Molly, Amos and Andy, Burns and Allen, and Conover was a celebrity in eastern Europe, Through the earphones, Edinburgh was the smoke, “that, well, that a book….” Jack Benny. Instead, the ABC broadcast where to tune in to his program was an act of asking “…gave you the idea?” Had it been anyone else, we’d have dis- English programs, notably the surrealist Goon revolt. When he made a private visit to In the expectant silence that followed, missed this rambling as the noise of one Show. Trying to reconcile the anarchic humor Poland, mobs greeted him at the airport. As Cooke slowly lit his cigarette as the producer marble rolling around a cranium from which of Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan with the he was driven through Warsaw in an open guided him to his seat. the others had long since escaped. Instead, formula heroics of Batman and Robin probably car, crowds lined the streets and cheered. I “…erm…” he said, loud enough for the every “er” and “erm” implied careful accounts for the bemused state in which I assumed he was sui generis. Certainly he questioner to hear. Subsiding into the chair, thought. If Pinter was the prince of the pause, stumbled through adolescence. had no rivals in Australian radio, where he took a long drag. Cooke was its king. Almost nobody programmed jazz on admiration was reserved for commentators “…ah, well…” he continued, looking Long before television arrived in Australia, Australian radio. For that, we looked to who could gabble out at machine-gun speed around abstractedly. Guessing what he I was a creature of radio, drawn to the waist- shortwave and the Voice of America. Not an account of a horse race. After them came needed, I plonked an ashtray in front of him. high walnut-veneered console in the corner of then outed as a CIA front, the VOA broadcast the actors who played private eyes and super- For a moment, I thought he might get up and the living room. Let my school friends race Music USA, a nightly two hours of jazz, half heroes in radio drama. But if we expected to start thanking me again, but his professional around in the sun, pursuing various species of New Orleans and blues, the rest devoted to hear Orson Welles deliver his famous incan- instinct kicked in. ball. I wandered in a world of rumbling bass the moderns. My adolescence passed to the tation “The weed of crime bears bitter fruit. All broadcasters shun “dead air,” the voices and mysterious locales, of infinitely growl and moan of Duke Ellington, Theloni- Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of aural equivalent of an actor “corpsing,” when prolonged family sagas, spasmodic comedy, ous Monk’s enigmatic noodling, and an men? The Shadow knows!” we were in for a the illusion of communication is dispelled and, later in adolescence, of jazz. edgily precise Art Pepper, Chet Baker, Shelly disappointment. Rather than use the origi- and the audience realizes something has gone For a time, I flirted with taking a job in Manne and Milton “Shorty” Rogers, embodi- nals, penny-pinching producers bought the wrong. Better to mouth gibberish than to say radio, and, at sixteen, even tried out as an ments of Californian cool. scripts and had Australian performers re- nothing. Of the many broadcasting arts, that announcer for the government-funded Each track on Music USA was patiently record them. of flirting with dead air but averting it is Australian Broadcasting Commission. The annotated by presenter Willis Conover in his Jumping at this lucrative gig, local actors among the hardest to learn. (On stage, Harold text they gave me to read, notwithstanding “Special English,” a style of speech slowed never anticipated the effect on their other Pinter turned pauses into an art. Asked how the scatter of foreign words and such pro- to a crawl for the benefit of his core audience; work. One took time off from playing a radio the anniversary of his death should be nunciation traps as “psittacosis,” posed no not we Anglophones, but middle Europeans super-hero to appear on stage in Hamlet. At marked, fellow playwright Alan Bennett sug- difficulties. Harder to remedy was my lack of and Russians with limited English. In his his first matinee, attended mainly by high gested two minutes’ silence.) One of radio’s the deep, resonant voice regarded as essential deliberate diction, names unfolded like Ch- school kids studying the play, he’d barely most famous pauses appears in the Jack for classic radio. But so few boys considered inese paper flowers dropped into water. I spoken a line before the whole audience, Benny sketch in which a thief demands of the a career in broadcasting that the Commission suspect he programmed certain tracks inten- recognizing his voice, shouted “Superman!” famously stingy Benny “Your money or your offered me a job as a trainee producer. I tionally. How else to explain his relish in He never regained control. Worse, rowdies in life!” After milking the pause for every laugh refused. Even at sixteen, I knew that if you identifying Dizzy Gillespie’s Night in Tuni- the front rows, testing his invulnerability, it’s worth, Benny responds testily, “I’m were not on the air, you were nothing. sia as “Night…in…Too…nees…ia” and pelted him with candy. One of them, having thinking it over.” Australian radio mostly replicated that of lingering over the name of an obscure New smuggled in a slingshot, loaded it with a I should have known better than to fear America in the thirties and forties. Aside Orleans bass player so that it emerged as Jaffa, a sphere of ball-bearing-hard chocolate such a solecism from Cooke. Reaching for from the ABC, every station subsisted on “Al…cide… ’Sloooow Drag’ Pav… armored in a candy shell. Choosing a the headphones, he eased them over that commercials. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mon- a…geau.”? moment in mid-soliloquy, he let fly at the bulge in Hamlet’s tights. Halfway through brain lavishly stocked with the lore of what used to be called a “girlie” magazine. In calling from his car claimed special know- the first line of “Oh, that this too too sullied popular culture. time, he hired me to write for it also. Mostly ledge of the future Duchess of Windsor’s flesh…” the man said “Awk!” and doubled “Oh, sure. Conover,” Ron said. “He was I fabricated bios for the young women who shady Shanghai past. As he started to explain, over. Hilarity ensued as, clutching the injured a fan. Very big before the war.” lounged through its pages in advanced states his voice broke up. The last the writer heard area and muttering curses never imagined by “An sf fan?” of undress. The imagination with which I was a faint “I’ll call you when I get out of this Shakespeare, the Prince of Denmark hobbled “Yeah. Had a ‘zine. Science Fantasy embroidered the lives of these moonlighting tunnel.” He never did. into the wings. Correspondent. Pal of Lovecraft’s. They typists and wannabee actresses equaled any- Talk-back induced its own special It never occurred to me that radio might wrote dozens of letters back and forth.” thing concocted for John Campbell. Years surrealism. One novelist, ready to field intersect with science fiction, nor that I’d “H.P. Lovecraft?” later, living in Los Angeles, I got to know queries about political chicanery in the rural learn this because of the Cuban missile crisis. “Is there another one?” another BNF, Bill Rotsler. By then a semi- south, the topic of his book, was asked by the When, in October 1962, Americans opened Could a man who discoursed on Black invalid, marooned in a disordered bungalow first caller where he could buy the left- their papers to read of US Navy ships halting Bottom Stomp as performed by Jelly Roll in suburban Reseda, Bill supplemented his handed scissors briefly mentioned in his text. Soviet freighters off Havana, many packed a Morton and his Red Peppers also find room veteran’s pension doing more or less the A second caller rang with the name of a local bag, grabbed their families, and made for the in his brain for the eldritch ramblings of same job, though his subjects were the shop that sold them, and a third with an anec- airport. Some didn’t even bother with lug- Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath? I could women who worked the phone sex lines – yet dote about an ancestor wounded while trim- gage or loved ones, checking in at Idlewild in feel my horizons widening by the minute. more night voices, solitaries reaching out in ming his toenails at Second Manassas. robe and pyjamas. The majority bought one- “I never heard Conover,” Ron went on, the dark. Doing radio interviews in England for a way tickets to Australia, Stanley Kramer’s “but in New York we had Long John Nebel. I never expected to be anything more than memoir about my passion for collecting film of On the Beach having convinced them And Ken Nordine, of course, in Chicago.” a listener and occasional contributor to radio, books, I found myself asked to value rarities that the atomic cloud arrived there last. (Ava When I looked blank, he prompted, “Word but as the budget for promoting books dwin- described by callers. “Hold it closer to the Gardner, the film’s love interest, was quoted Jazz?” dled, along with the number of bookshops phone,” I joked. But demands for valuations as saying that Kramer, in selecting Australia Nordine, a late-night Chicago dj, fortu- ready to host readings and signings, getting jammed the switchboard, and a couple of as the setting for the end of the world, had nately committed some of his pieces to disc. one’s work before the public was increas- stations asked me back to repeat the chosen perfectly. A journalist actually in- As a jazz group played discreetly in the back- ingly left to writers. As Truman Capote’s put performance. vented the quote, but Ms. Gardner never ground, he spun Bradbury-esque fables and it succinctly, “a boy’s gotta hustle his book.” Both Britain’s BBC and the Australian repudiated it.) nocturnal fantasies. One of his most Radio and TV, though effective pro- ABC used to offer writers the superficially One of these fugitives was Ron Smith, a memorable pieces began with a raid on his motional tools, had their booby traps. There tempting prospect of an entire afternoon Hugo winner for his fanzine Inside Science refrigerator in search of a late-night snack. was the bored host/hostess who’d read being interviewed on line by a succession of Fiction. Ron confounded my image of the His intimate murmur echoed Willis Con- neither the book nor anything about it, but regional affiliates. Locked in a closet-sized Big Name Fan. Short, balding, with pop eyes over’s celebrations of Parker and Ellington. just worked methodically through the list of studio with nothing but a microphone and a behind bottle-bottom spectacles, he had a It seemed that science fiction, jazz and radio questions on the publisher’s fact sheet. One carafe of tepid water, one repeated the same casual interest in sf but far greater enthusiasm had more in common than one might think. quickly learned not to anticipate Question #5 interview a dozen times. Technical glitches for comic books and the humor of Harvey Digging through the local library of the and answer it at the same time as Question came as welcome relief – though not the Kurtzman as exhibited in the magazines United States Information Service, presum- #4, since we would surely find ourselves occasion when I overheard the host and Mad, Humbug and Help! Once the crisis ably another spook front, I discovered answering it all over again. another guest, not realizing the line was open, was defused, Ron decided to stay. We Edward R. Murrow’s reports from blitzed Appearing on talk-back radio, one scornfully demolishing my book. became friends, and even, as “Martin Loran” London, Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre learned to dread the phrase, “Our lines are People who know of my enthusiasm for – our middle names – collaborated on a and its alumni, including Will Geer and open.” If you were a biographer and your radio often say “Well, you must be a fan of couple of stories for Analog. Ron also took Martin Gabel, and William Conrad, the voice subject lived anywhere within a thousand Garrison Keillor.” I wouldn’t go that far. His charge of my cultural education, which he of Sheriff Dillon in Gunsmoke. The phy- miles, at least one neighbor or acquaintance novel WLT; A Radio Romance is a favorite, felt had been neglected. As we got to know siques of radio voices seldom square with the would call with a rambling reminiscence, or but its fanciful picture of a mid-thirties one another, he confessed that, during his characters they play. Far from leaping tall a former associate with a grievance. Promot- midwestern station, like his reconstructions Brooklyn childhood, a neighbor regularly buildings with a single bound, the roly-poly ing my biography of Stanley Kubrick, I was of period broadcasts on A Prairie Home invited him into his basement to watch porn Gabel and almost spherical Conrad would harangued on air by a woman claiming her Companion, is more parody than homage. films. Ron insisted the man never molested not have made it up a flight of stairs. This father had never been recompensed for his I’ve twice attended live broadcasts of the him. He just wanted company, and enjoyed disparity also amused Woody Allen. In his work on one of his films, and held me Companion, once in a rundown Berkeley hall the role of teacher – one that Ron replicated film Radio Days. The Masked Avenger, hero responsible by proxy. for a hundred or so people, the other before with me. of a radio serial, is played by short, balding Sometimes the callers claimed to have two thousand in a sold-out Broadway theater. I don’t remember how Willis Conover’s Wallace Shawn. new information. As one biographer dis- At neither event did Keillor’s off-handed and name came up, but it tripped a switch in a In time, Ron became deputy editor of cussed his life of Wallis Simpson, a man affectless spinning of tall tales ever falter, nor did he for a moment step out of character. chorus of “Shut up, you fool!” Performance art, pastiche, taxidermy perhaps They were right, of course. Radio, of all – but not radio. media the one most dependent on a sense of I did eventually become a producer, edit- the clandestine, should have honored their ing and presenting a weekly book program of secrecy. As a poacher turned gamekeeper, I the sort on which I’d so often contributed. was caught between two worlds, an uncom- With a sense of reaffirming the traditional fortable role from which I was glad in the end affinity with sf, I scheduled a segment on to retreat back into the shadows. Perhaps “slash fiction,” amateur porn devoted to what I disliked about Prairie Home Com- relationships between same-sex couples in panion was Keillor’s public performances. such series as Starsky and Hutch, Cagney and To work at all, radio requires intimacy and a Lacey, and, of course, Star Trek. Writers and sense of inclusion. An anonymous script- readers of such stories – called “slash” from writer on the original series of The Shadow the line customarily used to separate the articulated it well. “Never seen, only heard, names, e.g., Randall/Hopkirk – emerged as haunting to superstitious minds as a ghost, from the closet to explain the appeal of Spock as inevitable as a guilty conscience.” And and Kirk as lovers. Listener reaction to the Damon Knight, describing Ray Bradbury, program, unexpectedly large, consisted, called him “the isolated spark of con- more or less equally, of parents of adoles- sciousness, awake and alone at midnight.” cents and members of the slash community. We of the dark know that feeling well. The former requested lists of titles with which to scour the shelves of their children, —John Baxter while from the slashers there was a concerted My brother Ron died a couple of years the Old Man; they were both randy hustlers. ago, and ever since his memory has been Phil, brother number three, was born on haunting me like Marley’s ghost in Dickens. Columbus Day and took off for Ohio. The Like Marley, you could say he was a good two lesser brothers, Craig and Jeff, weren’t man of business, but I think he was a victim born on any special days. But our sister Pam, of capitalism, too. He gave it more love than the last to arrive, restored the record by being he gave to women and it betrayed him several born on Father’s Day, which made Dad times over. I’ve struggled with how I should pretty happy, because he’d always wanted a present his life story or if I should at all. girl instead of the kennel of dirty boys he’d Much of it was not edifying, and much of been stuck with. what I remember is unflattering. It’s perhaps In the beginning, when it was just the four unfortunate that I can’t raise him from the of us (Mom, Dad, Ron and myself) we lived dead to fact-check my version of his life. I’m in a basement apartment in a house on West sure his version would be different from Ferry Street, Detroit, Michigan. I don’t have mine. Not that it would be any more reliable. any memories from that time. Not a one. Zip. Bullshit is strong in our family and especially Mom says I was always trying to escape the in Ron. He was sort of a black sheep, but I basement and she had to keep a constant eye guess he had his good side, too. Others have on me. She also says I once tipped over Ron’s thought so. Our sister Pam, for example, once highchair while he was in it. An early expres- said he made a lot of ugly girls happy. sion of sibling rivalry, I suppose. A little mooring is necessary to get this In effect, our life really began in the story off to a start: I was born in 1946 and 1950s, when the family had grown a little Ron a year later. I was born on Mother’s Day bigger and we moved out to the suburbs, to a and I like to think I take after my mother, a town called Lincoln Park. It was a bit down- kind and compassionate woman. Ron was river, as they say, from Detroit and not an born on our father’s birthday and took after especially new town. I can remember seeing

—24— a lot of old Art Deco-style buildings with bees, wasps and yellow jackets. It was a har- capitalism. The ad was festooned with around in his living room. Tim was a nice cube glass windows around town – mostly binger of the soon-to-be lifelong history of pictures of the prizes you could win: wrist guy, sort of a sensitive lad, you know? Well, bars – and the school where we endured physical problems he would later fall prey to: watches, transistor radios, BB guns, bicycles, I expected that all of Ron’s friends (and kindergarten and the first couple of grades sports injuries, kidney disease, Lupus and an etc., and promised there was no risk in- maybe him, too) were going to end up with was a gloomy old institutional building from undescended testicle. We both also got volved, because people would buy these prison records. Ironically, none of them ever the twenties or thirties, kind of like the impetigo at the same time, probably because seeds no problem. Then you could either got into any serious trouble and later became schools the Dead End Kids used to go to. it’s contagious and we were sleeping together. keep a percentage of the take or turn the pillars of the community (except for the ones However, by the time third grade came We were a large family in a small house, money in for the prizes, which was sort of who went to Vietnam and never returned, of around that old school had been torn down so we had to double up. It is always hard for like buying them via arbitrage. Furthermore, course). On the other hand, Tim and two of and replaced by an A&P market. Our new two little boys to share the same bed. We’d the ad promised there was no risk involved, my other friends got caught breaking into a grade school was closer to where we lived lie awake for hours, arguing about this and because you could return whatever you gas station and were sent to reform school. and thoroughly modern and had brand new that and regularly exchanging blows. Of didn’t sell. There were a couple of problems Now let’s jump ahead to the year 1966, asbestos ceiling tiles, under which we spent course, we fought a lot outside of bed, too. I with that, though. First, nobody wanted to because it’s significant. I had been in the many years getting an education. The sub- was the oldest and Ron the second oldest, and buy seeds from a kid knocking on their door Army for a couple of years by then and was division where our house was located was as such he was always trying to challenge my while Milton Berle was on, but to return back home on leave when I heard that the SF brand new, too – one of those Levittowns, status as the Alpha Kid. We were sort of like them, you had to pay postage, which repre- Worldcon was going to be held in Cleveland you know? The road in front of our house the crew on a Klingon spaceship, where the sented a loss right there. Well, someone had that weekend. Ron overheard me bemoaning wasn’t even paved until a couple of years second-in-command was always trying to to pay the postage, but Dad wouldn’t, so for the fact that I’d never been to a Worldcon and later. It was just covered in gravel and a truck knock off the Captain. At some point, I years we had these boxes of seeds stacked up that this one was so close yet so far away, so used to come by once in a while and sprayed started making up little stories off the top of in a corner of the basement. The company, of he offered to drive us there. Ron wasn’t a fan, oil on it to keep the dust down. There was a my head while we were lying in bed at night, course, sent Ron dunning notices from time but as he’d never been out of the metro nearby laundromat that had a vending about Sammy the Silly Sapsucker. He to time to return them or pay up, but even- Detroit area himself, he was up for an adven- machine that sold soft drinks for a nickel and seemed to like them and was making me tell tually they stopped. ture. Besides, he was probably curious about had magazines in the lobby. A bunch of us more, which I did until I dried up. Sadly, I As we approached our teen years, Ron what kind of freaks SF fans were, anyway. (there were other kids in our life by now) don’t remember even one of those stories. I and I weren’t as close as we had been before So Worldcon: You’d think that my first used to hang out there, drinking Cokes and didn’t even know what a sapsucker was. It’s and had formed separate friendships. Ron SF con would have made a big impression on reading Life until the management got tired just that I liked alliteration. had taken up with some of the local hoods – me, and it sort of did, but after all these years, of our loitering and kicked us out. It was flat- But childhood innocence (if there even is a few of whom were bullies who’d formerly I don’t remember that much about it, except tened by a tornado a few years later (that such a thing) passes quickly. A scandal tormented me in grade school, so naturally I that I got to see Isaac Asimov, John Campbell would have been in 1956) and replaced by an erupted in our neighborhood when some gave them a wide berth. He was starting to and Forry Ackerman, albeit from a distance. Army surplus store. That was also the year boys lured a couple of little girls into the act a little thuggish, too, and still trying to But the most prominent memory I took away the movie Rhodan came out. woods and coaxed them into pulling down unseat me as the Alpha Child. Around about with me was of Gene Roddenberry dis- At first, there were a lot of small wooded their underwear and showing their privates. this time, he got into Little League Football playing the pilot of that new TV show, Star areas and empty fields surrounding our sub- They did this more than once, and when they and put on a little muscle, but while he was in Trek. I must admit I wasn’t that impressed, division, most of which were developed were caught by an adult it caused an uproar Little League he received a knee injury that but what do I know? Gene brought two away before we got into high school. They all over the neighborhood. I was just about would (interestingly enough) pay off big for models with him. One was of that spaceship made pretty good places to play while they the only kid on the block who wasn’t him in later life, and he had his first bout of he’d cooked up for the series named lasted. One time Ron and I found an old tree involved, because I was at home watching kidney disease. He had to be hospitalized for Enterprise (which, you know, was named house that someone else had built. We never Soupy Sales. Ron was up to his neck in the that. I felt sorry for him, but for the next few after the WW2 aircraft carrier, but could also knew whom, and the original owners never whole affair, and was tagged as one of the days I had the bed all to myself. be understood in the sense of a commercial came around to kick us out, so we and our ringleaders. And this wasn’t his first offense. As I mentioned above, I had my reasons venture). It looked like a flying saucer stuck pals claimed it for our own. It was a great A bit before this, he’d been caught playing for not liking Ron’s friends, although I had to on top of a flashlight. The other model was a place to sneak cigarettes and store the tattered Doctor with one of our cousins. But these be cordial, or at least indifferent when they young woman who was dressed in one of the copies of Playboy that we frequently found incidents did sort of set the tone for his future were around. I had my own friends, a group more revealing costumes from the show (not discarded in the woods. dealings with women. of guys who might be classified as nerds Uhura). A few years later, Ron would claim There were many bees around – a lot more Ron decided to go into business for him- today, but back then we were just called that he used to hang around the Star Trek set than there are now – and we all got stung from self after he read an ad in the back of a comic weirdos. Chief among them was a kid who and dated her when he was living in Cali- time to time. I found stings horribly painful, book that promised he could Make Money lived across the street. His name was Tim, fornia, and even though it was always hard to but for Ron they were almost fatal. He had and GET PRIZES by selling packets of seeds and his father owned a lot of jazz records divine the depths of Ron’s bullshit, it’s just anaphylaxis and was extremely allergic to door-to-door. It was his first encounter with which Tim and I used to listen to while sitting barely possible that both these statements may have been true. Ron had balls of brass, didn’t dislike him, either. It’s just that I didn’t guess she was feeling a little lonely. I don’t one of the band members? I’ve never found after all, and could be really persuasive. think we’d had much in common since high know how you could say that wasn’t wrong, out, but presumably it’s now back where it When I got out of the Army for good in school. But, oddly, he seemed to like me, but knowing me, it wasn’t. The truth was that rightfully belongs. “68, I came home to a couple of unpleasant taking every opportunity he could to address Diane had geeked over this movie ever since Ron was into drugs, but then, who wasn’t. shocks. The first one was that the lesser bro- me as Bro, and introducing me to his friends she’d seen it the first time back in the ‘60s, I remember the time he and a buddy came over ther, Craig, had sold all my comic books, my as his smarter older brother. Well, it put me and before they got married she had fanta- to my place looped out on LSD. They sat Ace Edgar Rice Burroughs editions and a on the spot, because he was always insisting sized about Ron and herself as a Bonnie and around all evening giggling and looking into complete run of Galaxy magazines. If that on me performing smartness for them. Clyde couple, romantic bandits. I don’t think my soul. I wish I knew what they’d seen there wasn’t bad enough, I heard the father of a According to Ron, he spent a lot of time out they ever stole anything together, but Diane that was so funny. Then, one night, he dis- local girl was after me for knocking up his there in sunny California burning bridges and did write a poem about her and Ron similar to appeared. He’d been partying with a bunch of daughter. This was completely impossible, of crossing paths with scary people, and that was the one Faye Dunaway wrote in the movie. I people in back of The Slave Market, and course, because I’d been away for four years the reason he’d come back home. He showed didn’t care for it, myself. All movies made in apparently got hold of some very bad shit. He and didn’t even know any of the local girls. me a scar on his arm that he said he got in a the ‘60s were shit, and this one was the worst. was out of sight for a week, long enough for I’d never even dated in high school – remem- fight in a Mexican bar during a drug deal that It used attractive actors to portray a couple Mom to start having fits over his disappear- ber, I was a weirdo. But it was a case of mis- went down badly – another foray into capital- who, in real life, were just a couple of psy- ance. But, according to Phil, he was hiding out taken identity. It was Ron who had done the ism that didn’t work out for him. But the real chotics. Some people romanticized them, with a girl who was looking out for him while deed, just before he joined the Marines, and reason showed up on the family doorstep a few because they robbed banks during the he came down. When he re-emerged, as it says I think it’s safe to say that the reason he did weeks earlier in the form of a girl. Her name Depression, thereby sticking it to the Man. in the cliché, he was a changed man. He got was in order to duck out on his responsibility was Diane, and she was the daughter of a TV But the truth is, they didn’t rob banks, they into an argument with the owner of The Slave to her. Fortunately for me, the matter cleared producer (not Star Trek). She was a true robbed people. If Faye Dunaway and Warren Market over his wages, which he was never itself up quickly enough. The girl went to Valley Girl (I hardly believed they existed) Beatty stuck a gun in your ribs and demanded paid (once again, capitalism bit him in the ass) New York and got an abortion, because that with blonde hair, but for a while in the ‘70s all your money, you probably wouldn’t find and said good-bye to the hippie life in general. was one of the few places you could get one every woman had blonde hair. Apparently, them that attractive. But I guess Bonnie and I attribute this to the influence of Jan, the girl in those pre-Roe v. Wade days. (Bess tells me Ron had promised to marry her, but had Clyde did figure out how to make capitalism he was with. She was another blonde, but a that she used to work for a travel agency back bugged out instead. Ron was good at talking work – for a while. nice level-headed person who could have done then that offered package deals.) himself into things, but not so hot at talking Eventually Diane figured out that Ron better than Ron – and after their divorce, she Ron’s own military career was very brief. himself out of them. He could have saved was no Warren Beatty and went back to Cali- did. He went to Vietnam where his old knee everyone a lot of trouble by blowing her off fornia and to who knows what. I hope she Ron got a job through the VA driving a injury from playing Little League football and buying her a plane ticket back to sunny didn’t join the Symbionese Liberation Army. delivery van working for a wine distributor. He started acting up badly enough for them to California. Instead, he caved in to her expec- Ron, newly single, was now free to pursue traveled all around the metro Detroit area, send him to San Diego for an operation. Now tations and pressure from our family, and he his two main interests: drugs and dicking delivering booze to party stores, restaurants take a deep breath, because this is really true. married her. Everyone looked at me and asked around. He started working at a head shop and hotels. So in a way he was still pushing The hospital operated on the wrong knee and, when I was getting married, because I was called The Slave Market. I used to visit him drugs. He got to meet lots of people and charm when they realized their mistake, they dug approaching thirty with no one in sight. there from time to time, because I got to read the pants off them (I bet in some cases, into the other one. The end result was now The marriage of Ron and Diane was so the underground comix for free. At the same literally). Ron was good at the job and even- that he had two bum knees – permanently. brief that in some way it can hardly be said to time, he got involved with a Detroit-area bar tually got promoted to district manager. Now Since he was of no further use to the Marine have happened at all. Diane had expensive band called Frijid Pink, and became a roadie he had a bunch of other guys in trucks working Corps, he got a medical discharge and a tastes. She was driving them into debt and of sorts. What I could never figure out was for him. I don’t know if he missed being out on lifetime cash benefit from the Veteran’s Ron felt trapped. Perhaps as an outlet, he whether he was actually a fan of their music the road, but now he had a chance to charm the Administration. Ironic, because in later life took up drawing during this period, and he or just there for the groupies. He told me higher-ups in the company, which he did. He he became a right-wing tool and frequently wasn’t half bad. I mean, his work was un- numerous stories of his encounters with them was moving up the corporate ladder and mak- ranted about entitlement programs. original and obviously copied from other that don’t bear repeating, but the first time I ing lots of money. He married Jan, they had a After his discharge, Ron stayed out there sources, but it might have developed into heard the expression “pulling a train” came couple of kids, and moved into a nice house in in California for a while – two or three years, something if he’d kept it up. from him. I guess this was his way of repay- Grosse Pointe Hills, which is not as swank as I think – but he eventually returned to Michi- The sole memory of Diane that sticks in ing me for all those Sapsucker stories. The Grosse Pointe, but almost. They spoiled their gan. That was the year I was really into Yes. my mind (because it involves me) was when band, you may recall, had a moment of glory children and lived beyond their means, but I guess I should have been pissed at him for she invited me to go see Bonnie and Clyde, in 1970 when they did a cover of the song doesn’t everyone? They lived happily ever almost arranging a shotgun wedding for me, which was playing in revival at a local drive- “House of the Rising Sun” and got a gold after for a long time. but that was years ago and water under the in. Ron was in the hospital at the time with record, which Ron had displayed on a wall in Working for a wine distributor, however, bridge. I didn’t like him much, it’s true, but I another one of his kidney infections and I his apartment. Why did he have it, instead of was having its effects on Ron – we Hubbards are genetically susceptible to drink. I was reasonable hour. First, with his Lupis and Ron did very well in the drapery business Florida, but now I had a cell phone, so I spent married myself by this time and had moved booze-ravaged face, he didn’t make the most and rose up in the ranks quickly, and soon he a lot of time talking to him. Ron was a center to Kalamazoo, so I usually got to see the photogenic spokesperson. Also, he kind of was middle management again, directing the of calm amid the tempest of emotions that family around the holidays. And every time mumbled through his lines, forgetting to efforts of an armada of drapery salesmen all were swirling around him. Time and time I saw him, he was looking worse and worse. mention Remy Martin’s name until almost over the Midwest. This required him to again, he insisted that it wasn’t as bad as The combination of booze and his Lupis, the very end. I don’t know if that’s why he relocate closer to his company’s head- everyone thought and that he was going to which was increasingly beginning to express got fired. This was the Reagan era, and quarters, which was located in Florida. He beat it. If there is anything I can say about itself, had left its ravages on his face. He downsizing was all the rage. Actually, a lot of found himself a nice apartment looking out him, it was that he was a supreme optimist. looked pretty bad. But since he was now people from his company got let go at the over a spit of land and water filled with But the cancer metastasized and got into his interacting with a higher sociological group same time he did. pelicans. He got himself a cat and found a brain – and then he was gone. His sons, fine at work, he was mixing a bit of sophistication But the end of his career was also the end woman to live with him. He seemed con- young men, went down to Florida, took care with his alcoholism. Suddenly he was into of his marriage. Alas, sometimes love can’t tented. Then…it happened again. of Ron’s stuff, had him cremated and brought dry wines and liked to pontificate over their always survive the socioeconomic system, The drapery company reorganized, and back to Michigan. virtues. He tried to get me to develop a taste although they were probably already having Ron was out on his ear. So where’s a man in Now, how should I end this? Senti- for them but I never could. I liked Boone’s problems. But, nothing daunted, Ron found his sixties supposed to go for work? Why mentally? I don’t do sentiment, and I’m not Farm, which he said the business classified as another job selling window dressings, by Lowe’s, of course. Ron took up selling major sentimental about Ron. Despite his many “pop” wines, manufactured to lure kids away which they meant drapes. He was on the road appliances and did it so well that he was failings, he was optimistic, capable and could from soda to alcohol. again, going from place to place, changing starting to rise again. Then his girlfriend had have done very well for himself if the system After awhile, the company Ron was work- displays and taking orders. The job agreed a stroke and Ron came down with lung had let him. Did I love him? Well, enough I ing for was taken over by Remy Martin of with him. Unfortunately, Ron started becom- cancer. The news sent a seismic wave guess to labor over this missive. At this point, France, which had several consequences. ing more and more of a right-wing tool right through the family. Mom was especially I can only echo Goneril, from King Lear, and Remy flew all the company executives to Paris around then. I think it was because of all those upset. We’d already lost Craig a few years say that I loved him as a brother should, no to view their operations there. I’d seen Paris hours listening to Rush Limbaugh on his car before, and now it looked like we were going more and no less. and liked it well enough, but when Ron came radio. At first, he was just Rush light, but after to lose him as well. I hadn’t really tried to —Gary Hubbard back, he was thoroughly disgusted. He was he moved to Florida, he turned into Limbaugh keep in touch with Ron after he moved to particularly incensed by all the blatant porno- extra crispy. As a lifelong Democrat and faith- graphy he saw. According to him, it was every- ful labor unionist, this hurt Mom and was the where. I thought that was an incredibly strange cause of many arguments. Mom didn’t like attitude for him to take, since he certainly was arguing with her offspring. As for myself, I no stranger to porn. I remember that one just listened. You can’t argue with Evangelists Christmas Eve we spent watching Caligula, or Conservatives, so I don’t try. and the time he invited me to go with him and Years of marriage hadn’t done much to Jan to see Deep Throat. Back in the ‘70s, it improve his attitude about women, unfortu- wasn’t unusual for couples to go to adult nately; he was still as crass as can be. One theaters together, but it was a little strange to time he came to Kalamazoo for a visit and bring your brother along. Dad played that same invited me to dinner at the hotel where he was stunt when he wanted to go see I Am Curious staying. It was just the two of us, so Bess (Yellow), explaining that it was okay, because I must have been away – probably visiting her wanted to see it. I don’t recall saying that, but sister in Texas. Anyway, as we were passing both these guys liked to use me for an excuse – through the lobby of the hotel, Ron called my as if I was the patron saint of porn who could attention to a young woman in a business absolve them of their sins. suit, who was sitting on a bench and looking One of the products that Remy Martin at a laptop. Ron said, “She’s a whore,” and makes is Beaujolais Nouveau, which they told me a story about a class of prostitutes announce the release of every year in who service traveling salesmen. The suit and November around midnight worldwide, the laptop were their disguise. To this day adjusted for local time zones. Ron was I’ve never been able to make up my mind if I selected one year to make the announcement believed him or not. If she wasn’t a prosti- on a local Detroit station, and the result was tute, that was a vile comment, and even if she not good. I watched a tape of it later at a more was, it was still vile the way he said it. but an individzine. was some fine stuff…the material by Bloch, When that issue came out, little did I dream Tucker, Warner and Shaw particularly. Two that À Bas would grow into the great zine it of the really notable items were Terry Carr’s was. Well, that’s a hackneyed phrase, and I fannish burlesque of My Fair Lady as My can’t come out in print and boast that my own Fair Femmefan, under the name of Carl zine was a Great Zine. But while it started out Brandon, who was then thought to be Real, modestly, I do believe that it turned into a good and Willis’s “As Others See Us,” which I zine – and that the most recent issue (1959 think was the definitive article on the oppos- recent? – oh well) was a Great Issue. Do ing outlooks and attitudes of fanzine fans and faneds of today get notes from new readers convention fans. complaining that their zine “is purportedly And then there was Rich Alex Kirs. He devoted to science fiction and where is the was the only regular columnist the zine ever SF?” or words to that effect? I used to, occa- had. His “How The Other Half” started in #5, sionally. I guess they got that idea because À and always consisted of extracts of letters I Bas was listed in the fanzine review columns received from him. In them he merely related in prozines. But I never held À Bas out to be his current doings. However, his writing Devoted To Science Fiction. I just printed style was fairly vivid, and some of the material I liked, and which I thought the material in his first column was pretty far out readers would like, too. Leafing through the and unbelievable to some of the readers. “I file of the zine tonight, I noticed with surprise don’t believe it,” they bellowed. His later that I did print a few science fiction bits, columns related much more mundane acti- notably a great article by Dean Grennell, but vities, but no matter what Kirs wrote about – It’s hard to believe that it is over five we say – surprised, for good ol’ Norm had then you were likely to find articles on going to a movie, buying furniture, living on years since the last issue of À Bas (February used the opportunity to Put Us Down anything in the zine – even articles on jazz and City Island, Christmas at home – some of the 1959) and that many of the current young somewhat. However, we thought “what the sports cars (boy, that sports car stuff was pretty readers were quite undone by his style. “I fans in fandom have never heard of the fan- hell” and ran off the stencils and mailed out funny) – and little did I know that those articles don’t believe it,” they continued to cry. I zine, much less seen a copy. God, how fan- the zine, fixing Browne with a cunning cari- were going to start the cry, which seemed to wonder whether they believed Dick Elling- dom changes! cature and caption to put in a space he’d reverberate around for years, about fanzines ton’s “Xmas in New York - 1954.” That was À Bas was born in a one-shot session early foolishly left vacant. The whole bit caused “devoted to jazz and sports cars.” as far out as any Kirs material, but eminently in 1954 at a meeting of the Derelicts, which some hard feelings, and the club was split in À Bas started a few other things in fandom believable to anybody who knew that seg- was a Toronto fan club. Everybody sat a minor way. That is how the Derelict Insur- as well. In the editorial in #4 I referred to ment of New York fandom at that time. around writing stuff and running if off, and gents – being Ron Kidder, Gerald Steward Pete Vorzimer as Little Pete Vorzimer, and The other regular feature in À Bas – and the whole thing was called À Bas and sent out and myself – came into being. The name how that stuck! But then, who now has even one of the most popular items – was the as a rider with an issue of Canadian Fandom. didn’t mean much, except that we were a sort heard of Pete Vorzimer. A pity we don’t Derelicti Derogation. This was a playlet I was named editor as it was thought a good of fannish Three Musketeers, and it did give have some Vorzimers around now. Not only where the fuggheads took their lumps. some idea to have some name to whom trades, if Redd Boggs the chance to make some was he a, shall we say, lively personality but of the English fans considered them cruel, any, could be sent. The whole deal was such remarks about The Fallacy of Insurgentism he put out Abstract, a good zine. À Bas also and perhaps they were, but the raw material jolly fun that a couple of months later we did (or something). started the myth about Andy Young and of the Derogations was actual utterances of the same thing. These two issues were Vol. 0, That would have been the end of À Bas, Fancy Expensive Restaurants, culminating in fans in fanzines. And while the English fans No. 0 and Vol. 1, No. 1. except that Gerald Steward showed me one that great Grennell-suggested cover on #11 thought the Derogations cruel, some Ameri- Just after the 1954 Midwestcon, at day a few pages of playlet which consisted of (photo of Fidel Castro at microphone cap- can fans would ask to be put in one. There another club meeting, we wrote material for the club members making funny and cutting tioned “Andy Young addresses science- were several attempts to imitate them, but a third issue, but there wasn’t time to stencil remarks about each other and various other fiction convention on the evils of “fancy none succeeded, perhaps because those who it. One of the club members, Norman (“I am fans. This gave me an idea and, using Stew- expensive restaurants”). In the Derogation in tried didn’t really know how to go about it. a BNF and you are all neos”) Browne offered ard’s stuff as a start, I built the first “Derelicti #9 Ron Ellik was referred to as Squirrel Ellik, The basic cast was the club members of to stencil the material. In all innocence we Derogation” in the form in which it became and how that stuck! That was a bit rough on the time, with Ron Kidder and Gerald Stew- said, “Yeah, sure thing, go ahead, jolly good infamous. We added some other material, Ron, but it did result in some great Bjo ard being given a lot of the good lines, and of you Norm ol’ boy.” When we saw the and À Bas Vol. 3, No. 3 (whole number 4) cartoons. one Albert providing an occasional innocent resulting stencils we were somewhat – shall came into being, no longer a club one-shot, I don’t feel like detailing all the articles in remark which could be used to good effect by each issue and what they were about. There the others. The Derogations used a fairly —31— regular format for the opening and intro- Spratt: Well, if Boyd Raeburn thinks that duction of the first Subject. They would open Intellectual Awakening is a pre- with the club members (a very elastic tentious term…. club…fans from all over would appear as Raeburn: I didn’t say that, Irving. members) making a few remarks to each others, one of which would be a hook to bring Spratt: Oh, how awful. You are making in the first subject, usually with his foot in his things so unpleasant in fandom. mouth. Kirs (who had returned to fandom Kirs: And who is this? after a long absence) would inquire as to the Steward: This is Irving Spratt. He’s a identity of the subject (“Who be you with pomegranate. your flashing eyes and mass of pale blue Albert: But that’s a big fruit. curls?” was the query of one W.B.). The members would enlighten Kirs as to the Kidder: Yes. identify of the Subject, the Subject would Busby: Usually they’re eaten by boys, but speak some more, and on it would go until a in this case the roles are reversed. new Subject jumped into the scene. Spratt: Well, as Laney said, Fandom is a But this doesn’t tell you how a Deroga- way of life where every boy is like tion was constructed and, after making three a wife. unsuccessful attempts at it, I have decided that I can’t tell you how I wrote them. I went Carr: But Irving, there are boys in fan- over some of the Derogations, analyzing dom who sleep with girls. them, and found that the only way would be Spratt: Yes, I’ve heard about boys like to take an actual Derogation and dissect it. that. Filthy little beasts. This not only would take a lot of space, but Albert: Oh, that was a telling sally. would probably be quite dull. It would be Spratt: Sally? Sally = saille, salix, wil- difficult even to quote from a Derogation as low, the tree corresponding to the an illustration, for they ran from one Subject lunar month 16 April to 13 May, What this article isn’t about is my views mother’s death, my Dad and I were living to another so smoothly that any extract would May Day falling in the middle – tend to be incomplete. on royalty or republicanism. That said, I’d opposite the three blast furnaces of Bilston and the willow tree is the tree of prefer an elected head of state but I don’t Steel Works with my grandparents and my Instead, I am giving you here a sample enchantment. Derogation, which will probably not en- really mind the tourist trappings around, and Dad’s three brothers and sister. The furnaces lighten you any further, but may give you Kirs: Aw, come on, this guy can’t be for popular appeal of, the Queen (though some- were replaced the following year with a some small amusement. While I’ll use some real. what less so her extensive family). If I don’t single much larger one named Elisabeth actual quotes from fanzines, I’ll use an imag- Boogs: I fail to see how you can make want to be involved, then I can avoid it like I (though named after a manager’s daughter inary Subject, modeled on the narrator in such a statement. After all, What can for any celebrities. At least the appeal of who first lit it, something apparently done Nabakov’s Pale Fire. He is a pompous, Is Reality? the Queen is real and rooted in tradition and traditionally by females for luck, not mis- history and, for a lot of people, genuine spelled after the new Queen). The mineral- pretentious person, and is, I repeat, quite Kidder: Oh, reality is just an illusion based imaginary. I’ll call him Irving Spratt. affection, and isn’t some transient social rich byproduct of smelting was slag, which on mescaline deficiency. media thing. was first used for fertilizer and later for add- DERELICTI DEROGATION Spratt: Nevertheless, cogito, ergo sum. What the article is about is a few personal ing to tar to make Tarmac by a firm my father Steward: Oh well, de mortuis nil nisi but fleeting ways in which the Queen has would work for. I know, some people could The usual meeting of the bonum. impinged on my life, other than being on only dream of living opposite one of the big- David Clayton Thomas Fan Club. postage stamps that I used to collect though gest producers of steelmaking waste in what Kidder: Oh no, Gerald, what you did. Fitch: I think that at some time in their they were more important for a while than a was known, for reasons that were then abun- lives most people have what might Steward: Huh? What’d I do? lot of what follows. And a few reflections on dantly clear to me, as the Black Country. be be called an intellectual awak- Kidder: You allowed Irving to put Des- social change during that time. At the time, radio was the dominant ening. cartes before Horace. The most important effect the Queen had broadcasting medium and only about two and on my life was that her coronation meant we a half million homes had TVs before the Raeburn: Gee, Don, I guess that either I’ve got a television. By 2 June 1953, after my coronation, which was almost solely respon- always been awake, or I’m still —Boyd Raeburn, October 1964 sleeping. —34— sible for the sale of a further 750,000 sets. miserably and embarrassed until it was over, a working class background to secondary was even taught by a couple of the same Nearly eight million people watched at home caught in mid-dash as if by Captain Cold’s modern or technical schools (with pupils teachers who had taught him. The English with a further ten million going round other gun in the Flash comics that I’d soon be rarely getting to university) and being teacher called me by the same nickname he people's houses to watch and another one and buying. The feeling that it was just a lot of branded as, or feeling they were, failures. had called my Dad – Captain – after Captain a half million in cinemas, halls and pubs. It bother, except for the decreasing numbers of Plenty got on in life but it’s obviously wrong Kettle, the hero of a series of novels by C. J. was the first time that a simultaneous TV and more patriotic or respectful older people – and unfair to segregate like that and parti- Cutcliffe Hyne which I hadn’t read at the radio broadcast had more viewers than listen- and the general societal changes in the ‘60s – cularly to make decisions that affect a child’s time and still haven’t, despite Lisa Tuttle ers. And certainly, as a family, we got put a stop to it. On the occasions I went to a life – indeed, that pretty much controlled buying me a copy of The Adventures of increasing pleasure from watching the single late show with relatives, I was expected to their entire education – based on an ability to Captain Kettle in case I was amused. channel in black and white followed by the stay and stand. But it didn’t happen often as pass exams at that age. I had little idea of any I was at the grammar school in 1962 for first commercial channel in 1955. it was usually earlier performances that we of this at the time, nor any idea of the differ- its 450th anniversary when I was thirteen. The TV we got was second-hand and was went to or I was on my own or with my ence between a grammar school and a secon- The Queen visited Wolverhampton on 25 almost certainly a Baird Everyman console uncles, who cared just about the same as me. dary modern school. That probably rightly May and part of that was a trip to the school. because it had a metal badge picturing John I remember standing after “South Pacific” sounds naive but we moved for my Dad’s job A previous part was her visit to Molineux Logie Baird embedded near the bottom. The when I was about ten, but that was a big from the area where I went to primary school football stadium where I went with my Dad console was taller than me but with only a 9- cinematic event and sticks in my mind more. to nearer the area where I went to grammar on alternate Saturdays to watch Wolver- inch screen and – gutted of its wires, capa- Kathleen recalls a loyal toast to the Queen school – from four bus rides a day to two hampton Wanderers finish in the bottom five citors, loudspeaker and cathode ray tube – at a wedding I missed a few years back (I short walks, so I wasn’t complaining in that of the first division that season. The seasons was eventually recycled into a clothes cup- doubt the married couple themselves wanted respect – but it meant I lost touch with friends before and after we finished in the top five. board for me, which I used until I was in my to toast the Queen) where there were Irish who went on to secondary modern school. My recollections of the day are slight. I early teens. I wish I’d kept that badge with relatives who refused to stand and muttered I didn’t do well. The school had three don’t think we had chairs in the hall, pro- the image of Baird on. I remember it well but all the time about it. There was a lot of mut- streams – alpha, a and b – with the alpha bably to make sure we stood and didn’t I can’t recall a thing about watching the tering from the loyal toast proposers, too. stream being for the very brightest who accidentally sit down in a major breach of Queen’s Coronation on his TV. How odd to have a thing like that at at a would skip a year (doing three years in two in Royal protocol. The six hundred or so boys A few years later, after my father re- modern wedding. I guess there are people effect) and go from the first form to the third. stood on each side of a central aisle, three married, I would be going to Saturday morn- who feel it’s the proper thing to do, but per- I started off in the alpha stream but then, in hundred facing three hundred while the ing matinees at the vast Odeon Cinema in haps more usually in bits of society that we one indication of how poor the idea of Queen walked along, accompanied by our Bilston (then still known by its original name don’t frequent. selection was, was quickly moved to the b snobby headmaster Ernest Taylor, until she as the Woods Palace). Hundreds of school Anyway, the thing was that avoiding the stream when I failed Latin and pretty much reached the headmaster’s chair where she kids would gather in the cinema. I’d go up- national anthem was a little act of rebellion at everything else. I was even kept back a year, probably had to push him out of the way to sit stairs where you could drop lollipop sticks a time that young people were becoming though that meant I was the same age as my in it herself. and flick balls of paper onto the kids in the more rebellious. Somehow, society managed contemporaries as I’d started younger than Once we’d turned to face the front, we stalls. It might have cost a penny more for the to cope. them. The future last Governor of the Bank of sang a few songs, two in Latin: “Vivat privilege but I wasn’t paying – my parents Around the time I was going to the England, Mervyn King, was a friend early on Regina, Regina Elizabetha” – commonly were happy to have me out of the way for a matinees, we moved to Wolverhampton but that didn’t last as he zoomed up through sung to monarchs on appropriate occasions morning. Despite the excitement, films were where eventually I passed what was known the alpha stream and I dawdled through the b apparently but changed as necessary (even- pretty much watched and heard with (admit- as the 11-plus exam, which since 1944 had stream. Amazingly, the idea of selection at tually to Vivat Rex, Rex Charley), and the tedly noisy) respect – gangster films, cowboy been intended to act as a general test of intel- eleven, and an increased grammar school school song Carmen Wulfunense (I know) films, Flash Gordon and Superman serials, ligence for kids of nine (as I was) or more system is rearing its ugly head again under which, very sadly, I still recall began lots of cartoons, newsreels. At the end, the often ten or eleven to see whether they should Theresa May whereas Margaret Thatcher “Almam Matrem filii, pii salutamus.” cinema would play the National Anthem but go on, at eleven, to a secondary school – a actually closed down many grammar We cheered to order and cheered some we’d have shot out beforehand, macs tied grammar school, a secondary modern school, schools! more when the headmaster said we could have round our necks like capes, zapping each or a technical school. (My only other The school I went to had been founded in the rest of the day off. But we still had to troop other with any remaining lolly sticks. memorable achievement at primary school 1512 in the center of Wolverhampton but was outside to watch the Queen lift a spadeful of The National Anthem was still played had been to win a kettle in a raffle. Much moved to a larger site in the 19th century by earth as she planted a small tree which, I saw a after the last evening show at cinemas into hilarity ensued – none of it mine.) To a the Chairman of the Governors, Sir Rupert few months ago, is now a large tree. the early ‘60s. There was a desperate rush to significant extent this tripartite system Kettle (no relation). My Dad had been there The other day I found a postcard that we leave beforehand, not just to get an earlier seemed to result in kids from a middle class before me, which probably explains in part were obviously all given of a portrait of the bus, and I remember how people not quite background going to grammar schools (with why he was keen for me to go, though he Queen – the fairly famous Pietro Annigoni near enough to the exit when the first strains their emphasis on exams that often led to hadn’t gone on to university or got much in mid-‘50s painting which I rather like. I’ve of the anthem struck up would often stand pupils going on to university) and those from the way of whatever exams existed then. I also found a short bit of newsreel without sound of the day. Umbrellas were up but I conservative government wanted to take vellum is still used. Kensington Palace, because of what I’d seen don’t recall rain – we were mostly indoors. forward, so not only was a significant part of The Queen also gets to read her speech on the news. It was an extraordinary sight. It And I don’t recall the day being in black and the Tory party against it but also a significant out from pages of vellum, which may or may was a vast and fast-growing field of flowers white but obviously it was. part of the Cabinet. Luckily, John Major and not be goatskin or calfskin or sheepskin. with people adding to it or standing and http://bit.ly/2crora7 our then-Secretary of State were two of those Whichever it is, though, it's a sad end to the weeping. I was more moved by them being Kathleen and I moved to the small market in favor, but the junior Minister that we had life of an innocent creature and I'm surprised moved than by Diana’s death, but I doubt I’ll town of Hitchin in the early ‘90s, which has to work through was against it, as were the that PETA hasn't got naked about it. In 1994, ever see anything again quite like that symbol a relationship to the Queen. Well, to her Treasury and newly empowered Deregula- the following carefully honed words were of the public’s – well, perhaps not grief but mother. The Bowes-Lyon family (of which tion Unit as a matter of principle. sent by cleft stick from my desk to one of the emotional overreaction. What was also she was part) lived nearby and her birth was On the other hand, the disability lobby Queen’s (via innumerable people) and bizarre was the way that the Queen – long registered in Hitchin. She used to take danc- was against it, too, as was the Labour Party. eventually inscribed on vellum: “My Gov- popular and liked by many people – was seen ing lessons round the corner from where we Though disability organizations wanted anti- ernment will introduce a Bill to tackle discri- as one of the (many) villains of the piece. now live. Those were obviously different discrimination legislation, not unexpectedly mination against disabled people.” On 16 She was portrayed by the press as cold and days. I suspect there’s much less mixing with they didn’t want what was on offer from the November, she stayed awake long enough to lacking compassion because she didn’t the hoi polloi now. then-Government and produced their own read them out and never before in the history immediately return to London from her The local theatre is named after her and bill, which was being taken forward in Parli- of history have those historic words in this holiday in Scotland (where she was with there’s a great photo in my local pub – The ament at the same time as the Government’s order been uttered by a reigning monarch. Diana’s children) and because the Bucking- Half Moon – of her pulling a pint there, as if bill was going through. Given that the Major On Sunday, 31 August 1997, Princess ham Palace flag was not flown at half mast. she was more like her hard-drinking, unpre- government only had a majority of two at the Diana died. Our daughter Jen told me at Though there were family reasons and tentious Spitting Image puppet than a mem- time and a couple of Tories were supporters breakfast, coming in to see us to complain reasons of tradition, which are both what ber of the Royal family. of the disability lobby proposals, this meant that the children’s TV had all been cancelled. largely control Royal protocol, they hadn’t When the Queen came here in 2012 by the Government had to keep amending its I have to say I was shocked – what were we read the public mood and probably didn’t feel train, she was given a bunch of lavender from own Bill to be more like the lobby one in paying our license fee for other than to keep they needed to. It was left to the new Prime the rather lovely fields just on the outskirts of order to get their own through Parliament, as the kids occupied? And obviously, it was a Minister, Tony Blair, to out-Queen the town. Apparently, Queen Victoria had been well as arguing against the Lobby’s Bill as it shock because Diana was so young, though a Queen when he spoke on TV on the day of given a similar present at Hitchin station in went through its own parallel stages. And car accident can happen to anyone, but per- her death, though she regained her popularity 1851, though lavender was a major industry dealing with both bills was significantly my haps not an accident engineered by her father while his unpopularity was yet to come. then rather than really a bit of the heritage responsibility. Interesting times, as the -in-law Prince Phillip (© the Daily Express This was all pre-social media. People industry as now. William Ransom’s botani- Chinese say. Still, that’s another story. and conspiracy theorists everywhere). I reacted in a different way. It’s only twenty cal business dominated an area near where One of the things that happens before hadn’t really paid much attention to what she years ago but people had actually to get we live, taking in “belladonna, cucumber, most legislation is that there’s an announce- was up to over the years other than being together to react en masse and were guided poppies, lavender, hemlock and especially ment of a program of Bills as part of what’s impressed with her wide-ranging charitable then by TV, radio and newspapers and their dandelions” from local people in the 19th called the Queen’s Speech at the beginning of work and practical and influential support for relatives and friends down the pub than by century, but when we moved here was each Parliamentary session. Eventually, two some causes that hadn’t previously come their “friends.” Now that there’s social media, probably producing less poisonous scents copies of each Act of Parliament, one for the close to other members of the Royal family. people post emojis and respond to memes and and potions for the Body Shop and others. It parliamentary archives and one for the And thinking that Prince Charles was quite a exchange messages, which is no bad thing as it still exists in Hitchin, processing herbs and National Archives, are printed on vellum lot of a git in the way he treated her. can give more people more opportunities to fruits for both pharmaceuticals and the food parchment. Recently the cheese-parers in It was the day that the annual local round- express real or imagined grief, or at least and drink industry (including botanicals for Government thought they might save ers match – just a neighborhood thing the feelings, and it’s possible to get real support gin) but in a very different form to the £80,000 a year by changing to archival paper. kids and us quite enjoyed – was due but that and recognition that you’re not alone. Or it can rambling Victorian premises that, after a lot Paper apparently only lasts for up to five obviously wasn’t going to happen. I don’t make things worse. Who knows? of detoxifying, is now a Sainsbury’s super- hundred years but the Domesday Book was often read public tragedies particularly well, I can’t say that Diana was more popular market and apartments. written on vellum in 1086 and the Magna but it seemed clear that people would react than David Bowie – maybe differently pop- I guess the next slight interaction (if it can Carta in 1215. MPs quite fancy themselves strongly and emotionally to the sudden death ular – but I guess people would have gathered be called as much as that) was when I was as producing timeless words and legislation of a such a popular figure. Past our window more readily after his death had there been working on the Disability Discrimination Bill so there was a bit of an uproar, with one MP trooped a local family all done up more somewhere to do so. She had an actual home in 1994 when John Major was Prime Minister even offering to pay the £80,000 himself athleticly than we ever were for the event and in a public place already frequented by – it was based significantly on the earlier (while fearlessly cutting billions from the I said we’d be seeing them again soon. tourists, rather than, in David Bowie’s case, Americans with Disabilities Act. It was a welfare budget and ensuring billions would Within minutes they trooped back. They’d a mural in London or a former flat in Berlin difficult time because equal opportunities be spent on our nuclear deterrent). Anyway, been the only people there. which seem to have attracted many fewer legislation was one of the last things a tradition and self-importance won out so On Tuesday I went along to her home, flowers. But in his case social media seemed particularly appropriate as it was an easy way thing a bit different. vain for at least one of the two species of fungi Year’s and Birthday honors) and has a good of sharing images and music. And you can’t, We didn’t have to dress up. I wore work new to science that a leaflet informed us had long think about who might get one of the and wouldn’t want to, say everything with clothes – suit and tie – and Kathleen a nice been discovered there recently. wide range of honors. I’ve put forward sug- flowers anyway…. dress but, breaking with tradition, no hat. It was so easy to forget you were in the gestions myself for people who’ve achieved In 2002 Kathleen and I went to Bucking- Some of the people there were very suited middle of central London but that’s the same particular distinction in the disability world, ham Palace. Various bits of the Queen’s and booted but I think they were largely with any of the big parks. And that’s really mainly at a national level. Other people residences are open to the public. The state Royal hangers on, though clearly some what it was. A large private park. make other suggestions and people do it at a rooms of Buckingham Palace since 1993 and people chose to wear morning dress and a top We were there for a couple of hours but local level, too. Sometimes the suggestions those in Windsor Castle for over 150 years. hat and some wore their military uniform. it’s not an event that’s burned into my are for people who are volunteers and often But then, they’re not her personal property The queue to get in was huge – eight memory. I can’t recall what we did after- enough they’re people who are paid to do unlike Sandringham and Balmoral. (How thousand people meant a wait upwards of an wards nor really a lot of detail of the day jobs, like I was. many palaces and castles does anyone need? hour. We had to have a passport and some itself. It was a somewhat tortuous way of I think this is one (of several) reasons why I have fewer than one.) I’ve never felt the other form of ID – I can’t recall what it was, getting to see someone’s else’s big garden. people are against the system – why give urge to go to any of them despite being very maybe a Departmental pass for me and a When we occasionally go to Open Garden people an honor for simply doing their job. touristy when we’re abroad, and indeed often driving license for Kathleen. Probably not a events locally it’s nice to see how people Well, I do wonder about that but until it’s enough here. gas bill. We went through the palace from have set out their gardens – some smaller changed it’s what we’ve got. I did do quite a On this occasion I was invited. Every front to back without seeing much of it, onto than ours and some bigger. We get ideas for lot of work outside what I was paid to do, but year the Queen gives three garden parties at a large terrace, down some steps and out into new plants and how to arrange them. We plenty of people do and I suspect more Buckingham Palace. They’re not particularly the vast garden. didn’t get any ideas from Buckingham Palace people do it now than ever before given our exclusive. I think it’s upwards of 25,000 or It was a sunny day but really all we were gardens. Our entire garden could have fitted more insecure working environment. I had more people go in total each year. It’s appar- aware of was the enormous crowd, a parti- on the terrace behind the building before you rather mixed feelings about the award. I’m ently “a way of recognizing and rewarding cularly large marquee, and music being even reach the lawn and still left room for not a big fan of this particular system but on public service” and “a long established net- played by two military bands, one louder marquees. the other hand colleagues seemed to think work of sponsors is used to invite guests, who than the other as you wandered round, and In 2006 I was awarded an OBE for my they wanted to “honor” me. A drink would include Lord-Lieutenants, Societies and Yeoman of the Guard standing about keeping day job of working on disability rights have been fine, but I got that, too. Associations, Government Departments, an eye on things. legislation. Nothing for my efforts on behalf Some friends thought I got it because it Local Government, the Services, the Church The marquee was a tea tent where we had of British horror novels or fanzine writing. was my turn – i.e., everyone who retires and other Faiths.” very small sandwiches, tiny cakes, ice cream Perhaps that speaks for itself. from the civil service at a particular level gets I was invited through the Government and tea and soft drinks. We could both have OBE stands for Officer of the Most one. Not that it matters, but that’s just not the department I worked in, though quite what it done with a large glass of wine. There were Excellent Order of the British Empire. case. Other people say that OBE stands for was for escaped me a bit. An invitation chairs set around but no tables. People Though the vast official document I even- Other Buggers’ Efforts and there’s some- seems to be seen as something short of being managed. tually received, signed at the top “Elizabeth thing in that. Whatever I achieved wasn’t awarded an honor – or maybe as a substitute. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh R,” says it is the “Grant of the Dignity of an achieved on my own. And others wondered My father had been invited many years wandered amongst us, though a handful of Ordinary Officer of the Civil Division of the why I hadn’t refused it. My father had been before and went with my mother and my people (unsurprisingly not including us) had Order of the British Empire.” I know – you offered an honor and turned it down, but I youngest sister because, at the time, only been chosen to meet her and were ushered don’t need to tell me. The British establish- didn’t. I think I was fascinated by what unmarried daughters could accompany the into and out of her presence for a brief chat ment knows how to string words together. would come of it all – the process – as much main attendees. You know, in case they met by one of the team of Queen’s Gentleman The honors system in the UK has long as it being an acknowledgment that it had a single man in possession of a good fortune. Ushers. (I was an usher at one of my sister’s been looked at with a mixture of respect and, been my colleagues who’d put me forward. That rule eventually changed so pretty much weddings after the proper usher, a mate of my well, disrespect. I’ll leave my views for In fact, I was quite taken aback when I anyone could be a guest and the monarchy brother-in-law-to-be, got so drunk he was another time but I quite like this article by my first got a letter in November 2005 telling me entered the 20th century just before the end still asleep in a ditch when the wedding namesake, Martin Kettle, in the Guardian for “in strict confidence” that the Prime Minister of it as far as that was concerned. My mum started. It wasn’t quite the same.) those who want to see something of the had it in mind to submit my name to the and dad and sister seemed to enjoy it enough, Too many people were milling around so arguments. Queen and wanting to know first if this though it wasn’t really their sort of thing. we went for a walk in the garden which was https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ would be “agreeable” to me. How Sir Hum- It wasn’t ours, either. We thought quite a largely why we were there. It was very plea- 2003/dec/23/Whitehall.uk phrey is that? There was a form to fill in bit about whether to accept. Neither of us is sant, especially out of earshot of the popular I took the offer of an OBE to be some- which saved me going to Clinton Cards for a particularly keen on formal occasions and tunes. (Everyone likes a nice band but not too thing to do with what my colleagues felt “Thanks for the offer of an OBE” card. especially not of this sort. But it was an much.) And it was very pretty. Some was very about me. These sort of awards are often The actual appearance of my name on the opportunity to see a 40-acre garden designed formal, but much less so by and round the large instigated on a bottom-up basis. It’s not as if list that’s published in many newspapers by Capability Brown and experience some- lake with lots of native birds on it. I looked in the Queen sits down twice a year (New achieved a few things. One was that on a visit at New Year 2006 – the day after the list was Constable or Turner in sight. honor meant we shuffled forward a bit and most impressive award was the Polar Medal published – to Malcolm Edwards and his We milled around a bit, doing the British their finishing receiving it meant we shuffled for services in the Antarctic. I mean, if you’re family, I was given a hand-made OBE by thing with strangers of either not talking to forward a bit more until finally our names going to get something, then the Polar Medal Malcolm and Jacks’ daughter Amelia Rose, each other or talking about the weather. I were called. A lot of that was the sort of detail would be it. my goddaughter. And I was then sent the less spotted the celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal I couldn’t recall, but another Officer on Duty Afterwards, the recipients waited in a well known Seal of Royal Feathers by my and the fashion designer Ozwald Boateng was there to give us another hint as to what to long corridor to get our honors back with a niece Laura. (looking splendid in a bright blue suit) there, do like a metaphorical shove in the back. safety pin attached. They were given to us in Another thing was that the local paper but that was it for well-known people. Earlier I had to walk towards the Queen and give a nice box with instructions on where and sent a reporter round to interview and photo- I’d seen a woman who was there for chairing a little bow just from the neck, not a deep when to wear it with more instructions on graph me. That was mildly embarassing and the Equal Opportunities Commission and Downton Abbey one. Then she shook my what to do in the event of being awarded a I found myself muttering things about offer- who’d I’d put forward for her first public hand. I was faintly impressed that she wasn’t more significant honor (you return the lesser ing something back to the community which, appointment for a disability advisory panel in wearing gloves for 120 handshakes, though one, presumably so it could be recycled). later, consisted of quite a lot of time working the early ‘90s but she wasn’t in the gallery with the risk of passing on MRSA was slight, I Your relatives get to keep it once you die, it unsuccessfully towards getting a town coun- us. It turned out later that she was being made think. Well, as far as I know neither of us got said cheerfully. As we waited, a door in the cil established. That went well, then. a Dame. Apparently, there’s nothing like it. it. She was standing on a slightly raised bit of corridor opened and we were surprised to see On the day in May, Kathleen and I and Fairly soon, a rather jovial and, indeed, the ballroom – she’s a fairly short woman – the entertainer Bruce Forsyth come out. He our children Jen and Nathan, made ourselves quite amusing man came out to brief us – one and she was standing there for over an hour didn’t say his catchphrase “Nice to see you, look presentable – suits we already had for of the Officers on Duty. He was fully togged which was quite a thing for an eighty-year to see you nice” as I hoped or even tell a joke, Nathan and me while Kathleen and Jen looked up in ceremonial military wear with a sword old, I thought. but he gave a rather self-deprecating wave even lovelier in their dresses. The queues to get that he had to steer away from clobbering The reason for the lapel clip was to make it and went away. He’d been separated off in were significantly less than the garden party anyone nearby with his hand on the handle easy for the Queen to attach the insignia instead from us because he was getting a CBE and because there weren’t 8,000 or so people and a well-rehearsed line in self-deprecatory of struggling with a safety pin for each one and couldn’t mingle. arriving at the same time. There are around jokes to put us at our ease as he gave us risking spilling the Royal blood. Then the four of us met up and we all 2,500 people awarded honors a year and each detailed guidance on what to do – when to The Queen congratulated me and asked mingled a bit ourselves. I met a work col- investiture only has about 120 people at it – so walk forward to meet the Queen, when to me what on earth I’d been doing at the league who, unknown to me, was there with guests that might be 500 or so there. walk off backwards afterwards, what to avoid Department of Work and Pensions to deserve because her partner had been getting a CBE When we got into the palace, the award- walking into (mainly priceless artworks) and getting an OBE. I muttered something about for services to the National Railway Museum ees were separated off from the guests. And so on – which, if everyone else was like me, working on disability rights and she said in York. And Kathleen and I had a chat with then the recipients were split into two – was totally forgotten within seconds so it was something about how important it was to help Heston Blumenthal about a cookbook of his knighthoods, damehoods and CBEs (Com- useful to have people to remind us as we disabled people and we went our separate we’d just bought aimed at children. Although manders of..) in one room and OBEs and shuffled forward in a line through the various ways – me by walking backwards for a little he was really nice, he didn’t slip us free MBEs (Members of…) in another. We had galleries and corridors, surrounded by more as I’d been told (and hoped I recalled tickets to one of his posher restaurants. yet to be given our instructions on what to artworks that were presumably part of the correctly as I’d look even sillier if I was the Outside, there was space and time for expect and what to do. Royal Collection. All gilt and polished wood only one doing it) and she by standing still official photographs, but we were too mean We were given some water and juice from and plushness. and receiving the next in line. to pay for them. We met up with a friend bottles with The Queen’s crest, and we had The honors are handed out either by the Afterwards, the insignia was removed who’d taken time out at lunchtime to meet us. little goblets which had EIIR on them and we Queen or one of her children or grand- and I was directed to a seat at the side of the She took a few photos and then we went to were obviously trusted not to pocket one. I’d children – the Prince of Wales usually but ballroom where, for the first time, I could see meet another friend who worked for Gordon have quite liked a drink – a real drink – but sometimes the Duke of Cambridge or the Kathleen, Jennifer and Nathan. I gave them Brown when he was Chancellor. We got a that might have led to behavior and that Princess Royal. In a way, I was quite pleased a discrete wave. little tour of 11 Downing Street, the Chan- would never do. that it was the Queen at our investiture – I I watched the remainder of the ceremony. cellor’s residence, and I sat in the seat where The gallery we waited in was full of old mean, if you’re going to have this done, you The Queen chatted to everyone who got an he did his thinking about the economy – artworks – nothing we’d seen when we came might as well have it done right. honor, some for a short while like me, and luckily it didn’t rub off. Then the four of us to the garden party because we were marched We each had a small clip pinned onto our some for longer. The longest was someone went to the oldest restaurant in London, straight through from front to back, but lapels or equivalent and, eventually, we were being given an MBE for services to shire Rules, for a terrific meal in very old- possibly things that were on the route for parceled up into small groups and sent off horses and the county of Cornwall. I know, fashioned surroundings, which somehow paid-for visits to the Palace. I had no idea about every fifteen minutes or so to the ball- but you don’t like to ask. The Queen was seemed appropriate. Kathleen is very good who were the subjects of the paintings and room where the event was being held. obviously genuinely interested in both, I about keeping memorabilia and I see from it’s quite possible that they were all Royals, We’d been told to walk forward into the suspect, because she was keenly interested in the receipt that between us we had rack of so none of them were in fact subjects. I guess ballroom in stages as particular things hap- horses and had family links through Charles lamb, lobster risotto, rabbit and something they were worth a few bob though. But not a pened – the person in front receiving their to Cornwall where he had a little Duchy. The called Oyster Pudding, with lovely starters and desserts, port and wines. I can’t afford well. Anyway, I wasn’t put in the Tower for that to happen again and it won’t. which, in less enlightened times – the sort of I hadn’t expected to have any further con- times we seem to be approaching again – tact with royalty – indeed, I’d never expected would definitely have happened. to have any at all at any time but it happened. A few years later, during a trip to Ken- But in 2009, I wrote to Prince Charles. I’d tucky for a family wedding, I had the chance been sending letters to companies and public to experience one American’s view of the figures for a bit of fun for a while, writing as Royal Family. At that point I hadn’t read the I if were Harry Adam Knight, the name John Martin Kettle article that I link to above, but Brosnan and I used for our horror novels (and though my little anecdote only relates to one eventually I wrote an article about it for Rob person, it’s perhaps apt to quote from it. “We Jackson’s Inca). I was offering to include also need to recognize that this country [the their name or brand in an upcoming story UK] is peculiarly given to the art of denigra- (each different one summarised in the letters) tion. We do it more than others, and we need in return for a gift to charity. I got replies to be self-critical about that habit. If the US from Citroen cars, Virgin Management and celebrates achievement too readily, then we the Office of Tony Blair, but no replies from undoubtedly celebrate it too grudgingly.” George Bush, the Pope or Premier Inns. I did During our travels we’d often been asked get one from the Office of TRH The Prince of how members of the Royal Family were get- Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. ting on, simply because we were British. At DAN STEFFAN his little piece of retirement nirvana in real time – After a few jokes about some of his the wedding reception, I moved across to a It is indeed a rare thing for me to receive a new that is to say, as they happened or shortly there- beliefs, I’d offered to mention his name in my table of young Kentuckians for a chat and issue of Trap Door and have the pleasure of dis- after. By the calendar, the article covers several latest fantasy book, Petunia Tulip and the was inevitably asked what I thought about covering each and every item for the first time. years worth of his day-to-day life, and yet the way Wicked Unicorn Thief from a World of Pippa – the sister of Kate, the Duchess of As you well know, this is usually not the case. he boils it all down so nicely and presents it with Wizards and Magic. For the measly sum of Cambridge – and something of an inter- Because of the regularity of my artistic contribu- such precision, thoughtfulness, and just a hint of £250, payable to an environmentally friendly national celebrity not least due to the rear tions to your little fanzine, I have usually already his sarcastic world view made for a fascinating charity of his choice, I offered to call the view of the dress she wore at William and read at least half of any new issue before it arrives read. heroic young prince in the story, Charles. I Kate’s wedding. We had a chat about it – here in its final form which, I must admit, often Though I haven’t had the opportunity to visit pointed out that as the hero is everything that then I took out my phone on which I had a robs me of some of the joy of opening a freshly Grant’s new residence, I’ve seen some photos and is good and brave and honest, Charles would photo of me and the Queen. (As you do. In published issue. This time, because of my now it looks like a really nice place, especially with all see the obvious appeal of being associated fact, it was there to show my sister who’d two-year long artist’s block, I contributed nothing those fab floor to ceiling shelves full of goodies. with him in a bestselling children’s fantasy asked to see it.) The young woman looked at to TD 32 except for the cover – which means that Nevertheless, his journey to this new home was series. Moreover, in this alternative universe the photo and said excitedly, “That’s the the joy of discovery is mine once again. hard fought. Between the fucktards hampering he would use alternative medicine, and for an Queen.” Then she paused, looked at me, Despite that, I am still oddly familiar with a his progress at every move and the stress of his increased donation of only £400 I would also looked again at the photo, thumped me really couple of the contributions in this issue – or, more troubled friendship with his pal, Dave, it couldn’t propose to make his companion a homeo- really hard on the arm, and shouted “Get out properly, I am familiar with the contents of those have been easy to make the transition. Fortu- pathic Duke who creates original Duchy of here!” – which seems to be some common articles. In the case of Grant’s memoir of how he nately for all of us, Grant’s writing ability keeps it tinctures. As I pointed out, many people ritual expressing amused and excited dis- became high-end trailer trash, “A Retired Gentle- all moving at a rapid pace, despite the many would be taken in by a message so subliminal belief. She remained over-excited for a while man of Leisure,” I had heard many of the details details he throws into the story. It’s beautifully as to contain barely a trace of suggestion. and eventually I returned to my table, armed of these stories from Mr. Canfield’s own lips. put together and very entertaining to read. One of his staff replied to say that His by the discovery of why Americans eat with And while he is a fine storyteller and raconteur And, of course, it goes without saying that Royal Highness was grateful to me for taking only one hand. when he’s using his mouth hole, he is an even Grant’s return at long last to pencil wrangling was the trouble to write and flattered that I should But there was no loyal toast at the wed- finer writer and I thoroughly enjoyed having the a genuine delight for me. It’s no secret that I have think of including him in my book for a fee ding reception. This inexplicable delight in opportunity to finally read his narrative in such a long admired his talents and skills, so it takes very payable to an environmentally friendly char- our Royalty only goes so far. thoughtful and well-organized retelling. little to keep me happy when he’s at the drawing ity. However, she trusted that I understood It was especially useful to me to be able to board. For an older gentleman, who spends more that this was not a matter in which the Prince —Roy Kettle absorb all of these tidbits in one sitting because I time with a pool cue in his hand than he does with was able to become involved. But he’d asked had heard these stories of Grant’s work life, the a pen, he’s still got some chops left. I especially her to send his best wishes. trials and tribulations surrounding his Sausalito liked the nautilus. I hope he does more soon. That was nice. Maybe I’d have done home, and some of the stories about the move to better if I’d mentioned that I knew his Mum —44— The other bit of the new TD that I have some then we’d sit up sipping whiskey and talking for I had several long talks about the continued grandson. He told me that he had hired a woman familiarity with is Andy Hooper’s fine memorial hours. It was always educational and fascinating, feasibility of a man in his mid-90s driving himself who worked with hoarders to help him get his life for Art Widner. While I’m not claiming to have and Art always appreciated having a small audi- up and down the west coast. Of course he didn’t organized and he expressed a real hope that he had any sort of advanced look at Andy’s article, I ence because he could actually hear our conversa- like it, but eventually he knew I was right, and he might finally get his fanzine collection in order. feel like I have heard many of the same stories tions, even when he’d forget to change the bat- finally agreed that the time had indeed come to “I’ve got a complete set of Gregg Calkins’ about Art’s life before. Not that Andy is going teries in his hearing aids, which seemed like a stop making the trip. About this time he also fanzine Oopsla!,” he told me. “If I find them I’ll over well-tread ground in his piece – it’s more regular habit of his. began to make plans to finally leave the isolated send them to you,” he said. I told him to be sure to along the lines of my having had the true pleasure After the first few years, he would simply call house he and his son had built together and move read them first, as he had missed them during their of Art’s company on many occasions since Lynn us and leave a message that he was on his way into a place in town where, as he put it, “they original run, and he said he would. I don’t know and I moved to the west coast eleven years ago, north and he’d be at our house in a day or two, and could get to me if I got sick.” It was a hard pill to if he ever found them, but the next time I saw him and he often entertained us with similar stories then we’d keep a watch out for his arrival. It be- swallow for a man who had lived through all the in Richmond, Virginia, at the 2014 Corflu, he told about the past. And his memory for details was came our routine. On one of those visits, he got things Andy writes about and so much more, but me that he had fired the woman who was sup- always amazing, too. particularly sentimental and told us that visiting us he couldn’t deny his increasing frailty. He had posed to help him sort his stuff. “She kept want- After we moved to Portland, Art quickly had redeemed Portland in his eyes. He explained always been a bull of a man who didn’t have to ing to throw away things,” he said indignantly. I became something of a regular here at Steffanland that before we moved to town he had avoided the capitulate to physical or mental weakness, and could only smile. I had no doubt that he would be during his trips to and from Seattle, and points city because one of his sons died here – a victim of I’m sure it broke his heart to have to finally give in irascible and obstinate to his last breath – and north. He often traveled up there whenever his the family drinking problem. He was bitter that to the reality of his age. charmingly so. granddaughter and other relatives were visiting his genetics had led to the downfall of both of his But at least we got him off the road for the last In fact, that Richmond con was the last time I from Australia. Both of his two sons had already boys, or so he said, but coming to stay with us had few years of his life, though it didn’t actually stop saw Art. He wasn’t looking too well. His prostate passed by then and Art reveled in the time he taken away most of the onus that Portland had when it should have. Although he had finally cancer had been asserting itself and he was tired spent with their children. Whenever they were in acquired for him. We made it a happy place for decided to give up his trips to show off his art car, and seemed to be lacking any patience for the the U.S., he went out of his way to see them and him to visit once again and I have always taken he couldn’t resist a final invitation to bring his car many little annoyances that were haunting him. I keep the family lines of communication open and that as a great compliment. And it goes without up to Seattle one last time. It was a tough trip and made sure to spend time with him when I could flowing. His legendary car with its brilliant abo- saying that his visits made Portland a better place he was two days late reaching our house, and he that weekend because I felt it unlikely that we’d riginal decorations was a gift from his family for us, too. was frustrated and prickly when he finally arrived. have a chance to be together again. I was right. Down Under – where, I believe, it returned after Unfortunately, even though we all thought of The trip was probably not a good idea, and by the But in retrospect, I have to say that one of my Art’s death – and it too became another reason for him as possibly indestructible, time did eventually time he reached us he seemed to know it. But, proudest friendships in fandom was my friendship him to visit us here in Portland. begin to take its toll of dear old Art, and from our being a stubborn old coot he soldiered on after a with Art. He was always incredibly enthusiastic When not traveling to Washington state for a point of view it was a bit terrifying to watch. As night’s rest and made it to Seattle for the last time. about my artwork and always seemed truly Westercon or a Potlatch or a Corflu, Art would the years went by, Art’s driving got worse and the But the trip back turned into something of a touched by the occasional items I sent his way, drive his Abo-car to Seattle every summer where journey north became more and more difficult, nightmare. The weather was bad and he didn’t especially the coat of arms I drew for his 90th it was a regular exhibit at Seattle’s annual street causing him to break the trip into several sections like to drive in the rain or snow, which he’d been birthday. He always mentioned it when we were arts festival, which included, among many other to preserve his strength and stamina. It worked forced to do. And then something happened that together. His encouragement and pride about my things, decorated art cars like Art’s car. Until his for a while, but eventually he became more erratic had never happened on one of these trips: Art got art was very touching to me. He genuinely final year or so, he never missed his annual jaunt about letting us know when he was coming to see lost. He had driven those same roads for years and seemed to take particular delight in it and I have to up there to show off his heavily decorated auto- us. He would leave messages that said he would years and suddenly he ended up somewhere off admit that, in itself, was a delight for me, too. mobile. (Besides the intricate native iconography be at our door in two days and then not show up the highway, somewhere off the beaten path, and How lucky we all were to have had a man of his that covered its exterior, there were also radical for four days, or he would show up a day early. by the time he reached our house that night – intellectual curiosity and childlike awe in our bumper stickers plastered on its rear end that he That’s when we started to worry about his drives several hours after dark – he was visibly shaken. lives for so many, many, many years. delighted in displaying because they so often pro- to Seattle. Getting lost had scared him. He’d never been And again, thanks to Andy for his beautifully voked political debate, at which he was very In response, I was a wreck whenever he was befuddled by his route before and it shook his crafted biography and appreciation. Somebody, skilled.) coming our way. He’d forget to charge his phone confidence. by the way, ought to reprint Art’s great historical For as long as we’ve lived here, Art came and and we wouldn’t be able to reach him when he When he left the next day he seemed no less article about the founding and early days of the stayed at our house during his trips back and forth, was overdue and then I would worry about him uncertain, but he sucked it up and headed home – Boston Strangers Club that appeared in a progress and I always felt real pride at having one of the until he finally showed up with a sheepish look on a trip that took him an extra day, at least, to com- report for one of the Boston worldcons, many few surviving members of the first worldcon stay- his face. Once it was so chaotic that I spent two plete. As we said our goodbyes, he was very quiet years ago. It was unique in its “you are there” ing in our guest room. I always looked forward to days on the phone trying to track his journey and and visibly saddened by the realization that this eyewitness point of view of those early days of the stories he would tell us each time he came to his whereabouts. He had become like a dear old really was his last road trip, and that it needed to fandom. It’s too bad he never got around to writ- stay. He’d take us out to dinner – often at a Ger- relative to Lynn and me, and we would worry our- be. Once he was back home he seemed to em- ing his full autobiography because his life, both in man restaurant at the end of our block that selves sick whenever he was due or whenever he brace the process of sorting out the relics of his and out of fandom, would appear to have been one reminded him of his many European vacations was late. life, many of which had moved to his new resi- hell of a ride. I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say and served a German wine that he loved – and Eventually, it reached the point where he and dence after he giving his house on the hill to his that Art was an irreplaceable member of our tribe. He will be missed. box more. It would have added to the dynamism get a letter of comment from him and I really Oprah’s lawsuit with «O» magazine. He is far too John D. Berry’s Mumbai travelogue is proof of the composition – a technical complaint, to be enjoyed seeing it. Of course, I also know how much of a perve to be in the dark about the way of how far in life the lesson’s learned in the pages sure, but you can’t expect me to be lovingly com- nuts he really is, but I can confirm most of what he the mighty Oprah smashed those latex loving of fanzine can take you, literally. Come to think plimentary about everything, can you? Still, it says about the pizza stand at the Quakertown Deutschlanders into *ahem* submission. They of it, you can probably apply the same progression was a good Popeye and Bluto and it made me Farmer’s Market. I first visited it in 1973 when surrendered like they were Frenchmen, of course. to Bob Silverberg, too, though he might rightfully almost wish I had drawn it. Frank and I were driving up to Toronto – with a (Actually, that’s not true, but I couldn’t resist the argue that in his case there was also a hell of a lot But, as I’m sure you know, the art he did for side trip to pick up Jay Kinney, who took the train joke.) more interim, non-fannish typing went into his Silverberg’s article was so fuzzy that, well – to tell out from NYC to meet us – for the Torcon. We In truth, this all happened during the years I long success as an author. Nonetheless, his per- you the truth, for a moment I thought I was read- swung by the pizza stand so Frank could pick up was running a newsstand, and we regularly sold sistent presence in FAPA for all these years has to ing a British fanzine. Wha’ hoppened? It was his wages before we left for Canada. I think we the German fetish mag, which was created in the be proof of some sort of gooey fanboy heart beat- undoubtedly the fault of those damned Krishna ate a slice or two, too. ‘90s by Peter Czernich, who then lost control of ing inside that sleek, elegant exterior of his. copy machine cowboys who run off each issue for I went back again numerous times over the the magazine to a litigious money man. That guy The regular reprinting of his FAPA essays – you. (I’ve seen them, you know, in the airports years, especially during the years that Catherine actually brought the suit against Oprah’s proposed especially the installments about his world travels offering to “make copies” for the unsuspecting Jackson was living. During the 1980s and early magazine title, which he then lost when the court – have been a consistent presence in one fanzine passengers, but I digress…) 1990s, the four of us spent a lot of time together at said that the two magazines were so dissimilar or another for most of the years I’ve been bump- Anyway, I mentioned it to Steve, who was their house in Zionsville, and our house in that nobody was ever likely to confuse them. By ing around fandom and that has allowed him to then gracious enough to send me a clean jpg of the Arlington, and almost every time we went up to that time the German publisher was broke and remain a presence in fandom while continuing his heading. I printed it out at the proper size and see them we’d end up at the Farmer’s Market, «O» disappeared off the market well before Ms. “adult” career. In fact, I must admit that they have pasted it over the blurry version and, Voila!, which also includes a huge flea market on the Winfrey’s self-promotional magazine hit the been around for so long that I had begun to take instant fan art. I’d done this once before when one weekends. The last time we went there was only stands in 2002. (Where she has been on the cover them for granted, but I now realize just how rare of my own pieces had ended up kinda fuzzy and I a month or so before Catherine’s death. We were of every issue since then, just in case anybody had they are these days. There’s nobody else in his suggest it as a solution to Steve, and anybody else up there for Thanksgiving and, as usual, we went any confusion about whose magazine it is.) Czer- position who has maintained his fan credibility for who wants to fix their fuzzy fanzine art. {Alas, it by the QFM to look for bargains and maybe get nich went on to create another luscious fetish so long, and with such consistency and dedication. was entirely my fault, not Krishna’s.} some pizza. The holidays were approaching and magazine shortly after the demise of «O» called It reminds me that he is still one of us – although Oh, and there was one other little piece of there was a Santa on display for the kiddies to visit Marguis. It recently published its 58th issue. he may not agree at times – and that, as such, he is Steve’s art I wanted to mention, his collaboration and have their picture taken. On a whim Frank, The last item on the back page I wanted to part of a continuity that is rapidly disappearing in with Bill Rotsler, on page 18. I loved it. It was so, Catherine, and Lynn all decided to pose with mention was your announcement that you’ll be “our” fandom these days – as are the people who for lack of a better word, right. Both funny and Santa and have their picture taken. I refused. I publishing a long-lost Boyd Raeburn article, “The lived it. Thanks to Bob for hanging in there with sardonic without even a word. I’ve seen a few poo-pooed the whole idea and stood to the side À Bas Story,” in number 33. How wonderful. As us and thanks to you, Robert, for publishing his other of their collaborations popping up lately and while they said “cheese.” A month later I sure you no doubt know, I am currently mining sources FAPA material for the rest of us to read and enjoy. wonder if he’s just now releasing them from his wished I had gotten over myself and been in that of unpublished fan material for my new fanzine, Now to the art: My maudlin dick joke of a files or if they have just coincidentally been pub- photo, but who knew it was going to be my last Fugghead – I like to call it Fannish Archeology – cover aside, there are a couple of pieces in this lished at about the same time. Whatever the cir- chance? *sigh* and I look forward to seeing this fine old relic in issue that I really liked. Rotsler’s wonderful cumstance, great stuff. Anyway, nutty Mr. Lunney brings up the print. When I read this announcement, however, hand-lettered “Fandom” was superb. Sometimes Amazing to see a long letter from Leigh minor debate about whether those were real I had a strange case of déjà vu. I recalled reading we forget that he could do very complex art and Edmonds after all this time. I’ll use the address people on my cover to the previous issue of TD, an article by that name, written by Boyd, in a design when he wanted to and this example really you printed to try and send him a copy of The which is a subject that seriously amused me. How fanzine from the late Sixties or early Seventies. I made me shake my head in appreciation. We’re MOTA Reader. can people with Cosmic Minds be so gullible? thought it was in an issue of Quip, but when I went lucky that he left behind so many unpublished I was greatly complimented by Gordon However, I guess I can see the Stalin similarity, downstairs and went through them I couldn’t find pieces of art for us to continue discovering in the Eklund favorably comparing my wee bit of back but none of those guys came close to resembling it – though I am presently missing the ninth issue. fanzines of the future. (Echo effect here.) cover fanfiction to his own excellent work. Don Wollheim (who was, I have it on the best of {I checked – it wasn’t in it.} After that I wasn’t My old buddy Steverino Stiles puts out a (Yikes, Bill Breiding agrees with him, too.) With authority, a steadfast butterscotch pudding man), sure where else to look, but in my head I can see couple of nice pieces this issue. His heading for Gordon as my example, I too hope to one day be so I think maybe Lenny needs to have his glasses the article as it appeared on the pages – possibly Fred Smith’s article were slick and funny and retired from the post office – which is odd since prescription checked, or something. However, he blue pages. It was a double page spread with the would probably make a great jazz t-shirt design. I’ve never worked there. Still, a man can hope. was right when he called that sports coat a title running horizontally across the top of the two I was also really impressed by his heading for the And then to find out that Howard Waldrop’s got “George Scithers jacket,” it was definitely that. pages, spreading out “The À Bas Story,” far lettercol this time. Like the title, it really does my back, too – I just don’t know how to react. (Again, I’m told Wollheim was a corduroy enthu- beyond what it should have been. But for the life vibrate and I kept having to stare at it to make sure Have these two seen a doctor lately? Certainly siast.) And yet, despite all I’ve just written, Frank of me I couldn’t tell you now where I saw it. it was really the artwork that was vibrating and not there is something wrong with them. was absolutely right about one thing: He does Isn’t that odd? It is clear as day in my mind – just me. Nope, it vibrates. Yay, Steve. His Now, of course I know there is something have hairy knees. my visual memory remains very strong – but my Widner Popeye was spot on, though I wish he had wrong with Frank Lunney. He’s been one of my Next, there’s no way I believe Gary Hubbard’s memory for the details surrounding the remem- cropped the art so that it was larger and filled the best pals for 45 years and I know how rare it is to assertion that he doesn’t know the outcome of bered image are nonexistent. (Which is no help at all to you.) Of course, I could have imagined it, or On the basis of my experience, I think that STEVE JEFFERY description of the cable car system in the TSR/ dreamed it. I have done things like that before. I gradual retirement would be a good idea for Having just passed sixty, I was starting to look Random House warehouse, although I’m sure I’m once woke up thinking I had just bought a new everybody. For many people, working twenty forward to the idea of retirement but Grant Can- not the only reader to suppress a shudder when King Crimson album called, “Strawberries,” that hours a week would be better than complete field has nearly put me off the idea if it involves reading of pallets of hardback books as furnace included Andy “Thunderclap” Newman on piano. retirement. It would give people something to do losing my house, relationship, family and self- fuel. Didn’t Ray Bradbury have something to say I was sure it was real and it was only when I told without having to do too much. Unlike ourselves, esteem. Well, the first three, anyway – I never had on that score? Ted about it that I realized that it had all been a some people actually have trouble with too much much of the last to worry about. And I very much dream. Silly me. spare time. The fannish imagination had trouble doubt I’ll be played by George Clooney in the HOPE LEIBOWITZ Nevertheless, this wasn’t that kind of memory grasping that concept. movie. I may not have to worry about it for while It is so wonderful getting to read another and I would bet you that I am right about seeing In Greg Benford’s article “Escorting the anyway, since the eligibility age for UK state pen- article by Grant. He’s a great writer – it’s a shame such an article. Whether it was the same one Odd,” I’m surprised colleges are wasting their sions seems to receding into the future as fast, if he hasn’t done much in fanzines in a few years. Boyd wrote in 1964 or not, I don’t know. Was it time debating evolution. I had thought that if not faster, as I approach it. I suspect the ultimate “Soulless flesh eating zombie lizard” – I couldn’t a rewrite? Or am I out of my fucking mind? someone demanded a hearing for creationism they aim is keep people chained to their desks until have come up with that phrase, ever. Wow, a 42- Don’t answer that. Still, food for thought. would be told where to go and how to get there. they die on the job, thus saving the government year career. I thought I had a career once. Not! And finally, I am left with your editorial. That’s not to say that there aren’t lots of creation- the worry of having to find the money to pay out And his not being able to afford a large Lynn and I were both shocked by what you and ists around. Apparently, there are millions of their pensions. non-attached house in a better neighborhood is Carol have been going through and we want you them in the United States. Despite – or perhaps because of – these vari- just ridiculous. Something wrong with that. I to know that if there is anything that we can do to I’ve found out more about these people by ous pitfalls and travails, this was an excellent know a couple who bought a house (not right in be of assistance to the two of you, you need only watching movies on Netflix. Among other selec- article from Grant. I loved the rebadged Mitt Toronto, but close) and he drives a fork lift, and ask. Robert, I am pulling for you and if I were a tions, there are some that are specifically made for Romney quote that if corporations were people she has had a series of low-paying jobs. Even a praying man I would surely be on my knees “Christians.” I put “Christians” in quotes because than the one Grant worked for was “a drooling small condominium apartment near me was asking somebody to do something about all this they are made for people in a very narrow part of demented idiot pulling the wings off bugs.” $307,000 around five years ago, and small pro- fucking cancer, and do it now. the Protestant spectrum and certainly not for Working in a large pharma corporation, I would bably means five hundred square feet. At least I could go on and on about this, but you don’t Catholics or most Protestants. The first part of this probably qualify that as “idiot child.” there are amenities, but even my apartment build- need to hear any more about this from me. Please phenomenon I noticed were the Rapture SF movies. I’ve had some weird jobs and projects in my ing has a gym and a free barbecue once a year, and take care of yourselves and know that we love you In these movies, the Rapture has occurred, and the time, but farming cat poo tops them all. (Oddly, I a sad starch and sugar breakfast in the lobby. both. Beast of 666 is in charge. Naturally, the Beast is was listening to something on the radio this morn- Well, there is some fruit, too, and coffee – and happily persecuting Christians. He only gets to ing about an aquaponics farm which is based on once there was little triangular cheese things MILT STEVENS persecute second-string Christians since the first- recycling fish poo. I may never touch green leafed whose name escapes me. Grant Canfield’s article on retiring reminded string Christians have already been raptured. I salad again.) I agree with him about corporations and it me of all sorts of things. I’ve been retired for don’t know why the Christians bother resisting, Nice toast to Art Widner from Andy Hooper. seems to be getting worse. I wrote down “Love almost eighteen years. I had a quiet, conservative since they should know they can’t beat the Beast I’ve come to the belief that Art’s unique writing me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal” – Phil Ochs, police retirement dinner. Seventy-five people until the appointed time, and then they can’t lose. style was actually down to him channeling mobile but I can’t remember what it was about. Maybe showed up, and I got home by the middle of the Watching some of these Rapture SF movies phone text-speak from the future, and we’re all his sister not speaking to him – so sad. next afternoon. I’ve heard about police retire- led to my watching some of the other “Christian” just now starting to catch up. That would leave the Interesting about the cats, too. I hope some- ments where the guest of honor didn’t show up movies. They have a bizarre fascination. They curious corollary that Twitter users under 25 one took some time to pet them and interact with again for weeks. In a couple of cases, they didn’t show people acting in a way I’ve never seen would find Art’s letters easier to understand than them, too. Someone I know adopted a stray who show up again at all. After a police retirement, people act. The ignore the parts of the Bible that most fans would. was following two people who couldn’t adopt you really feel retired. are good advice and concentrate on the stuff that Since I only encountered Art through fanzine him, and he is very needy. He follows her around I retired earlier than I had originally expected. requires blind faith. Most of Christianity doesn’t pages, it came as a surprise to discover from and is upset when left alone for a few hours. The City of Los Angeles decided it wanted to get exist in these movies. “Christians” and antag- Andy’s article that he had biceps like Popeye. Doesn’t even want her to leave the house! rid of older, white employees. Sound familiar? onists are the only people. The antagonists are not Those Charles Atlas ads in the back of old SF “Cat-shit crazy”? I thought it was bat-shit However, they allowed older employees to buy only straw but lightweight straw. magazines must have done someone some good, crazy but either one seems to work. And sad back their military time and apply it to their city The idea that people might do good things then. Excellent illustration from Steve Stiles for about the laser discs, funny about the collector. pensions. So I retired after 29 years service with because of religious conviction isn’t unreason- this, too. That was a huge amount of work on the credit for 32. It was only after I had scheduled my able. Albert Schweitzer is an example. There are I’m still twenty years younger than Bob Sil- mobile home. Shouldn’t all that stuff have been retirement that they realized I was essential. I what I would consider regular movies dealing verberg, but I’m already experiencing a few those done before it was sold. But then I know someone knew more about their crime analysis software with such things. However, these “Christian” ailments that come on suddenly and mysteriously here with a condo apartment and when he moved than anyone else did. So they had to hire me back movies deal with convincing everybody that their and even more mysteriously just go away again in there was mold in the cabinets and a bad smell part-time. I went from working four days a week belief is the only correct belief and all other and serve to remind you that you are gradually and it had to be fixed, and other stuff too. And to working two days a week with a 10% increase beliefs are not only wrong but evil. Right actions wearing out. that is one reason I live in an apartment building. in income. This went on for five years. don’t even come into it. I was fascinated by Michael Dobson’s Very interesting trip report by John D. Berry, I hope he gets to go back again. Canfield’s article, but was brought up short by poems, but I do think they are poetry. I read ing his job, retirement and move to a mobile home As to Andy Hooper’s contribution about Art your editorial. Yikes – bad news, and more bad Ginsberg’s “Kaddish” long ago, and remember (trailer park?) involving the shifting and storage Widner, I had no idea I was going to end up news. Sympathy and commiseration to you and not liking it, but I’ve been rereading it recently, of thousands (?) of books, CDs, DVDs, fanzines, sobbing (tearing up as I type this) but there I was Carol. and I am a little bit surprised to find that this time comics, laser discs (!), etc. The mind boggles! at the end, bawling. I, too, felt like I should have Then I did go on to Grant’s article, and it’s pulling me in. Here am I worrying that my son will have to dis- spent more time with him at that Richmond Cor- enjoyed it and the rest of the issue. My late last cat pose of a few hundred books, LPs, CDs, DVDs, flu. We were in a game of Jenga together, which would not have qualified for the catshit project. FRED SMITH Blu-Rays,etc. when I’m gone unless I can thin the I’d never played, and he won! I’d only heard He was pretty consistent about “thinking outside I have a heavy cold at the moment and just last collection down. So…should I worry? Apart from about his three sons, didn’t know he had four chil- the box.” A good quality in tech entrepreneurs, week suffered the loss of my oldest friend all that, an engrossing article. dren. At a Minicon, both Art and I stayed in Dave not so much in cats. (But other than that, he was Roderic, whom I first met in high school. We were “Typo In Mumbai” is amusing and John’s Romm’s condo, and while drinking some hard a great cat.) It seems that having a house “under- born the same month and year (he was three impressions of India are certainly interesting. liquor Art told the sad story of how all three of his water” involves the kind of suspense that is more weeks older) but his health unfortunately wasn’t However, it’s not a country that appeals to me. As sons were dead. One drowned in a pool, probably fun in stories than in life. I begin to understand as good as mine. He had two major heart attacks Raj says in “The Big Bang Theory”: “All those drunk, another one I don’t remember the details why many people hate banks. We’uns also had in the past and was fitted with a defibrillator but people!” And then of course there’s the heat! (was an alcoholic, possibly all three) and the third some difficulties with the stagecoach crowd. over the last couple of years has gradually Nope, not for me. just disappeared and was never heard from again. Great drawings with Grant’s article – he has not declined. Last week he was taken into hospital and On the other hand, I would like to visit some I was crying then, too, but Dave had fallen asleep lost the touch. died the next day. Rod had been an art teacher all of the countries Bob Silverberg mentions in his towards the end. We were all drinking the hard On through the issue, more good stuff: John D. his life and even did two covers for my fanzine piece. Noticed you’ve placed my article cheek by stuff. It’s hard for me to imagine thirty years Berry in Mumbai. Before encountering that nice way back then. jowl with a couple of old pros! Well, Bob is 81 away from fandom, but I never had to raise any Mr. Berry, I would have had no idea that a typo- So I’m well aware of the grim reaper featured and Greg Benford is now 75, although I persist in children. grapher could lead a life of wild adventures in on TD’s cover this time! Although Dan’s artwork thinking that he’s still a young teenaged fan Here is a poem Art told me from the depres- foreign lands. I love the phrase “Gateway of is masterly and he has drawn many good works instead of a revered professor. We’re all getting sion: “Use it up / Wear it out / Make it do / Or do India.” Very evocative of Kipling’s India, with for you, I must say that I prefer the covers that on a bit, it’s true. In fact, I’ve just been rereading without.” I wrote it down in an old datebook Kim lurking nearby, about to talk the rich for- Steve Stiles did which featured the A Wealth of Fable and note that Warner has a which I still have on my table. That’s what I try to eigner out of a few coppers and the odd bit of Lovecraftean/Jehovah’s Witnesses confronta- paragraph describing you as “the most prominent do these days, not having much income. strategic information. tions. Rest of the pictures in the book are fine, of and lasting of newcomers” (to Los Angeles fan- Interesting article by Fred Smith, who I don’t Then Andy Hooper on Art Widner: can’t get course, and Steve’s illos heading each of the dom in the late ‘50s) and includes your photo as a know. I was astonished to see the name Jim more fannish than that. I think I first encountered articles are a great touch. How do you manage to callow youth! I’m also in the book but only get a Galloway. I’ve been into jazz for some time and Art at one of the San Francisco Potlatches. I persuade your artists to slave for you like this? couple of lines! Yes, we’re all grizzled oldies now I saw him play once, just a bit, during the jazz remember him whipping out a copy of Yhos from {Long-time friendship and sheer audacity in equal and Steve (and Grant) even draw your contri- festival here in Toronto. He spoke, too – don’t a hidden pocket, and encouraging me to join measures.} butors as graybeards. Very appropriate! remember much about it except he was great and FAPA. I had not known about his adventures in Like most people of my age, I hate changes of Regarding Agberg’s travelogue, okay, but he interesting. Many people were shocked and upset the CCC and the Army. It’s good to know more any kind, but changes in health are the worst, is obviously very rich to travel first class and only when we heard he died – last year, I think. And about him; he is missed. Bravo to Andy for the naturally, so I can feel for your problems and stay in the best hotels. Surprising, really, because I’ve been to a few jazz brunches, too, but most interview and the fine article. Carol’s. Mine were, first, the loss of my daughter, I always thought that SF authors didn’t make people seemed to be ignoring the musicians, And likewise to Mr. Silverberg and Mr. Karen, to cancer three years ago, followed a year much money. But then I forget how prolific Bob sadly. A new place here, the Jazz Bistro, does a Benford. I think as a (more or less) innocent youf, and a half later by the death of my wife Betty from has been over the years, possibly the most prolific jazz brunch but they charge a $15 cover plus the I had something of the dream of traveling, maybe another stroke she suffered in her care home. of any SF writer. Ashamedly, I have to confess I cost of the brunch so we haven’t ever gone. And, sailing a ketch around the world, but that is pretty During the three years she had lived there (with haven’t read that much of his stuff in recent times. I’ve heard about midges but didn’t know they bit. much all gone now. Between the superhassle of vascular dementia), an earlier stroke cost her the It’s nice to see that he still maintains some fannish Frank Lunney’s LoC about that “trip” was flying and the dicey state of the world, it takes a use of her right arm and leg in addition to all the contacts through FAPA. great. I’ve never had adventures like that, though lot to lure me out of my little house in the flats. A other problems caused by her dementia. And now, Best thing for me in this TD is Greg’s I did take some LSD many years ago, more than Corflu might do it. the latest life change, Rod has gone. It’s the “Escorting The Odd” – his descriptions of the once. Loved it! One time I became convinced Greg Benford’s article was fun, though the ultimate gafia or, should be, fafia! various characters he has chaperoned at the that the entire course of the universe was deter- comments on Timothy Leary in his latter days Happier things, of course, in TD, Andy university. Especially Kurt Vonnegut, who seems mined after the Big Bang down to the tiniest were a bit saddening. I particularly liked the bit Hooper’s celebration of Art Widner for example. to be exactly as you would imagine him from his detail. I believed that for quite awhile but now it about “Tom” – nicely understated. And the Very full account of the legendary fan and the written works. Marvelous! Incidentally, I’ve seems a bit silly. fascinating and touching encounter with Kurt various conventions he attended as well as his discovered via Google, that Greg is also a more Vonnegut. wide travels and encounters with the famous in prolific writer than I had realized although I do JACK CALVERT And lots of good stuff in the lettercol. I’ll only fandom. Engrossing stuff! have a few of his books. and have read others via I opened the new Trap Door expecting to take pick up one comment hook: Paul Skelton’s on Grant Canfield’s “Gentleman of Leisure” the library. a quick glance through, then dive right into Grant “Soda Run.” I have a hard time with long-line memoir is not so much that as a life history cover- SHERYL BIRKHEAD sure you will get a cover out of him? Or did he do course they weren’t thinking in terms of me ruling same year? You begin to shake uncontrollably. Joy unbounded…Grant Canfield!!!! Thank a great stash of them long ago, which you now the Sevagram, or anything quite along those lines, Some changes are just too vast for the mind of you for prying this out of his fingers! It is just so have secreted in a vault at the bank? Perhaps you but even so… Not of course that they, being the man to grasp. readable. At vet school I lived in a trailer five go round his house with a gun? Just how do you sterling parents they were, ever revealed any such minutes from school – on the side of a mountain, do it? I need to know, so I can get a cover out of disappointment. HOWARD WALDROP just off a high-speed road. I was “forced” into the him. {See my comment to Fred Smith. Does your I’m sure there’s an SF novel in this concept… Hooper on Widner – once again he goes to the purchase since I refused to move into a two- cover desire mean you’re going to publish a about a society where nobody lives a meaningless heart of the fannish matter like no one else ever bedroom apartment in town simply because I was fanzine – perhaps a revived Motorway Dreamer?} life, where everyone spends all their time making has. The two great legacies of FDR were Social bringing two cats with me. I never regretted it and fascinating life-enhancing discoveries or inven- Security (of which we are all now beneficiaries) it was mine. I wish I could be as forgiving of my PAUL SKELTON tions. Just think, the pace of change, with literally and the CCC. Half the structures (and infra- schedule as Grant is – I just never seem to get any- I have to congratulate you on a particularly billions of people inventing new stuff every day, structures) in Texas state parks were built by their where close to getting things done. I wish him all brilliant issue with Trap Door #32. Not a weak would be phenomenal. I mean, by the time you hands and are still holding up. (Of how many the best in retirement! piece in it. It was all very enjoyable stuff. Yes, got to the bus stop of a morning, buses would have 1960’s apartment complexes can that he said?) Andy Hooper, thank you for an insight into even the editorial, given the upbeat tone and the become obsolete. So you get the grav-sled into You should give a nod to Widner (and other Art Widner. I met and spoke with him at more increasingly optimistic nature of your revelations the city. Of course when you get to the office you human gorillas like him), who built stuff to last, than a handful of conventions. Since I have not as it progressed. True, you finished it “feeling find the entire staff has been replaced by half a every time you visit a park. been to any conventions in years, I have no real your years” more than heretofore, but that may be dozen AIs. Mind you, by the time you’ve cleared idea when the last time was that I spoke with him. because you are getting on a bit. I’ll bet even out your desk, these too have been replaced, by an ED BURBEE It seemed that he was one of those ubiquitous Jesse Owens slowed down a bit as he got older. It AI center in India. Let me please thank you for continuing to forces of fandom and would always just…be there happens to us all. All of us that that make it that So you go to catch the next grav-sled back publish my dear father’s writings now and then. …until he wasn’t. far, which is, I guess, the real bottom line. home, in order to explain all this to your wife, I know you admired him. And I believe he You did, though, make one major mistake, only to discover that grav-sleds, too, are now as described you as his Number One Fan. {Wow! JOHN NIELSEN-HALL namely leading off with Grant Canfield’s piece. one with Nineveh and Tyre. In answer to your And this is a good place to say that with the help of I enjoyed Andy Hooper's tribute to Art Good as the other pieces were, there was no way confused queries, someone directs you to the an eBay friend – a devoted Rotsler fan – I’ve Widner. It told me much I did not know. I only they could follow that. In a way, I guess it mir- public matter-transmitter booths, which amaz- recently acquired a long article by your father, met Art for the first time at the 2008 Vegas Corflu rored your editorial in that he remained so upbeat ingly still accept your credit card. You arrive “Heavenly Bodies in Science Fiction” from a and found communication with him a little despite all the bad shit that was going down. Of back home only to find that home is no longer 1972 skin mag, slated for a future issue.} difficult in between his taking out his hearing aid course he might not have done, and simply pret- there. It has been migrated into an alternative The introductory paragraph of Fred Smith’s and fiddling with it and putting it back in and so tied it up later, but that’s not the way it reads to universe/dimension/reality (even the scientists musing clarifies for me why my father never played on. And in 2010 at the Winchester Corflu he fell me. This is definitely the single best fanzine piece can’t agree which it is). be-bop music in our household. He stayed with down a hole. Or was that Ted White? I can’t I’ve read this year, so a big “Thank you” to both of You activate the vid-screen only to be Dixieland music all his life. He even joined a remember. you. informed by the butler that your wife has Dixieland club where the musicians played that Fred Smith on his jazz playing adventures was Given how good I found this issue to be, you instructed that you are not to be given the reality music as of old, with the same gusto. He never tran- amusing. Trad was huge for a brief period in the will not be surprised that, after reading Greg access code, given that she is now married to 33 sitioned to the new music, much less to the blues, early sixties in the U. K. and I seem to remember Benford’s piece, I am not actually contemplating other versions of you from across the megaverse rhythm and blues, or rock-and-roll. As a result, I that Glasgow produced a band led by George crawling off into some shadowy corner and – all of whom, she adamantly insists, are more heard Dixieland music all during my childhood to Chisholm, all bowler-hatted and given to comedy slashing my wrists. Even if I had been thinking interesting than you ever were. The butler sounds boyhood, when I left for the U.S. Navy. skits owing a great deal to Spike Jones. Not many such thoughts, it still wouldn’t have been Greg’s like he agrees with this sentiment, which is a bit I should mention concerning the musical taste people remember those bands now, but the likes fault. His line, referring to Vonnegut’s final snippy considering he was still the bloody dog of my father that he also listened regularly to of Kenny Ball or Acker Bilk could draw massive remarks to him, that…anything that persuaded when you left that morning. Apparently your wife classical music. He had a sizable collection of this audiences. Personally, I loathed it. But every people that they were not leading meaningless had put him through the new evolve-o-mat a music on 78 rpm records. He got a lot of pleasure year Marlborough, our local market town, holds a lives in a meaningless universe, was good, “So couple of times in your absence. from the music of Bach and Beethoven, and his jazz festival and away from the main stages the keep writing.” So he did, and in the process pretty Still, you are a man of your time. You can enjoyment peaked while listening to Ravel's pubs are usually crammed with drinkers being much reminded me that I, on the other hand, am handle this pace of change. Preparing to leave, “Bolero.” This piece, if played loudly, surely serenaded by old gentlemen playing banjos and indeed leading a meaningless life in a meaningless you notice a cardboard box down by where your could stir the dead, it has so much wild energy in double bass behind red-faced blokes risking their universe. As I said, not his fault – mine entirely. gatepost once stood. In it there is that day’s it. My father liked muscular music. already dodgy tickers playing trumpets and trom- He applied himself and became a “Renaissance paper-post, and your e-mail display ring. You As you know, my father requested his ashes to bones. I’m sure none of them would know bebop Man,” whilst I pissed my schooldays away against open the first envelope and discover a copy of mingle with the sand near the Amboy Crater, in if it bit them on a bus. the wall of “couldn’t be arsed.” In so doing, of Trap Door. At first you feel reassured by this the community of Amboy, California. He called By the way, great cover, as always, by Dan. course, I must have been a severe disappointment familiar item, but then your mind begins to reel. it the Amboy Volcano. I did some research at the What is your secret, Robert? Do you have some to my parents who almost certainly saw me, their Didn’t you get an issue of this just a few months nearby university, and found a plain-word sort of voodoo power over Dan so that you can be firstborn, as their great hope for the future. Of ago? More than one issue of Trap Door in the description of this land formation. We spread his ashes there. He left his music behind, but we may well. And of course, I’m equally happy that Carol, suppose the whistling of the wind across the that paragon among women, has come through desert floor will entertain his spirit. her medical crisis.”), JERRY KAUFMAN (“Wouldn't ‘Scythe Matters’ be a good name for WE ALSO HEARD FROM: a magazine about back-to-nature farming? It’s WILLIAM BREIDING (“ Grant’s piece was certainly a very good Steffan cover, and I also epic, and entertaining, and it was great seeing him loved the many and varied Steve Stiles headings drawing again.”), RICHARD DENGROVE, you used for everything except Grant’s article.”) BRAD FOSTER, MARLIN FRENZEL, and LLOYD PENNEY (“The Steffan cover is BRUCE GILLESPIE, ARNIE KATZ (“As great! A cutting edge piece of art, indeed. I went somewhat of a stoic myself, I’m awed by your looking for names on the tombstones, but no luck. resolve to fight the disease in private. I’m I’d love to know where I might get one of those delighted that treatment appears to have gone stovepipe hats, though…”).

(Doorway continued:) I wrote last issue of Carol’s July 2015 and new treatments in the pipeline. And hospitalization with a brain abscess, and am because people with myeloma are living happy to report that there have been no longer and longer, the word “cure” is starting glitches in her speedy and full recovery – a to sound irrelevant as myeloma is treated (I good thing since I rely on her smarts, good hope) as a chronic, not terminal, disease. judgment, and sense of humor in helping me So, see you next issue. navigate my own affliction and keeping my spirits high. —Robert Lichtman And as for me, I had talked about receiving treatment for multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, and how I was “glad that medical science continues to come up with new ways to keep me alive.” My initial drugs were effective but one of them had to be discontinued because of its life- threatening side effects. My current life-saver is a laboratory- made antibody that targets the myeloma cells, kills them, and – as a special favor – invites my immune system to join in the attack. Infusions are given weekly at first, moving to every other week, and finally monthly, where I am now. As with any drug, there’s a long list of possible side effects. Fortunately I’ve had none of them, leaving only some fairly mild neuropathy in my feet and legs that’s the legacy of an earlier medication. I’ve learned to accommodate it. The results have been very good. My “significant numbers” have been cut in half and have maintained their stability through several cycles. There’s no telling how long this good fortune will last. So far, myeloma always figures out what’s going on, reinvents itself, and keeps on giving. Meanwhile, however, there are promising clinical trials