Portable Storage Two

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PORTABLE STORAGE TWO

Portable Storage Two Autumn 2019 AMAZING STORIES For Eggheads 3…. Editorial 8…. Twilight of the APAs By Alva Svoboda 15…. Oh No! By Cheryl Cline 22…. The Quest for Devil’s Food By Don Herron 27…. Reality, Viewed From Providence By Rich Coad 32…. All the Times I Didn’t Meet R.E.M. By James C. Bodie 37…. From Pages Cast By Billy Wolfenbarger 40…. Inquiring Minds By Dale Nelson 50…. Punctuated Equilibrium and the Heart Sutra By Jeanne N. Bowman 52…. LOC$ 56…. Lifecycle of a Fanzine Fan By Michael Bracken 72…. The Gorgon of Poses By G. Sutton Breiding Unsolved Mystery (throughout) By AC Kolthoff

Edited by William Breiding. Available in hard copy for the usual: letters of comment, trade, contributions of writing and visuals, or endowments of cash. Available as a pdf download at efanizines.com.

Please send letters of comment and submissions of all kinds to: [email protected]. Hard copy trades: street address is on your mailing envelope.

Thanks to Mustafa for last minute technical advice.

Portable Storage is a semi-annual publication. The submission deadline for the Spring 2020 issue is January 31, 2020.

Simon K. Agree (front cover)

William Breiding (3-left, 6, 39)

Guy Péne du Boise (3-right)

Collage Werks: by Fernando Villa Senór (7, 31, 35)

Kurt Erichsen (4)

Dave Barnett (8)

Steve Stiles (22, 36)

Banksy (37)

Dale Nelson (41, 42, 47)

Jeanne N. Bowman (50, 51)

AC Kolthoff (52, 73) Harry 0. Morris (72) Crow’s Caw Portrait Project: William M. Breiding Kent Moomaw by Dan Steffan (76) Go to efanzines.com and check out Alan White’s Sky- liner. You will witness the future of fanzine publish- Kent Johnson (Back Cover) ing, as jumpy, fervent, and evocative as a snake han- dler. As old fans and tired continue to fall like flies in All others fair use internet an autumn frost, hopefully a younger, more savvy generation of fans will use the hyper effervescent (and also evanescent) Alan White zines as a guidepost. Full use of color, crazy, offbeat layout afforded by various capture. types of publishing software, hyperlinks going every which way; you name it, it’s stuffed in there. And un- accountable enthusiasm. When geezer Alan finally goes, his zombie reincarnation will return to eat your brains—and pub its ish. Most fanzines on efanzines.com are predicated in style on the old hardcopy method. While some of them remain very pretty in-state, they are also static. Portable Storage will cop that plea—but I’m doing it by design: 3 flogging the horse unto death, old school and sometimes resistant to change. My per- style. sonality has never been computer-friendly and I’ve had difficulty adjusting to efan- “This is clearly the next step in the evolution zines. I will always prefer hardcopy. But now of fanzine production, so let’s ride this suck- that 2020 is just a few months away it beer”—Brad Foster, from the locs, talking came obvious that I needed to let go of the about the look and feel of Portable Storage. concepts that formed my personality in the Actually, Alan White is that next step in the 20th century. I own a computer. I own a digi- evolution. But here’s the things. Various tal notebook that allows me to freely access types of evolutionary mutation frequently the web, and do all kinds of stuff that would live side-by-side until the dominant wins have been a pain in the ass just twenty years out. Fanzine publishing ago—in the great has mostly hopped from and fearful year of hardcopy to digital over a Y2K! long, squirmy period of Michael Dobson adjustment, as original introduced me to fans (now mostly gone, the concept of alas), and their Boomer Print On Demand compatriots try to come as a viable way to to terms with the discom- pub yer ish at the fort of actually having 31st Corflu in Rich- arrived in the 21st century mond, Virginia, in and the devastations of 2014. I was well cultural devolution it has aware of Print on brought with it. Demand, but (Something sf writers thought of it as a have been predicting, way to publish right along with jet- books, not fan- packs.) zines. Michael had Between ditto, mimeo a fine example to and Xerography and the show us—a huge computer-germinated all eight and a half by -pixilated fanzine there is eleven profession- a step that most fans editors are ignoring: ally printed magazine with a full color wrap- Print On Demand technology. around cover—his fanzine, Random Jot- For those caught out by the swift evolution- tings. I was agog. His consistent mantra ary full-throttle charge of technology Print through the convention was “it’s ridiculously On Demand seems like a no-brainer. As cheap!” to produce your fanzine this way. soon as I became aware of the implications Michael was not lying. He gave no figures as of Print On Demand I immediately started to cost, but in a few lines both of us will, so planning to pub my ish. I am slow to evolve, that a point can be proven to you producers

4 of Big Fat Fanzines—also known as the gen- with new forms, we might even make per- zine. sonal magazines cool again…but I’m not holding my breath.” End Quote. Amazon’s Print on Demand service is what Michael and I have both chosen to use, orig- Most reading this editorial will have seen inally called CreateSpace, now called Kindle both my Rose Motel collection and Portable Direct. A good thing or a bad thing about Storage One. You’ll have seen they are using Amazon’s service: it’s automatically things of beauty, both to have and to hold. available through Amazon, pretty much the How much do you suppose it cost me to same day you submit it and order your hard produce these “books”? Hold on to your copies. I, personally, find this to be a boon. hats. Others may not. Another problem some see Rose Motel, a 210 page paperback, cost in Print On Demand is the look and feel, $3.50 a copy to produce. The first ish of which does not look or feel much like a fan- Portable Storage, a 76 page zine, cost $2.15 zine as we have known it in the past. The a copy to produce. Including postage for fact that I can’t print anything on the inside each issue ($1.90, domestic) and an enve- of the cover is a particular annoyance. I’ve lope, the entire production of Portable Stor- considered doing tipped-in plates, which age came out to about $4.50 a copy to I’ve done in other of my fanzines (Starfire 5 reach your (appreciative, right?) hands and had an entire binding and fold-out that was eyes. In 2019/2020 that is pretty damned glued in, like a Rube Goldberg fanzine ex- cheap, and you know it. periment). But I can learn to live with blank interior covers. Michael Dobson’s figures run like this: Ran- dom Jottings 9: $2.24/copy; Random Jot- Michael Dobson and I have been having a tings 17: $2.82/copy. If you’ve seen these conversation about why fan editors seem issues you know they are big, expansive fan- resistant to Print On Demand when so zines with full color covers—awesomely many things, both cool and beautiful, can be cheap for that kind of production. Michael’s done so cheaply. Following is a quote Mi- Random Jottings 11 was a digest-sized fan- chael gave me permission to print, with zine costing him $2.15/copy. some hesitance. I think about Guy Lillian’s Challenger, Nic “Given how easy this was, I’d love to see Farey’s BEAM, Rich Coad’s Sense of Won- some others give it a try (Fanac.org could do der Stories, Andy Hooper and carl juarez’s a whole set of them [Fanthologies] as a Chunga, and any of the various, larger fan- fundraiser), but I don’t expect it. You’re the zines, and I wonder: why aren’t they using only person other than me I know who’s Print On Demand? Why aren’t they flogging been motivated to experiment with the Cre- the horse of hard copy before it’s too late for ateSpace platform. Of course, for all their any of us to flog it at all? (You international stfnal time-binding minds, fans tend to be producers of hefty hardcopy fanzines—and ultra-conservative when it comes to protect- you know who you are!—you should start ing the precious bodily fluids of their com- doing research into Print On Demand in munity. It’s one of the reasons we’re dying your various countries for your next issues— out. If more people started experimenting right now!) There might be the worry that

5 all fanzines will begin to look alike. Not like- art for Sutton’s column may just be a mud- ly. Portable Storage will never be mistaken dled mess when it comes back from the for Random Jottings. Nor BEAM for printer. But Harry was game to see the limi- Chunga, or Challenger for Sense of Wonder tations of Print On Demand. Hopefully we Stories. Robert Lichtman’s Trapdoor is sui didn’t get too screwed. genre, the near perfect fanzine—but think Brad Foster is right—we need to ride this how it could benefit from Print On De- sucker right up until the end, with the horse mand! frothing, right into collapse, and the true There are political ramifications. A local moment of our final entrance into the digi- friend cursed Amazon when she heard how tal age, when we, and hardcopy are, once cheaply they were producing my fanzines. and for all, obsolete. Until then—all you Her friend, a local printer, is still trying to faneds wake up and smell the toner! It’s do the addition (or maybe subtraction) to time to create then die. get to $2.15 a copy. He won’t. And I’m sorry BillyBob sez: LOC me, LOC me now! about that.

There are also repro limitations beyond the inside covers. Harry Morris’ finely nuanced [email protected]

6 7 Twilight of the Apas Or, Where Special Collections Go When They Die

Alva Svoboda The Promise I have always been prone to that form of com- prehensive but extremely shallow appetite described by the catchphrase “eyes bigger than stomach.” That appetite, once applied to bowls of spaghetti or ice cream, transferred with ease to realms such as literature when I learned to read, and fandom when I was given enough spending money to write lots of letters. When I was granted special access to the adult section of the public library, I wandered the shelves filling shopping bags with many more books than I ever read (I still do that), keeping a special eye out for the ones red-dotted for “Adults only”. And when John D. Berry’s column in Amazing Stories included addresses to which inquiries might be directed, I was enchanted by the pro- spect of receiving magical items in the mail. I wrote and inquired, and things coming in the mail increased manyfold. Whether through Berry himself or following one of his profferred lines of inquiry, soon after my introduction to fandom I found out about fannish amateur press associations, or apas, that there were many of them, and that apas had the potential to multiply the amount of my incoming mail seemingly without limit. Apas appeared to be clubs with very low barriers to entry, and offered opportunities to easily create my own fanzines as well. No wonder then that over a brief period of a year or two in my early teens, I joined as many of them as I could, got on the waitlists of many of the rest, and lived the life of an Apa Jiant.

When I first contacted Fred Patten about Kappa -Alpha, I was still pretty vague about the concept, and certainly about the requirements, of apa membership. I was oriented from the beginning toward being a fannish fan, not discussing science-fiction in any serious way although I 8 continued to read lots of the stuff. I was agery appropriate to prepubescent or barely even more distant from treating the reading pubescent squirming, counter-cultural sig- of comics as a topic of discussion. My prior naling from beyond the membranes that still interest in comics (read straight off the rack bounded my Orange County childhood, and at Al’s Party Pantry, the closest store selling stylish yet primitive artistic stylings that liquor, candy and comics as well as being the clearly bore some relation, I didn’t know place I found my first copy of both Dune and what, to the Jay Kinney illos in Arnie Katz’s The Fellowship of the Ring) had been tan- ultra-fannish Focus newszine. Although a gential to my passion for sf. But Fred an- table of contents was provided, the mailing swered my letter before anyone else, and the was made of entirely distinct zines, seeming waitlist for membership was short at the to increase the glorious surplus of material I time. That’s the only way I can account for had received. my first foray into apas being membership in Kappa-Alpha, the comics apa. As it turned I didn’t hang around Kappa-Alpha for long. out, Fred was a brilliant guide to the practi- Fred Patten had been right, of course — I calities of involvement in fandom not only had no notion of how to discourse on the where apas were concerned, but in all re- subject of comics, or even of how to express spects. He tirelessly answered my questions an affection for the art form that matched with a kindness and completeness that I did- the passion of the rest of the membership, n’t deserve in the slightest. Indeed, it’s only and my comments consisted entirely of silly at this moment of writing about his generos- questions and verbal flatulence. But from ity that I realize I should consider him one of that barely sprouted seed I believe I can the best teachers I ever had, albeit in a realm trace the growth of my interest and partici- that appeared to have no application to reali- pation in the apa format over the fifty years ty at large (which is probably why in the since. I wanted marvelous things to arrive in years since that recognition of him as a great the mail; I got a funny feeling in the pit of teacher had never occurred to me). my stomach when anyone deigned to notice me; and I had the sense of somehow having Fred warned me that if I didn’t have a pretty made something that might become part of strong interest in comics, Kappa-Alpha the historical record. might not be to my liking. Nevertheless, the opportunity presented itself and during my Even in this germinal experience I see the brief membership I composed for Kappa- weird similarities and differences between Alpha two dittoed issues of my first fanzine, apas and social media on the internet. Apas defiantly titled Neo-Fan! Perhaps the excla- were communities both insular and porous, mation point, at least, made it appropriate open to newcomers but requiring that the for the setting of comics fandom — that must old ways be learned, and that ultimately one have been at the back of my mind. Ditto had pass through a test, or rite of passage, deter- the advantage for me of allowing me to doo- mining that one was entitled to full member- dle at will, and I made some excruciating il- ship in the community. But unlike the world los for my zine featuring a little alien cartoon of the internet, everything had to be learned character. through asking questions or poring over in- complete descriptions to deduce the facts. I In return for my earnest silliness, I received thought Jay Kinney’s fan art looked a lot like in the mail a series of extraordinary packag- underground comics; I didn’t know that he es containing not only apazines, but actual was making them professionally, and didn’t comics and comix the like of which I had find that out until much later. never before seen. In particular, the whole realm of underground comix was opened up My apa involvements, like most of my fan- to me, with their combination of sexual im- nish experiences, were simultaneous and

9 voracious, in a mindless sort of way, rather the fact would be able to tell. I know this than chronological. And I haven’t saved an- because at some point I acquired a little ything, though I’ve bought a couple of my stack of Apa-L’s from the Sixties, an era old fanzines on eBay out of curiosity. So shrouded in magic quite unlike my prosaic aside from remembering that my very first 1972. zine was made for Kappa-Alpha, I have no factual evidence for what came next. I be- In those ancient disties I found the same lieve that I wrote a lot of letters to Official zines that made 1972 Apa-L what it was, and Collators and the like all at once, got on a as voluminous as it was: notably Patten’s bunch of apa waitlists, and began participat- Rabanos Radiactivos, De Jueves by the ing as the aforementioned magical treasures Moffatts, and Bruce Pelz’s zine which also began arriving in the mail. But given that had a comic-book inspired Spanish title I’m Fred Patten was my Virgil, guiding me not remembering just now. The backbone of through the circles of Apa-dom (more like the apa’s literary structure was to be found Paradise, or at any rate Purgatory, than Hell in the ongoing observation and conversa- to be sure), I’m pretty sure that Apa-L was tions contained in the long-running zines, one of the first apas I joined after Kappa- and contributors such as myself who just Alpha. wanted to feel they were part of the party sent their non sequiturs in like small mete- Death will not Release You ors, mostly burning up in the rich atmos- Here I might remark that there I remember phere. two kinds of apa: the exclusive kind, which defined themselves as a kind of club and Apa-L revealed to me the organic intricacy of fenced themselves elegantly with waitlists fandom in a way that “real” fanzines did not, and requirements for entry; and the non- by building a web of conversational wit, such exclusive kind, Apa-L being the example par as was exquisitely memorialized in the quo- excellence, which were willing to allow al- tidian tales of Walt Willis or Terry Carr, but most any contribution from anyone, any- without expurgation, “leaving the roots on” time, and serve more as agora (i.e., forum as Charles Olson may have described it for devoted to public ranting) than private club. poetry, and before my very eyes. I found It might even be that Apa-L was the only myself unable to partake in the exchanges of perfect case of the non-exclusive apa in my my elders, but even as they provided statu- experience, though I suspect Minneapa, esque modeling of a fandom without end which patterned itself on Apa-L but was lo- (even death would not release them), I did cated in Minneapolis not Los Angeles, came find at least an occasional kindred spirit in close. kids whose contributions were more or less at the same level as mine — to be honest, a Apa-L nonexclusivity was in fact the product little better than mine, but not so much bet- of its being the activity of LASFS, a club itself ter I couldn’t reasonably aspire, comment, omnivorously welcoming but also carrying a and receive comment. Ed Green and his history of feuds and holy wars that raw new- high school cohort from Placentia were, for a comers stepped into, and around, at their year, eminently reachable, and I even in- peril. Rather than being delivered loose in a spired a couple of my friends at Peralta Jun- packing envelope, Apa-L was collated and ior High School to try their hands at an L- stapled together at the weekly meetings, so zine, perhaps so I could feel superior to that the product of the apa had the appear- someone in the apa. ance of a single fanzine produced by all the participants. And appearance became reali- Alas, I gradually lost my vim and vigor ty; we were in fact co-authors, at least inso- where Apa-L was concerned, and when my far as people reading distributions long after family moved from Orange to Simi Valley I

10 found it impossible to continue to be active zines from ages past, on colored paper and — that I think is when I realized my efforts, illustrated and full of insider wit, which had paltry as they were, had been heavily subsi- obviously taken ridiculous amounts of effort dized by the extreme generosity of the to produce. Moffatts and Freff, who hand-delivered my zines, and whomever it was I sent my ditto Although I didn’t know many or maybe any masters to (probably the Moffatts and Freff) of SAPS’s membership before, the apa of- to get my zines in every couple of weeks. My fered a particular form of gratification and fannishness perse had also begun to wane a gamification that made it one of the most year or so earlier, when I started high compelling of my apa experiences: it had an school… annual Egoboo Poll with numerous categories, that allowed most mem- But back to halcyon days. bers to receive some form of For fannish fans FAPA was accolade to warm the cockles the apa that provided a di- of their hearts. I remained in rect connection to every- SAPS long enough to “place” thing that Harry Warner in at least one category in wrote about in his canoni- one Egoboo Poll, maybe in cal history All Our Yester- the “New Member” category days, with personalities or something like. The such as Redd Boggs, Ted award made me feel as White and Charles Burbee though I had won a Nobel still gracing its pages when Prize; I think I even shared I got on the waitlist. The the result with my parents, waitlist, however, was who had very little idea of years long at the time, so I what I was up to in the first also opted for “second place. In the following year’s best,” the other great long- poll, however, I don’t re- running fannish apa, the member getting any mention Spectator Amateur Press (or perhaps I was relegated, Society then being run by as so often with respect to Doreen Webber out of Ak- my letters of comment, to a ron, Ohio. SAPS was just kind of “We Also Heard Fred Patten, as much a vestige of First a wizard, a true star From” category representing Fandom as FAPA, but did- “effort” but not quality. n’t have the BNF’s (Big Name Fans) as members. Or at any rate, guided by Harry Every apa, like a corporation or tribe, had its Warner I didn’t recognize the elders as such. own particular game-like rules and activi- Doreen and Jim Webber seemed “ordinary” ties. Rules and activities enabled newcom- — almost a half century later, I’d have to say ers to learn enough of a culture to cope be- they retain the aura of Ron Weasley’s par- fore learning enough to triumph, or enough ents, utterly middle-class cheerfulness even to merge into the crowd. The particulars of while utterly the purveyors of dark magic commenting on the work of others were al- and power. That power was manifested in ways difficult for me to manage, largely be- mailings of epic size, delivered in heavy duty cause I attempted to fulfill that requirement mailing envelopes and including (like the while almost always doing the minimum one or two FAPA spec mailings I received amount of activity allowed to continue mem- while on the waitlist) numerous apazines bership (“minac,” in the parlance of the that looked just like genuine fanzines, fan- apa). Comments were a form of exchange, a

11 kind of gift-giving. I was more a taker than of behaving inappropriately, and a way of a giver, but I always scanned apazines en- preventing any actual inappropriate behav- thusiastically for any indication of my own ior from occurring under the auspices of name. the Cult), and that I was in fact the last fan to be so marked. Oddly, I’ve been unable to The Limits of the Form locate the Breenmark reference in more re- My interest in and desire to join the Cult cent online searches, which brings up that proceeded directly from Apa-L activities. existential difference between online things Although most of the membership, as I re- and on-paper things for me. On-paper member it, was not from Los Angeles, the things are definitely there, somewhere, at roots of the group and several of its most least they are if you save them or know august presences were there, in particular they’re in an archive. Online things are in- Don Fitch and Ted Johnstone. I received definitely there: they’re almost certainly benign guidance from Don Fitch, and was saved, but almost certainly in a way that fascinated with his involvement in Indian makes it impossible for you to find them by pow-wows as well as fandom. Ted John- merely human means. stone on the other hand represented the more acerbic traditions of that decade’s and There is a definitional question that emerg- the previous one’s, fandoms. I know that I es when considering the Cult, as well as contributed at least a couple of submissions similar groups like TAPS and Slanapa in to the Fantasy Rotator, and at some point which a rotating editor assembled what remarked on the difficulty I had coming up looked much like a fanzine from the contri- with anything to write about, and the possi- butions of members. When does an bility that everything that could be thought apazine become a (part of a) fanzine? At about or written of had perhaps already least in Apa-L most contributions were self- been thought and written. Johnstone reprinted. Forget for now about the interven- sponded with a comment on the ridiculous- ing years, which have turned all publica- ness of that remark, suggesting that the tions into potentially digital entities and fault was not in the fannish stars but in my- thereby made the requirement of purely self. I took that comment to heart with re- physical publication more or less meaning- spect to both the possibilities of the world less. After all, the prehistory of apas, when and my own deficiencies, one of those little the form arose among printing hobbyists memories that has remained a neon sign in not science-fiction fans, was purely as a dis- my mental landscape even as darkness play of capabilities such as letterpress to overtakes the rest. produce publications that looked nice, whatever their content. That purpose was Aside from Fitch and Johnstone, I remem- obviously subverted by FAPA from the ber most of the members of the Cult being start, but there’s no question that many of insular to that group, as far as I knew. It the mainstream apas’ zines looked mighty was like a tiny fandom nested within fan- fine, and were produced through individual dom. When about fifteen years ago I was effort. momentarily curious about what had happened to fandom, I looked up the Cult and To rephrase the definitional question: when found that (1) it was no longer in existence does a purely collective rules-based activity and (2) my name was associated with passes over to a nominally collective, but something called a “Breenmark” indicating actually individual act of editorial assembly to the general membership of the Cult that and curation? My being unknowingly certain matters were to be censored from Breenmarked could be construed to imply my Fantasy Rotators before sending that my Fantasy Rotators were edited for (apparently both a way of hedging against my benefit just as if they were fanzines. young kids such as myself accusing adults Editorial discretion existed even if not a 12 word was changed between what I got and cold sweat hoping no one besides my teacher what unBreenmarked Cultists received in the would come by and ask me what I was doing. mail. Of course, the assemblers of apa mail- Then I collated and stapled the materials and ings were always making similar decisions mailed them out — and discovered after the with less explicitness. Contributions were fact that I had missed a page of one mem- ordered according to some rule, and the de- ber’s zine, or maybe copied the same page gree to which copies of zines were identical twice (two-sided copying was at the bounda- was limited by the times. (And forty years ry of my competency, and I slipped back and later, the lack of need to copy anything in forth across that boundary), so that although physical form makes the whole debate an I had managed to do my duty I had not done arcane and useless one.) To move the issue it well. forward a half century, I ask you: is Mark Zuckerberg in some sense an Official Colla- I was fortunate enough to get on the waitlist tor? Is Facebook an apa? And would the of RAPS (which stood for the RAPS Amateur Russians fare in an Egoboo Poll? Press Society, in infinitely recursive fashion) in time to witness what might still stand as It was in TAPS that I had my one opportuni- one of the most extreme statements ever ty to experience the editorial vantage of apa- made about the nature of apas and what dom myself. The experience of serving as might be allowed under an apa’s stated set of the official editor of a TAPS issuance was a rules. The rock critic Richard Meltzer, who memorable ordeal. I am put in mind of the would ultimately become quite famous as title of Fred Allen’s memoir about radio, rock critics go, had somehow briefly joined Treadmill to Oblivion. Almost all of my own the apa — I think he may have been invited zines had been produced not through my by a subversive or naive member without the own physical efforts, but by sending ditto full knowledge of either Meltzer or the mem- masters, or very rarely mimeo stencils, to bership at large as to what that might cause. persons willing to duplicate them and for- In the first RAPS mailing I received, there ward the results to the apa, if they weren’t was a zine from Meltzer which included already in the collator role themselves. But some contemptuous ripostes to previous the requirements of the rotating apas includ- comments, and a portion of the page bearing ed a responsibility to produce an entire colla- a small stain – which he claimed to be his tion approximately once a year, operating own semen. I had no prior experience of the treadmill to oblivion myself as it were, performance art to go by, but neither it and to pay for the postage to send it to the seemed did the rest of the membership, who membership, which in the case of TAPS expressed the kind of outrage that now meant the other eleven members plus wait- emerges instantaneously on Twitter at the listers. Being in junior high, and living at a drop of a tweet. Aside from the outrage, distance from other fans who might have had though, the questions remained: was there access to duplicators or mimeos, I made a any sense in which all of the copies of the special request of my ninth grade English zine could be considered duplicates? And teacher, who pulled some strings and basi- was the claim that the stain was semen even cally just let me in to the office after hours, to credible? DNA testing would settle the ques- use the ditto machine there. I had some tion now, but this was 1972-3, and Meltzer trepidation about that, regarding all uses of got just the rise out of his readers that he had such equipment as official actions of the intended. I remember thinking it odd that state government, so that I had likely crossed the other members I thought of as the most the line into criminality and thievery as I counter-cultural, like David Hulvey or raced to get all the zines printed off. I Alpajpuri, seemed to react the most nega- brought my several reams of colored paper tively to Meltzer’s nihilism. Looking back on and all the ditto masters submitted by the it now, their reaction makes more sense: membership, and ran the material off in a they had an emotional investment in creat- 13 ing a friendly community much larger than tor, was beyond the limits of my energy, my own. Marty suggested I try Lasfapa instead, and that’s where I’ve found my final fannish ref- Let me list the other apas I joined or waited uge for the four or five years since. My to join as an active fan in the early Seven- minac, two pages every two months, has ties, which I no longer have any clear mem- marked the passage of my years of father- ories of but which deserve to be remem- hood and senescence, all due to the gener- bered by someone: Slanapa; Myriad; Min- ous encouragement of Mr. Cantor, whose neapa, SFPA; N’APA; Apanage; Apa-45; and tolerance and fellow feeling appear to have possibly Apa-55. If only there were so many no realistic limits. Marty is the great soul unique flavors of Facebook, perverse though who prints up my Lasfapa zine now every they may occasionally have been. other month and has kept the apa running for my entire run in it. My older daughter, Coda Elena, even contributed a cover to one Much later, as already mentioned, I became Lasfapa mailing that I thought perfectly in curious as to what had ever happened to all tune with the fannish art that had graced those fannish people I used to know and the covers of Apa-L in the early Seventies. began to gingerly explore renewing some Her work was far better than any illustra- connections. During the Nineties I hung tion I had ever done in my own dittoed around Apa-50 for a couple of years owing zines. Thus do the generations pass, and to Mr. Breiding and his good influences. thus endeth this account of my life as a fall- The experience was a bit like delving into en Apa Jiant. strangers’ diaries, or maybe reading the later chapters of an epic novel without having even got a digest of the earlier parts, and ultimately I lapsed. William Breiding aside, Unsolved Mystery Apa-50 was tangentially related to any fan- By AC Kolthoff nish communities I was familiar with, but the apa gave me an opportunity to write, and I put some pieces into mailings that Mildred had her eyes on Dan. She were probably longer than anything else I watched him, all blue-shirted and ever did in the fannish realm. bustling, inserting the money and

Then in the Oughts, I rejoined Apa-L for a filling his tank. She wondered couple of years after locating an e-mail ad- where his firm hands would grip dress for Marty Cantor, having learned that her as he came deep inside of her. several of the people I had known or known of had either passed on or were no longer He was young but on the verge of able to participate. That was only a little car leases and larger shopping before the time that Fred Patten’s participa- carts. She was old, well beyond tion finally dropped off (after contributing to every single distribution for four decades) lascivious looks. Yet he glanced her and the number of zines was much dimin- way and paused. She smiled a small ished, cut down by the two horsemen of fan- firm smile; closed lips stretched nish end times, age and the internet. Those who were there looked and sounded in their over real and imitation teeth. He zines just as they always had, however, and tipped his hatless head almost im- the conversations continued without pause. perceptibly. They had history.

When I found that even one zine every two weeks, printed for inclusion by Marty Can- 14

Oh! Cheryl

No! Cline

I started thinking about the ways stories slinging guns, fighter pilots ack-ack-acking end after reading William's comments last each other out of the sky, cops terrorizing issue on the differences between "slice-of- witnesses with their implacable demands life mainstream fiction" (Julia Elliot) and for 'just the facts, ma'am.' genre fiction (Michael Swanwick). I started But school? School was where you were ex- it as a rumination on various kinds of end- posed to the improving stuff. Most of my ings, but then it turned into this. I guess I memories of school reading -- along with hold grudges. the quizzes, essay questions and book re- When I was ten years old, I was scarred for ports that went with it -- have long crum- life by "Final Escape," an episode of The Al- bled into the compost of early education. fred Hitchcock Hour, a TV show my moth- But three stories are seared in my memory, er, a gentle person, loved to watch. In this probably not for the reasons they were as- episode, a convict comes up with a plan to signed. escape from prison by slipping into the cof- "The Lady or the Tiger." The granddaddy of fin of an inmate slated for burial the next surprise cliffhanger stories, the one that day. The gravedigger, a fellow convict, is shattered my childhood innocence and first supposed to dig him up right afterwards… made me curl my lip upon hearing an au- you can see where this is going. I fled to the thor's name. I read it in fifth grade, for kitchen, but crept back to watch through my class, and I think we were supposed to fingers. I can still see the character's face choose either the lady or the tiger and dis- when he finally sees who is buried with him, cuss, or something fatuous like that. I don't just before his last match goes out. remember which I chose, only that the story I knew that was going to happen — but I made me furious. I probably wanted to couldn't look away. I had to know for sure. choose the tiger, because someone should Of course I had nightmares. suffer besides me. But I was a good girl and probably said the Lady, even though that But more than that, I was angry. Remem- choice was fraught as well. How could a sto- ber how angry you could get at the universe ry end like that! It was beyond unfair! What when you were ten years old? a mean thing to do! I hated Frank R. Stock- Of course, TV, you expect things like this. ton's guts. We control the horizontal, gunslingers

15 Another classic, another sadistic teacher, A Cruel Tale. With a surprise twist at the "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." We end. Not a nice one. The kind of story that weren't assigned the short story -- which does make you want to cry out "Oh No!" — would have been shocking enough -- but followed by "Argh!" were shown the 1962 film by French produc- Conte cruel was a French literary movement er Robert Enrico. At least I was in high inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe -- school by then and wiser in the ways of but without the supernatural elements. A heartless authors. Still -- furious? Check. I'm true conte cruel story is more often an en- sure I parroted back the blah blah irony blah tirely mundane story that ends with a horri- blah horrors of war blah blah time dilation fying and ironic twist. Heavily ironic. Anvil- blah blah stream of consciousness, blah blah weight irony. It might be dressed up as poet- blah ugh. ic justice, but it's the irony that's supposed to Around the same time — this was the early hit you between the shoulder blades like 70s — a friend of mine left public school to some terrible uncle who thinks his joke is attend a "free school," which I thought must the funniest thing ever. Bierce and Dahl ex- be, like, high school heaven. One day I visit- celled at this, obviously. ed this cool laid-back hippie place with the So do half the writers in the SF/Fantasy gen- Che and Dylan posters on the wall, and was re. Okay, I exaggerate. But the term conte day-glo green with envy — right up until we cruel spills over into science fiction and fan- all sat in a circle to listen to a nice woman in tasy, because there are whole swaths of SF/F a peasant blouse read Roald Dahl's "Pig." that delight in a cruel twist. The stories just That's when I realized that no matter how happen to take place on other planets or in- cool the school, all teachers are licensed sad- volve aliens or are set in the future. Some ists. famous cruel twist endings come to mind: And they still are! In the age of the Internet "The Cold Equations," "To Serve Man," "I one can poke around and accidentally find a Have No Mouth and I Must Scream." teacher site with classroom exercises for To provide maximum wince value, the butt "Pig" that includes the following question: of many conte cruel type stories is an inno- 15. How do you feel about the conclusion of cent like young Lexington in "Pig." He may the story? be weird, but he doesn't deserve to be sliced into pork cutlets and so has our sympathy. a) It is horrific. But an equally horrifying story can be told b) It is amusing. about a terrible person hoist by their own c) It is both horrific and amusing. petard. These stories sadistically pull you in Explain your answer. two directions —loathing for the character on one hand and horrified sympathy on the My answer is d) Arr!@#$%&!!rrrgh. I think other. that is self-explanatory. A man (usually a man) has a brilliant plan: Most people resent a trick ending; most peo- to get even with someone, get someone out ple get over it. I didn't. These four stories of the way, or to get away with the perfect represent the four types of stories most like- crime. Not only will this plan fail, it will ly to fill me with book-throwing rage. I be- boomerang back on him. And if a brilliant lieve the literary terms are dead stupid, bull- plan is sure to go wrong, an evil brilliant shit cliffhanger, probably should have seen plan puts the nail in the coffin. So to speak. that coming, and what the hell was that? But that's okay because he's greedy, petty, Lynn (Kuehl — my spouse, old fan and tired, jealous, self-involved and mean. But it's not bookdealer) calls these "Oh No!" stories. But okay because… argh. actually there's a perfectly good French literary term for it: the conte cruel.

16 There was a remake of "The Final Escape" ter Baxter had long been an avid reader of episode in 1985, which changed the main crime and detective stories, so when he de- character into a thoroughly awuful and un- cided to murder his uncle he knew he must likeable murderess. This bothers a critic at not make a single error." Hah! If he was an the AV Club blog, who complains "there are avid reader of crime and detective stories he some fates so horrible no one deserves them, should know he's doomed. And of course he no matter how imperious they are." But is. Not only does he make a single error, it's that's the point. The reader (or viewer) is a whopper. The ending of "The Geezen- meant to helplessly vacillate between "She's stacks" is foreshadowed so hard that when a murderer and she deserves it," and "Oh no! Edith realizes who's driving, we're hardly Don't do it! DON'T GET IN THE COFFIN! surprised. Appalled, but not surprised. So is Argh!" it a trick ending if you know the trick is coming? In Brown's stories you can't possibly I was trying to figure out why these stories miss it; the warning signs are as clear as an feel so… claustrophobic (premature burial elbow to the ribs. After reading two or three aside). It's because you don't have the usual of these, unless you're a really dense sort of hero to root for, victim to worry about, and reader, you'll be thinking, "I'm reading a sto- villain to despise. Just the one character, all ry by Fredric Brown. There's sure to be a rolled into one. It's even more claustropho- twist ending." bic if the story has a first-person narrator, because then you're trapped inside the mind Brown sort of inoculated me against the of this three-headed thing. twist ending -- even the cruel twist ending -- and I learned to reasonably tolerate them. If Some of these stories work so hard to wring I couldn't, I wouldn't be reading SF. Still, I every ounce of dread from the reader they was surprised when a few came to mind that end up undermining the surprise. You must I actually like. A lot! Why? I'm not sure. admit a character agreeing to being buried These stories were in a way even more alive to be rescued later is enough to tele- twisty. John Collier's "Bottle Party" ends on graph the fact there will be no rescue. the cruel twist, then twists the knife again; There's also the external clue, of course, that so does Avram Davidson's "The Goobers." one is watching The Alfred Hitchcock Hour R.A. Lafferty's "Nine Hundred Grandmoth- and not Make Room For Daddy. Also, the ers" doesn't have a twist ending, but the last title gives it away! Final, ha ha. Much like sentence is a bit jolting. In all three stories, the title of Richard Hull's The Murder of My the surprise or twist isn't so much about the Aunt, it can be read two ways. Bet on the ending of the action but is a small epilogue worst one. or tag after the end proper. Sort of the ba-da Fredric Brown, who wrote dozens of twisty- -bing after the punch line. ended mystery and SF stories, liked to play This kind of twist can cast the story in a with this trope. His story "Nightmare in Yel- whole new light, make it click into place or low" (In Nightmares and Geezenstacks), open up the story past the ending. begins: "He awoke when the alarm clock rang, but lay in bed for a while after he'd It can add an extra dollop of nastiness, but it shut it off going a final time over the plans doesn't have to be nasty. Terry Pratchett's he'd made for embezzlement that day and Thief of Time ends in a series of epilogues, for murder that evening." From there he each punctuated by a tick that shows Time is harps on the infallibility of his plan: "Every running as it should. The last one with, Su- little detail had been worked out," "and san Sto Helit and Lobsang Ludd, is whimsi- they'd never catch him… it was foolproof." cally sweet, a "perfect moment" between two awkward characters. Yeah, right. In "Fatal Error," the character has studied up on foolproof plots: "Mr. Wal- The tag at the end of "Bottle Party" by John

17 Collier is definitely nasty. The story has all don't die, they just become smaller and the earmarks of a conte cruel story. The smaller; the oldest "grandmother" is about structure is the same, the set-up almost the size of a bee. Unfortunately, while they identical, and ends with an ironic twist. do indeed know How It All Began, they think Franklin Fletcher dreams of beautiful wom- it's a hilarious joke. "Oh, it was so funny how en on tiger skins, but this doesn't work out, it began. So joke, so fool, so clown, so gro- so he goes looking for a hobby instead -- and tesque thing!" Swicegood tries to convince finds the kind of old weird antique shop it's the grandmothers to tell him the secret. But best to avoid. The old man there sells him a the ultimate grandmother tells him — while bottle with a jinn in it. The jinn gives Frank laughing and chortling and chuckling over it everything his heart desires, including beau- — she can't tell an outsider because unlike tiful women on tiger skins, but after a while her people, strangers die. "Shall I have it on he gets bored -- until the jinn reminds him conscience that a stranger died laughing?" of the bottle that holds the most beautiful Ceran is frustrated. He begs and pleads, and girl in the world. He falls in love, then turns finally threatens. He'll crush her if she jealous and cruel. He gets his comeuppance doesn't tell him! The ultimate grandmother because of his own greed and stupidity; he's calmly calls his bluff. too self-involved to see the suffering he's causing, or the mutiny that's brewing among "Any of the tough men of the Expedition his captive bottle-spirits. It begins as one of would have done it—would have crushed the claustrophobic tales, and almost ends as her, and then another and another and an- one, but the protagonist-villain-victim-all- other of the creatures till the secret was told. rolled-into-one is unspooled. At first, you If Ceran had taken on a tough personality, might feel some sympathy for Frank, who's he would have done it. If he'd been Gutboy lonely if a bit of jerk, but by the end, you're Barrelhouse he'd have done it without a rooting for the jinn and the most beautiful qualm. But Ceran Swicegood couldn't do it." girl in the world. And they win, tricking him Frustrated, despairing, laughing and crying into the bottle that had contained the girl. at the same time, he finally slinks away with The last line is almost an offhand after- the laughter of the grandmothers in his ears, thought: without the great secret they possess. And then comes the tag: "In the end, some sailors happened to drift into the shop, and, hearing that this bottle "On his next voyage he changed his name to contained the most beautiful girl in the Blaze Bolt and ruled for ninety-seven days as world, they bought it up by general subscrip- king of a sweet sea island in M-81, but that is tion of the fo'c'sle. When they unstoppered another and much more unpleasant story." him at sea and found it was only poor Frank, You know right off the bat that Avram Da- their disappointment knew no bounds, and vidson's "The Goobers" will be funny. Only a they used him with the utmost barbarity." traumatized ten-year-old would be afraid of One of my favorite stories is R.A. Lafferty's monstrous aliens called Goobers. But it's "Nine Hundred Grandmothers." An expedi- also a wrenching story of a boy (called the tion of Special Aspects Men travel from Boy throughout the story) who lives with his planet to planet, looking for marketable re- nasty, greedy, miserly and mean grandfather sources. Some of the men of the expedition (called the Old Man). The old man bullies are tough guys with tough names, who have the boy in every kind of cruel way, but the few scruples when it comes to upsetting the worst, because it seizes the Boy's imagina- alien cultures. But the main character, Ceran tion, is his threat to sell the Boy to "the Goo- Swicegood, has a more earnest, Star-Trekish bers." The Boy tries not to believe in them, attitude. Worse, he has an irritating habit. but he's a kid after all, and he imagines them "He was forever asking the question: How as yellow-brownish things with wrinkled Did It All Begin?" The people of Proavitus 18 shells and a few hairs, who live in holes in story "His Wife's Deceased Sister." A newly the ground (Davidson brilliantly describes married writer, inspired by the joys of matri- peanuts as monstrous). The end of the tale, mony, writes a story he thinks is the best the monster story, is when the Goobers actu- he's ever written. He submits it to his usual ally show up to look in his mouth and pinch editor and turns out he's right. The story is his arms, inspecting him like a prize pig. The an instant success and makes him famous — end of the narrator's story, though, is when it goes viral, as we'd say today. But there's a the Goobers leave, dissatisfied with what's catch: everything he writes from then on is on offer. The Boy realizes three things: his compared to his most famous story and grandfather is scared out of his wits by the found wanting. One by one the editors he Goobers; the Goobers don't want to buy him had worked with return his new stories, re- and won't return; and that these two things gretfully telling him they didn't want to tar- means he can turn the tables: nish his reputation by publishing a story that wasn't as good as "His Wife's Deceased Sis- "After that, of course, I made his life a living ter." The writer is in despair. A sympathetic Hell until I ran off two years later at the age editor finally takes pity on him and advises of twelve, and there wasn't a damned thing him to write under a pseudonym, so he can the old bastard could do about it." at least put food on the table. And then — in I'm not sure why these cruel(ish) twist(like) a euphoric mood at the birth of his first son, endings appeal to me, but these are three of he writes another story he instinctively my long-time favorite stories. The ending of knows is his best yet. He's thrilled for one "The Goobers" could, I suppose, be classified moment — then carefully locks the story in a as a happy ending. The ending of "Nine metal box and throws the key in the river, Hundred Grandmothers" is more cynical then welds the sides shut besides. Maybe and dark, and the end of "Bottle Party" is someday, after he's dead and doesn't have cruel (but fair). But it's the way the little his reputation or his livelihood to worry twist at the end takes the story past the end- about, someone will break open the box and ing that appeals to me the most. Frank in publish it. "Bottle Party" gets his, while the genie and When I read that story, which is, yes, based the beautiful girl live happily ever after. on Stockton's experience after publishing Ceran goes on his way, having learned the "The Lady or the Tiger," I felt better about it. wrong lesson; the Boy gets his revenge and I didn't forgive the story, but I felt a little then lights out for the territory. more kindly towards the author. So… maybe it's not just that I dislike twist I read "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" endings because they're brutal on the char- while writing this. I had never read it — acters. A good conte cruel story is also cruel which put me in the ranks of what Kurt Von- to the reader. In the Brown, Collier and Da- negut called a twerp, but oh well. It's a great vidson stories, a character comes to a very story! It's written in a spare, condensed, bad end, but at least the reader doesn't suf- even poetic style that's emotionally powerful. fer! My kind of story! The time-dilation is both So, back to the beginning. Stockton, Bierce, dreamlike and realistic and the ending is Dahl, Hitchcock. How do I feel about these god, I have to say, perfect. It's easy to see stories now? All these years later? why the story has influenced everyone from Borge to Bon Jovi. Read it. Don't be a twerp! I've made my peace with 'The Lady or the Tiger." A few years ago I got the notion to Still… among the reams of criticism and read some of Stockton's stories and novels, commentary on the story I glanced at while I prompted by an old 20-volume set of his col- was over-researching this article is this la- lected works we had around the house, as conic bit from John Gerlach's Toward the one does. In one of the volumes is the short End: Closure and Structure in the American

19 Short Story: it's just a creepy story. I still don't like it. "Perhaps one might learn something by As for "Final Escape," it's prime "Oh No," it's reexamining the way a writer has tricked the gold-standard conte cruel and I rather cher- reader; a reexamination of Ambrose Bierce's ish the childhood memory of being scared to "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" might death by a TV show. It's possible that a re- show the reader how he was deluded into watch of the episode would soften or ruin believing Peyton Farquhar has escaped the the memory — for all I know, it might seem union guards, but the reader is unlikely to hokey or old-fashioned, more retro than derive more satisfaction than that." That horrific. Or maybe, like Owl Creek Bridge, it pretty much sums it up. would impress me with its technical bril- liance, noir style, and dazzlingly dark story- I'm unlikely to derive any kind of satisfac- telling. Or -- most likely, I would stand tion from Roald Dahl's "Pig." I know how he trembling in the doorway between the kitch- tricked me, but I don't care. I don't care if en and the living room, unable to look away, the story has a point to make about the de- watching through my fingers, waiting for the struction of innocence or at what levels peo- match to go out. ple and animals are the same, I don't care if

20 THE SOUND OF HIS HORN The Sound of His Horn by Sarban, first published in 1952, is the story of Alan, a British World War Two prisoner of war escapee. As he is hastening through the landscape he is injured and knocked out by Bohlen Rays, which are emanating from the fortified fence line of a German country estate. He wakes in a hospital room with severely burnt hands only to discover he has been Rip Van Winkled 102 years into the future, and the Nazis have risen victorious. The outcome has been to revert to medieval feudal fiefdoms of violent tyranny. Our hero assumes he has gone mad but works logically, and well, within these given perimeters. It is tempting to call this short novel either science fiction or fantasy, or in current lingo, alternative history, but Kingsley Amis nails it (from his excellent, in-depth forward to the book) when he calls it “a pessimistic utopia”. The phrase seems far more apt and irony- laden than the simple use of “dystopia”. There is no doubt that The Sound of His Horn borders erotic fantasy. Sarban’s descriptions of Alan being infantilized by the nurses in the hospital, the intensive descriptions of fabrics and shoes, the “game girls” in deer costume being hunted by horseback and on foot by men and dogs, the living naked statues holding torches, the naked or half naked slaves, the cat girls and dog boys leashed and feral; they are all drawn delicately yet precisely, never overstepping into the crass. Much of this imagery was stolen wholesale and used for more titillating purposes by Anne Rice in her “Beauty” series, a fairly hardcore set of erotic novels following the (mis) adventures of Sleeping Beauty after she is raped awake by a prince and indentured into a sexual servitude of bondage, discipline, and sadism. Sarban was a keen writer of intensity and color. There is deliciously tight prose austerity in Sarban’s lush, densely imagined world. The Sound of His Horn is a fully realized unnerving vision of violent bucolicism, soothed only temporarily, by simple natural things and moments. Never is there relief, or release, from the Nazi state of mind. —William M. Breiding 21

. . . . The Quest for Devil’s Food . . . . Don Herron

Ships that pass in the night—that sink at sea, since the beginning of the 1960s, and in the that founder in their moorings and drag period I met Leiber he was busy writing the dreams to a waterlogged grave. novel ultimately known as Our Lady of Darkness, in which Sidney-Fryer appears I might have met David Mason, still perhaps under the guise of Jaime Donaldus Byers. best known for his 1969 Sword-and-Sorcery paperback original novel Kavin’s World— Later in the year G. Sutton Breiding came on cover painting by Frazetta—but the window the scene, another emerging poet in the con- was brief. Barely over four months. I arrived stant legion of San Francisco’s emerging po- in San Francisco February 14, 1974 and Ma- ets, who made contact with DSF. son died June 28, 1974. I wasn’t aware that Mason lived in the city, and suspect he al- Perhaps you sense a theme. Literary San ready may have passed on before I heard of Francisco. his residency. Before anyone local mentioned his name. Sutton or his brother Bill told me that they had lived next door to David Mason on Bush The only person I knew in San Francisco on Street. They told me about his terminal ill- arrival was the poet Donald Sidney-Fryer, ness. I believe Bill was the one who men- whose collection Songs and Sonnets Atlan- tioned the porno novel Devil’s Food. “A sci- tean appeared from Arkham House in 1971. ence-fantasy porn book set in San Francis- Through him I met Fritz Leiber, author of co.” science fiction, fantasy, horror—and Sword- and-Sorcery. DSF and Fritz had been pals I may have taken notes then, or more likely

22 just left it to memory to write down later. encyclopedic work. And as it happened I was compiling more and more information and clippings on writ- Fritz’s companion of his San Francisco ers in San Francisco, while beginning to lead years, Margo Skinner, also knew Mason, and The Dashiell Hammett Tour on a regular informed me that in her opinion the writer’s basis. Hammett. The Maltese Falcon. David terminal illness and doom came about be- Mason—his only on-scene novel seemed to cause one of his girlfriends, a sorceress, put be Devil’s Food. The perhaps compulsive a curse on him. Margo was serious about interest and boxes of research led to me that sort of thing, but may have invested too writing the guide book The Literary World much menace into the idea simply because of San Francisco and its Environs, pub- the woman also raised wolves. Witchery and lished by City Lights in 1985. wonder.

And while I didn’t give him as much word- When Literary World of San Francisco saw age as Hammett or Jack London or The print in 1985 I still had never seen an actual Beats, I made sure to ease David Mason into copy of Devil’s Food, after first hearing that cultural history. about it in 1974. Even at that time, I wasn’t certain that Devil’s Food actually existed as Some of the information of course came a printed book—that it wasn’t just one of the from the Breidings, but later on I discovered manuscripts trapped inside The Sea that Fritz Leiber had known Mason, as well. Hag when it sank. I looked for it, sure, but I When Fritz was living in Venice, California wasn’t finding it. in the 1960s, David Mason and a woman came to his door promoting some leftwing I checked for it every time I went into a used cause, and they hit it off. Mason had pub- bookstore, and many more used bookstores lished a few short stories in the science fic- existed in those years than they do today. tion digests, but I got the sense that knowing When I encountered people who might have Leiber may have encouraged Mason to try an idea if the book was real or where a copy Sword-and-Sorcery. From Fafhrd and the might be, I asked. Nothing. Gray Mouser to Kavin. Over many long years, Devil’s Food became The identity of the woman with Mason re- invested in my mind with totemic proper- mains unclear in my mind. Mason was mar- ties. In many ways, in a lifetime of reading ried to noted science fiction writer Katherine and collecting I never searched for another MacLean for several years, or so the availa- book with as much effort as I did that one. ble information indicates, but whether or Most books you just go out and find. About not they were still together at that moment, two weeks ago I landed on the open market who now knows? I think of MacLean as a first edition copy of Songs and Sonnets more a part of Mason’s earlier—largely Atlantean that Donald-Sidney Fryer in- 1950s— period in New York City. scribed to G. Sutton Breiding on “19 January 1975”—primo association item. I have my Fritz covered his pal’s S&S paperbacks in his own copy inscribed in 1974, but I figured I’d review columns, and had seen Mason’s save this one from the landfill, for the mo- boat The Sea Hag in person—that “one ment. dreadful boat that never put out to sea.” That’s a direct quote from Leiber, by the I suppose the high point for my hopes of ac- way, from a session where we were talking quiring Devil’s Food occurred when the pub- about Mason. I believe he also told me Ma- lisher Dennis McMillan told me about C.J. son had red hair, but you can’t cram every Shreiner, a bookseller with the largest inven- single detail into what is, more or less, an tory of erotica available. I knew that this tip

23 was it, that in those vast holdings Devil’s “On Kindle?” Food would be found. I sent off a written request—the year was pre-Internet—with a “Only ninety-nine cents.” SASE—self-addressed-stamped-envelope— enclosed, and waited. Less than a month later, my book-collecting pal Brian Leno mentioned he’d found an ac- I never heard back. tual copy of the paperback.

The only other moment of hope in the dec- Forty-two years after hearing about it, I fi- ades-long search came when I noticed thirty nally knew Devil’s Food was real. I down- or so paperback porn novels Robert Silver- loaded the eBook, to discover that the novel berg wrote under his “Don Elliott” pen- isn’t “science-fantasy”—it is fantasy, straight name—he knocked out over 200 of those in through, detailing the erotic adventures of a his spare time. They were in Serendipity demon summoned from outer spheres. Kind Bookstore in Berkeley, so I figured I’d keep of Miltonic, really. Some of it takes place in an eye out for the Mason, since they carried San Francisco, sometimes the demon lover that sort of thing. Nothing. I did find one zaps cross country to Mason’s old stomping “Don Elliott” set in San Francisco, so I grounds in New York City. picked that up—uses Alvarado Street, above the Castro, which was interesting because at If you want to read it as porno, I think it’s that point Silverberg hadn’t relocated to the kind of interesting—for one thing, the de- Bay Area. mon can switch sexes, allowing lots of sce- narios. And the real world settings have the And so the long years passed. I’m sure that authenticity of someone who was active in months, even sometimes years, would drift Greenwich Village and hippie-era San Fran- by when I was occupied with other things cisco. and not obsessively thinking, Devil’s Food, Devil’s Food. . . . But it often popped back to But, yes, I might have been more satisfied if mind. I’d never tumbled to a copy of the novel, if it remained a pornographic Grail Quest. For In 2016 a guy showed up for one of the first me, nothing can quite kill off the mysterious Hammett Tours of the spring—one of the associations the name David Mason conjures guys who track down the odd and eccentric up, but for new readers, he might just be an- and interesting writers I slipped in- other dead writer whose works are common- to Literary World of San Francisco. Brian place, if you want to hop on Amazon. Doohan—you wouldn’t have heard of him— and David Mason are two of those names Checking today, I see Devil’s Food currently that come up most often. He told me he had sells at $4.99. Mason’s S&S and science fic- just read Devil’s Food. tion paperbacks, out of print for so long, are available in Print on Demand. He told me that he was a fan of the guide book, using it to track down things he might His two other porn nov- want to read. And he told me he had just els, Jellyroll and Degrees of Pleasure, may read Devil’s Food. be somewhat more difficult to find, although I have landed two copies of Jellyroll without “You found a copy?” I asked. Stunned, I was half trying. stunned.

“Yeah, it’s on Kindle as an eBook.”

24 The David Mason Passages From The Literary World of San Francisco & its Environs, City Lights Books (1985), Don Herron, author

Bernal Heights Novelists Frank Browning, Steve Chapel, and Gordon De Marco have made their homes here, and young Jack London once lived on a farm in this area with his mother and stepfather John London. David Mason finished The Return of Kavin (1972) at 618 Gates, which was in near-ruin when he stayed there in 1969, and also wrote the science fiction novel The Shores of Tomorrow (1971) and three porno novels. (One of these, Devil’s Food, is a science fantasy porn book set in San Francisco.) 2377 and 2381 Bush Both of these buildings were designed by the architect Albert Pissus, renowned for creating the Flood Building and the Emporium which face each other across Market Street. Punk- Romantic poet G. Sutton Breiding lived at 2381 and at 2377 the doomed fantasist David Mason lived his last days. Mason wrote in the sword-and-sorcery genre pioneered by Robert E. Howard. In the novels Kavin’s World (1969), The Sorcerer’s Skull (1970) and The Return of Kavin (1972), Mason added some excellent entries into a field that other-

wise has become rife with bad writing. His books have especially good scenes of ships and sailing, based on years Mason worked in the merchant ma- rine. In December 1969 he moved onto a fifty-foot tugboat berthed near the Yacht Club, but on a trip down the coast to Santa Barbara the following June the boat sank several miles offshore, just south of Half Moon Bay. Mason and his pet wolf swam through the choppy waves to safety. (Another San Francisco master of sword-and-sorcery, Fritz Leiber, shouted in envy: “Damn the man!”) This adventurous writer also dabbled in the occult, here and earlier in Greenwich Village. On his next boat, The Sea Hag (moored in the Ma- rina next to Fort Mason), a weird doom like the awful curses in stories by Clark Ashton Smith overtook Mason. The Sea Hag was a thirty-two- foot fishing trawler converted from a World War II LCP hull, with a big cabin on top that looked like a large crate, all painted black and strange to see among the sleek sailboats—this “one dreadful boat that never put out to sea.” The Sea Hag began to ship water and had to be pumped out every few days, even as Mason developed some mysterious disease in which his body became allergic to itself.

25 By the time he came to this flat on Bush Street The Sea Hag was awash at its moorings, his manuscripts and files waterlogged, and Mason himself had to make frequent trips to the hospital to have excess fluid pumped from his abdomen. His pet wolf was given to the San Francisco Zoo. The Sea Hag was towed out into the Pacific by the Coast Guard and explod- ed, and Mason died. A couple of years after his death the paperback company that had published his major novels, Lancer Books, went into receivership, casting Mason’s work itself into a sort of limbo. Copies can be found only by scouting the used bookstores, with the result that Mason, one of the more interesting authors to live in San Francisco, has been almost completely forgotten.

Unsolved Mystery (con’t) AC Kolthoff

Dan thought about his girlfriend with the cheerleader hair and the equivalent "ie" at the end of her name. He liked the way she curled on the couch, occasionally giggling as she texted people he would never know in net- works he would never visit. He liked to drop her at the mall and watch her walk to the door in cut-offs and flip-flops, clutching her Gucci bag with flashy manicured nails. She could never bore him because he had no expec- tations. Instead he found comfort in her regu- larity. Work until 5:00 on weekdays; Christmas Eve at Granny's--the Day at his moms; Friday night pizza and Saturday night sex—maybe even with those rubber top black stockings she bought because she read that they would keep him from wandering.

26 Reality, Viewed From Providence

Rich Coad Paul Di Filippo burst onto the SF scene in new authors quickly lionized within fandom, 1995 with the publication of The Steampunk getting lots of buzz and lots of awards show- Trilogy which contains some of the funniest ered upon them immediately, only to turn SF ever written. It also proved that a true out to really be only an author of middling sense of wonder can still be invoked in even talent whose output soon becomes dull and the most jaded old SF reader (that’d be me) repetitive. Not so with Di Filippo, who is when a story involves replacing Queen Vic- highly regarded by the cognoscenti (that’d toria with a nymphomaniac newt. More be me again, and you, since you’re reading writers should use such a device. this), but is not being sought as the Guest of Honor for major conventions nor, according Now, when I say “burst upon the SF scene” I to ISFDB, winning many awards. But he has mean to say that he burst in the quietest and been publishing regularly, even prolifically, most unassuming manner. Too often we see since 1995 with about a dozen novels and a

27 score of short story collections to his credit. puzzle pieces that accompany the novella I Among this prolific output, which includes have so far managed to put together the out- humorous short stories, the Creature from side border and very nearly almost a dozen the Black Lagoon, rock and roll fantasy, and interior pieces. No, I did not buy Cosmoco- carefully plotted crime novels, are two of the pia from Payseur & Schmidt for $65 when it strangest, and most memorable, novellas was first released in 2008. But it is possible that I’ve ever had the pleasure of running to find used copies on Bookfinder and pay across. Cosmocopia and Aeota should, if it even more to get the puzzle, Fortunately for were a fair world, make Di Filippo a cult au- those of you who do not care about jigsaw thor of the stature of Charles Bukowski or puzzles, or first editions, there is a Wildside Kathy Acker. Maybe they have done this but Press printing available for only $15.99 (a a cult is nothing if it doesn’t spread and ab- Wildside double that also includes a collec- sorb new members who quickly start to re- tion of Di Filippo short stories) and a Kindle cruit still others and so on. So it is my hope edition for $7.99. Anyway, enough about the that you, the reader, will be lured into read- packaging and pricing. Let’s move onto the ing these startling novellas while they still meat of cult novels: the plot. remain easily available and in print. The novel opens My immediate reac- with aged, rich, fa- tion on finishing mous, painter Cosmocopia for the Frank Lazorg being first time was to asked by a young think “What the interviewer “Will fuck did I just you ever paint read?” This short again?”. Immedi- novel was originally ately we get the pic- published in 2008 ture. He’s old, well by Payseur & past his prime, liv- Schmidt, a small ing off of past glo- press that has existed in and around the SF ries which, as they get mentioned, were con- world since the early twenty first century siderable, running from initial work for (https://www.sfsite.com/04a/ps221.htm). comics to paperback covers to fine art. But The likely reason that you are not familiar now, although he wants to paint again, he is with Payseur & Schmidt, rather than Tor unable to finish any work. And, much worse, and Orbit and Baen Books, has to do with his arch-rival, Rokesby Marrs, is getting rich money, of course. P&S want rather a lot of it and famous by providing what Lazorg con- for their lovingly produced siders to be a pallid imitation of his own, books. Cosmocopia, for example, sold for vastly superior, work. It’s summed up then— $65 when it was new, or over 50 cents a cranky, washed-up, artist who bitterly re- page! But in addition to a handsomely pro- sents the younger generation becoming suc- duced hardcover novella, approximately 8.5 cessful while he is being forgotten. Until a inches wide by 6 inches high, printed in two package arrives in the mail. columns, except for the chapter openings which are a single column that requires The package contains a brick of a powdery turning the volume ninety degrees, with text red substance which, an accompanying note in Linotype New Caledonia, yes, in addition reveals, has been obtained from ten thou- to all this the package includes a jigsaw puz- sand vision scarabs, the escarbajo psico- zle! I am unsure how many pieces there are délico. This is a gift from a curandero that in the jigsaw but there are a lot. All in Lazorg and some friends had once saved shades of grey. Of the immense number of from some thugs in Central America. Lazorg

28 quickly learns that a taste of the powder or how to get home. Crutchsump takes pity makes him more vibrant, more ready to on him and it’s not long before they are liv- paint, ready and able to contact earlier mod- ing together, with Lazorg helping to earn a els (and lovers) and ask them to model for living, first via his strength and later via his his ultimate painting. His favorite model re- artistic talent. Painting is unknown in this plies and Lazorg nervously, and manically, world but ideation—creating three dimen- awaits her arrival. Of course, he’s destined to sional representations using a substance ob- be disappointed. Velina, the model, tells him tained from the interstices of reality—is big. “Forget it, Frankie…I work with someone Lazorg’s ideations of objects such as a car or else nowadays. Somebody who makes me a house are unique and make him, along look beautiful in his paintings…Rokesby with Crutchsump, very wealthy. Since Marrs.” Lazorg’s detested rival! He reacts as they’ve been living together, Crutchsump far too many men do when they are rejected and Lazorg have found interesting things by a woman: he grabs his cane and beats her that can be done with an introciptor and a to death. So now we have a sordid drug- penis. With the help of some ghosts, Crutch- induced murder to add to the plot. The vi- sump makes herself capable of carrying a sion scarabs have obviously been affecting child conceived with Lazorg. With the birth Lazorg as his immedi- of the child, things then ate reaction to the take yet another turn corpse in his studio is to where Lazorg enters the paint it—literally— interstitial fabric of re- using a crimson paint ality, becomes a giant, made from the scarab kills Rokesby Marrs, powder. When he has and gets reborn. May- completed painting her be. entirely crimson, La- zorg goes to embrace Is it all a drug induced Velina and, instead, fantasy? It’s entirely “found himself drop- possible and certainly ping onto and into a woman-shaped hole, an that’s a reasonable way to read Cosmocopia. anthropomorphic crimson portal that On the other hand, it could be a realistic por- opened into into an infinite crimson tunnel, trayal of what happens when traveling be- down which he plummeted forever, too tween levels of the multiverse. Although it stunned to even shriek.” As when Alice fell probably isn’t. It’s definitely a very memora- down the rabbit hole, things are taking a ble 106 pages, that could, like any number of turn for the weird. Philip K. Dick novels, be asking what it is to be human and what is real. In Part Two we meet Crutchsump, a woman who lives in poverty collecting shifflet bones In January of this year, Di Filippo an- beneath the two suns that light the beach nounced the arrival of a new novella from PS and monster infested marsh. The marsh Publishing in the UK. This was described as wasn’t always monster infested but lately an homage to Philip K. Dick and Thomas things have been seen that are unnerving Pynchon. As I said at the time, one of my fa- and most people stay well away. But Crutch- vorite authors writing an homage to two of sump is so poor that her facial caul barely my favorite authors? Just take my money covers her introciptor. She needs the money. now. Well, PS Publishing did and it wasn’t The monster, of course, is Lazorg who ar- too long before I had a lovely little volume in rived in this new world naked and afraid. But my hot little hands ready to read. also once again young and vital. He’s rather pitiful, though, as he has no idea where he is The Pynchon allusions start almost immedi-

29 ately when we learn the protagonist is one Instead of drowning, or suffocating, Ruggles V. Ruggles. Pynchon, of course, is Thomas finds himself floating over the Earth where Ruggles Pynchon and V was his first nov- his daughter, the one he never had, explains el. V features characters with great names: about DUCA, the Descendant Ultimately Benny Profane, Herbert Stencil, and Rachel Converged from All, whose goal is to travel Owlglass. Aeota has Holger Holtzclaw and back in time to turn Earth into brown his wife Juniper, names that reminded me sludge from its beginning to its ending. more of Oedipa and Wendel “Mucho” Maas Again there are immediate parallels that can from The Crying of Lot 49. Juniper is Rug- be drawn with The Crying of Lot 49. In that gles’ sole client. She wants him to find her novel, Oedipa Maas starts with an initial missing husband, who disappeared right task of executing the will of Pierce Inverari- about the time his pyramid scheme col- ty. In the course of this she uncovers a vast lapsed, leaving lots of angry creditors. Vern hidden conflict between two secret postal Ruggles basically wants to get into Juniper’s delivery systems. In Aeota, Ruggles starts pants, although he’s willing to undertake with the task of finding the missing Holger the investigation, too. Holtzclaw and uncovers a vast hidden conflict between the forces of life and death Ruggles first learns of Aeota when a text which spans millions, or possibly even bil- message mysteriously arrives on his ancient lions, of years. DUCA and LUCA are also Nokia 7650 cell phone. The text reads “find reminiscent of Ahriman and Ormazd in Phil aeota yesterday everywhere”; even more Dick’s early novel The Cosmic Puppets remarkably, suddenly the phone seems ca- (terrible title for a good novel). The idea pable of printing and a strip of paper with that this is a knowing homage is reinforced the same message and symbols for each by the character of Aelita, the daughter Rug- word is emitted from a formerly invisible gles never had, who is analogous Armaiti in slot. This being the modern world and all, the PKD novel. Ruggles immediately Googles “aeota” which turns up little of interest, except possibly The remainder of the novella has Ruggles the American Essential Oils Trade Associa- moving forward and backward in time, tion. But Aeota is very like Ubik—protean crossing space to visit a Venus that never and omnipresent. It’s not long before Juni- was, and transferring to a variety of alter- per Holtzclaw provides Ruggles with anoth- nate universes, usually by way of orgasm. If er clue—a letter sent to her missing husband nothing else, Ruggles is a consistent horny recommending an in person meeting at the dog. Aeota, like Ubik, is anything but con- Association of Engineering Ontologists To- sistent. It appears variously as a car manu- talizing Affinities, which turns out to be a facturer, a candy brand, a comic book very high tech office building where a biolo- (favorite of Aelita), and an egg farm. I’m gist nicknamed Microbial Matt introduces sure there are several other permutations, Vern Ruggles to a microbial mat—with a too, but those are off the top of my head. shove that leaves Ruggles drowning in the green slime of LUCA—the Last Universal So will Ruggles find Holger Holtzclaw? Will Common Ancestor—with a leaky pressure he get into Juniper Holtzclaw’s pants? Will suit that was supposed to prevent him from he find happiness in having the daughter he breathing the methane atmosphere in the never had or will the world all turn into room. And now things get weird. brown sludge? Send 20 quid to PS Publish- ing ASAP to find out.

30 31 In 1978 I was involved in the no nukes il disobedience arrestees who refused bail. movement in the deep south. At the first So the next year I organized a prisoner sup- Barnwell South Caroliona demonstration I port group to fulfill that function. In be- met and joined a loose network of southern tween the two demonstrations I moved to activists. That year, Jackson Browne and New Orleans in February 1979. Mr. Good David Lindley performed a concert for us Weather had called me up and said “Hey, and Jackson said he couldn't bring his band it's Mardi Gras, the police are on strike and but he brought his piano. David told a story we are forming an anarchist print collective. about Scotland. He said that when the Brit- Come on down”. I started my hitch hike ish conquered Scotland, they banished the across the south the next morning. On the bagpipes but left the fiddles and that was a weekends after Mardi Gras, housemate big mistake. Keith dragged me down to the Dream Palace on Frenchmen Street to see L’il Queenie That year there was poor support for the civ- and the Percolators and then The Radiators.

All the Times I Didn’t Meet R.E.M.

JAMES C. BODIE

32 I was totally hooked on New Orleans music. ed up living with Rita Rock It in Carrollton. In those days Frenchmen was a backstreet She had one side of a double shotgun camel- and the Fauborg Marigny was quiet and back on Cambronne Street, just around the dark. corner from the Maple Leaf bar. All our friends were telling me you have to go see It really is amazing to see the growth along Clifton Chenier, he could die any day now. Frenchmen over the past four decades. So we would go see him at Jed's across the Nowadays on any given night, it is like street from the Leaf and I'd dance with my Mardi Gras with massive crowds. There is future ex-wife there. It was Professor just one thing I can't wrap my mind around. Longhair who died suddenly. I only got to They have a schedule of live music at the see him once at the ’79 jazz fest. My big re- Apple Barrel. I have to wonder, where do gret is that I never saw him play at the rummies go for a quiet drink? I suppose Tipitina’s. Clifton lived for years after that. they have retreated across the railroad tracks towards Bywater to find a watering After the Fess died I was determined to see hole where they can have a drink without piano player James Booker as often as pos- being harassed by a new generation of hip- sible. We would be sitting on the stoop on ster musicians seeking an audience. Cambronne and I could hear Booker playing at the Leaf and his amplified piano riffs That summer I returned to Barnwell to join would float down the street. Can you imag- the staff of the South East Natural Guard ine that? It was magical. I would excuse my- and organize the prisoner support group. I self from the ladies and walk over and into wanted to print up a flyer for local outreach the bar. It was such a Tulane meat market and my new friend Steve mentioned the that I couldn't hear him play over the roar of Print Shop in Athens. Well I wanted to go the crowd. I would sit at the bar on the patio there since my sister and my niece lived in and listen through the speakers there. Right Barnett Shoals outside of town. Steve need- after that, James Booker died. They found ed to go home to Athens so we drove in his his body on the sidewalk outside the en- old black pick up across the beautiful Geor- trance to Charity Hospital’s emergency gia countryside along Highway 78. I stayed room. He had a reputation as a hypochon- at the Print Shop one night and printed the driac. A cherished memory of this time is flyer on an A.B. Dick 360 I had learned how listening to my friends recount Booker sto- to use in high school. Rick mentioned that ries. Several members of my community there was a band living next door in an old tried to get James to his gigs. They failed, church and practicing there. I didn't think but their stories were legendary. anything of it. I went to visit my sister. How I didn't get killed distributing those leaflets There are reasons why the New Orleans jazz door to door in Barnwell I will never know. fest was founded and Tipitina’s was opened. The people who did those things understood During the staff work I met a woman and that New Orleans artists were being op- after the action was over we took some of pressed and they wanted it to stop. Champi- my silver age Marvel comics that I had on Jack Dupree had to leave Louisiana for shipped to my sister to a shop where I sold Europe to get a fair shake. From now on, them wholesale for nothing and bought a musicians would be treated better at home. pair of tickets to see John Prine in the newly opened Georgia Theatre. We ended up danc- As the ’80s progressed, I was back on my ing in the aisles to “Onomotopia”. I don't own and had an apartment on Crete Street regret those books at all. in a large house filled with friends. We called ourselves the Krewe of Cretins. A lot I returned to New Orleans that fall and end- of interesting people came and went from

33 that house. I would go down to the Dream backs and they still had their pipes. They Palace to see the Radiators play 3 sets for 4 could handpick their favorite local musi- bucks. One night I heard R.E.M. was in town cians so the sound was verified and original. playing a show. Sure enough, they came into There was nothing derivative about it. The the Dream Palace and stood in the back to shows were stellar. My favorites included have a listen. I loved the back, there was Eddie Bo and Johnny Adams. What a gener- room to skip and dance to River Run”. I saw ation of talent that was. them but didn't know them or bother them. At the break the front row crowd I would visit Athens from time to time. My came running to see them but they had al- sister took me to see the Normaltown Flyers ready left. at Allen’s bar. The B 52s sang about that but I never met them either. Nowadays there is no back at a Radiators reunion. It is wall to wall people. You have I stopped in Athens on my way to the Rain- to go upstairs to the Tip’s balcony to flail bow gathering in North Carolina. I had been around. I like to stand up front for the first to the West Virginia gathering and in retro- set so that the band members can see I am spect I think one gathering is enough and still alive and attending the rare shows of the earlier in that history the better. Dennis the retired band. This year I wore my Jrue and Christina drove me up from Athens. I Holiday Pelicans jersey to the first night of knew Dennis from Barnwell and they were the reunion. He wears #11. The band likes to regular visitors to our house on Crete start their shows at 11:11. They started that Street. I gave my food supplies to the MASH show with “Holiday”, a likely opener on a tent that was run by friends from across reunion weekend. Called it! Lake Pontchartrain. I ate with everybody else at the big circle. Big mistake, I got a So back to the ’80s, Steve and Brenda stomach virus. moved to New Orleans and got an apartment in mid-city. Rick and Sunny got the I got a ride back to Athens with Steve and apartment above mine. They were excited Brenda who were living there again. They about R.E.M. on tour with 10,000 Maniacs nursed me back to health with charcoal tab- and their New Orleans show. I was broke lets. After I had recovered, I went into town and couldn't afford the ticket so that night I with Steve for coffee at the coffee house/ went to see the Rads play for four bucks. The print shop, Java in the 5 Points area. where next afternoon Rick told me they had both Dennis was both a barista and a printer. We bands over for a home cooked meal after the were having espresso as black as printers show just 10 feet over my sleeping head. So I ink. We were joined by some other caffeine never met Natalie Merchant either. lovers marked by dark rings under their eyes. We had a good time, told some stories, The ’80s were a great time to be in New Or- said goodbye and left. As we were driving leans. All the genius talent of the 1950s away Steve said, " Oh by the way, you just rhythm and blues age were having come- met R.E.M."

34 35 36 FROM BILLY WOLFENBARGER PAGES

Seven years I’ve been living in a CAST to find a regular doctor. There was house built around 112 years ago in also the problem with my left brown the Washburn Historic District of eye. Cataracts already, fragmentary Springfield, Oregon, in the mellowest part of vision. It would go away, then return. For the city. I got fantastically lucky. This place the last few years. This worsened to the has an attic, a garage, with the big plus of a point the only thing I could see from that eye laundry area with washer and dryer. The was a temporary series of elliptical moon- house faces north with a spacious front flashes. Eye Doc said cataracts plus detached porch with cement floor and overhead roof. retina; for all intents and purposes left eye Beyond the yard and sidewalk two thornless blind. Right eye is fine, thank you God. hawthorn trees whose branches have Through my new regular doctor discovered drooped to the muse of a misted spring. at some point in the past—perhaps even a Backyard fenced in with garden area, fig few years gone—I’d had a minor stroke or tree, apple tree, blueberry tree. The house is heart attack which deadened the bottom of shared with two other renter dudes, in their my heart. That phrase “from the bottom of early-lengthening thirties who drink a lot of my heart” took on new meaning. And com- beer. They get things done, but…for me hav- plained about my lungs—I’ve got Chronic ing a beer is a rare thing. Downtown Spring- Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and bron- field is a seven minute walk away; complete- chitis. He gave me a years’ worth of pre- ly muffled from my residence. From down- scriptions of inhalers which are helping tre- town Springfield to downtown Eugene is a mendously. The results of the bloodwork seventeen minute city bus ride. My best blew his mind, as it did mine. Said I had the good neighbor friend Austin, a school bus liver of an 18-year-old. Does that mean driver, has been a literal Godsend to this there’s a teenager out there without one? At 751/2 year old, going for groceries, taking all events, I feel comfortable with this doctor me to infrequent doctor appointments. (he says, “just call me Bill; everyone else I’ve had lung problems a long time. All those does”), and Bill’s bedside manner is wonder- damned cigarettes! It finally dawned on me fully spot-on.

37 And I’ve been reading for the overwhelming in the depths of psychological suspense hor- most part books that have been published in ror of his works yet read is Tropical Moon, the past: it’s been my way these last few composed in the spring of 1933. This short years to “catch up” on works I’ve lusted to novel affected me nearly as deeply as All read but never had the time or energy in the Heads Turn When The Hunt Goes By (1977) workaday world, even though most of the from John Farris. Many of Simenon’s works authors are dead. For the first time in a very have been filmed, especially Maigret, long time I recently read a couple of Phillip through the decades. I’m collecting as many K. Dick novels, The Cosmic Puppets (1957) of his books as I can. After the PKD novels I and Our Friends from Frolix 8 (1970). I had- turn again to Simenon, this time a Maigret n’t otherwise tried PKD during the last few from 1942, The Judge’s House. One of the decades. I found these two nicely enjoyable aspects distinguishing Maigret is his concern and Dick naturally sent me flashbacking, more with “why” instead of “who”. Then it with all the iconic history of the author. Way was the remarkable Betty (1961). Simenon is back (when?) I recalled some of his stories highly addictive. So you’ll often find me in where I thought I “knew” what dope he’d my porch rocking chair in the nearest back been using during composition. Flashback corner with my cycloptic-like vision across within flashback I recalled my LASFS sum- the pages. mers in golden Los Angeles (1965-1967). It Music of afternoon breezes through grass, was in ’65 when a LASFS member, J.G. New- flowers, trees. Christian music: I remember com, then a cab driver and good buddy told singing the classics in the Methodist church me he used to share an apartment with Phil when a young boy, a pre-teenager; more re- Dick and said among other things PKD went cent songs, contemporary stuff, influences of through one hundred acid trips before he rock, jazz-rush—try the Newsboys. Jazz: had a good one. Wow! What persistence. . . more than once & twice I’ve said I learned a That’s wild, man. I’ve done at least my share lot about writing listening to Thelonious of acid tripping and never had a bad one, no Monk; piano. It’s really true. And I could riff- matter what. I don’t do LSD-25 anymore, out on my typewriter keyboard pretty fine there’s no point. with Herbie Hancock. Then there’s the spe- And have been “catching up” on crime/ cial case of Rashhon Roland Kirk playing suspense fictions, beyond Bloch (I love Rob- what seems like fifty-five instruments at the ert Bloch), Raymond Chandler, Cornell same time. Classical: for the most and long- Woolrich, and such, discovering such won- est amount of Billy-time spent with Mozart— ders as Patricia Highsmith, best known for though within the past few years focused two novels filmed: Hitchcock’s rendering of more with Bach, and Legitti—which is more Strangers on a Train and the newer Antho- surrealistic. My first spark of classical inter- ny Minghella-directed The Talented Mr. est comes from Saturday afternoons in Ne- Ripley. Her short stories merge beautifully osho, Missouri in the movie theater, the into psychological unease. Some claim High- symphonies of cliffhanger serials. Some smith the best crime/mystery/suspense writ- rock’n’roll I can still dig on, but I don’t er of the 20th century. They may be correct. drown in the past. These more new days On the other hand, a powerful contender is have 2Cellos (really incredible stuff); also the late Georges Simenon, more popularly enjoy Shakira. Music: the sound of a poem known for the seventy-five novels featuring even in prose form; rhythm beat of our Inspector Maigret, of the Paris police. I pre- thoughts, feelings, awakenings, speculations fer his purely rendered psychological sus- with the resonant reasoning of cosmic awe pense books which especially reveal just how and unexpected wonders in the great bal- much of a literary genius that is Simenon. In ance; the turning of the universe. Breezes his works translated into English we begin in pick up, wind-chimes—wild. 1930, ending in 1972. Novel most drenched

38 I miss traveling to distant lands like Chicago and Bloomington and California and a likely Unsolved Mystery (con’t) -thousand other places seeing old friends AC Kolthoff and making new ones; conventions are great for that, and even one or two other friends at Mildred had Dan when he was a times wherever they are among the landscapes, however oblique. But—I’ve served very young. After school jobs rak- my hitchhiker time-thumb. It’s Jack Kerou- ing leaves or mowing grass sup- ac’s fault. ported the dates with the girls he Also paying attention to a chunk of the news, desired generally for only a week shaking my mental head that not enough people of this world population never read or two. He had gone back to the the cautionary sf stories—the I-told-you- shed for the plastic leaf bags so’s; and thinking of the poems I haven’t when Millie approached. She eased written. Irony bites deep, especially when you’re a geezer. I listen to neighbor friends, him against the broken rakes, the visiting on the front porch, whatever the shovels and the hoes and lifted conversation may catch, though it’s no strain his t-shirt. She undid his zipper to remind myself over and over I’m not from around here. As a poet it’s easier to be else- and without touching him with her where. So let the wind’s chiming do the talk- hands she put him completely in- ing. They’re weaving about like sailors drink- side of her mouth. He came immedi- ing. Four or five dozen red roses limping on the front yard vine. ately. Mildred wiped her mouth on the inside sleeve of her cardigan And to wake suddenly softly from an afternoon dreaming trying to reach the UofO and brought his fingers down in- through the winding, unwinding, rewinding, side her elastic waisted pants. She of the Hollywood Hills only two days after held them taunt as she moved July 4th, wishing (on the lookout) for Autum- nal leaves falling like distanced rains, Grif- against them. He felt warmth and fith Planetarium nowhere in view. Hitchhik- wet but very little else until one ing useless! What a half-life of real life! And inhale, slightly longer than the where’s the unfinished cup of coffee? I reach out for the handle; only encounter a paper- one before, and she was done. back collection of Avram Davidson short stories. Perhaps, after all, just as well. Actually, even better…! I’m my own silent victim. As I’m always writing, if only in my head, for a time…Vision I had when I was nine, I was meant to be a writer. It’s in the soul of the outermost inner stars in the oblique spheres of the cosmos. Valid as coffee and a book to read. Page after page casting a life.

39 Inquiring Minds:

Bygone Days with two SF-Loving English Professors

Dale Nelson

Brian Bond and U. Milo Kaufmann were my n’t believe she had read most of the poems, favorite professors. I was their student in plays, and novels on the list, I guessed she the 1970s (Bond) and 1980s (Kaufmann). felt she did not need to. They taught courses in world literature, American lit (Bond), and British lit Well, she isn’t present here to justify herself. (Kaufmann), as well as science fiction and If she were, she might tell you that, by that fantasy. English studies were changing radi- point in our conversation, I’d used some cally in their time, but they weren’t caught needlessly offensive language about the up in the trends. state of English studies today (“crap”) and provoked her. And, in fairness to her, she That Was Then; This Is Now surprised me, months later, when we hap- Bond and Kaufmann wouldn’t fit into to- pened to encounter each other at the copy day’s heavily politicized English depart- machine, and she mentioned a visit to Eng- ments. The way things are now is suggested land in which she had seen the handwritten by a tense conversation I had on the 5th of manuscript of Dickens’s Pickwick Papers on May, 2015. I’d declined to participate in an display, and had almost teared up. academic conference hosted by my university. A feminist instructor demanded to know That moved me. I felt then that there was why. I said it would have been hypocritical hope for her. Maybe literature wasn’t just for me to do so, since I didn’t go along with politics by other means to her. But she nev- the current fashions in criticism and teacher offered a more nuanced remark about ing. My feminist colleague bluntly dismissed that list of “canonical” works, and she was my list of standard literary works as “white the faculty member who wanted our little male patriarchy.” Examine the offending English program’s required Shakespeare list for yourself, here: http:// course to be made optional.* www.wcdrutgers.net/complist.pdf But Brian Bond and Milo Kaufmann loved I was in the habit of giving this document to literature, loved great works of the imagina- my literature students at the beginning of tion, and loved to teach. They were inspira- every semester as an optional resource for tions to me in my own career. lifelong reading. Brian Bond This feminist faculty member, a recent MA, Brown hair falling to his shoulders, face was then about 27 years old. Since I could- swathed in moustache and shaggy beard,

40 garbed in a worn turtleneck shirt and cordu- number on his course syllabi. I dropped by roy pants, young Brian Bond would have his house. Once, I was so keen to see his Bal- looked like a hippie to my grandma. lantine fantasy series books that I hastened past him, to his annoyance, to the bedroom It was Fall Term 1973 and I was a freshman where he’d said they were kept. His and his at Southern Oregon College** in Ashland. wife’s bed wasn’t made, Brian was embar- On the first day in Dr. Bond’s World Litera- rassed, and, remembering what I did, I’m ture class, I saw that seats had been arranged ashamed of my rude manners. in a circle: there was no “front” of the classroom, and Brian—we should use his first During casual visits to his office, I’d chat name—sat at a desk like everyone else. with him about books and his days as a high There was no back row for students to hide school teacher with the Peace Corps in Malil, in. in Nuristan, Afghanistan, and enjoy the aroma of his pipe tobacco. He was a superlative He said that the class was all about participa- listener. I needed that, at that point in my tion, and, in the days ahead, discussions life. For me, there’d never been anyone like would be lively. Everyone, he added as he him. introduced the course, would create a term project in any medium: one could write a My notes from World Lit swarm with doo- research paper if one wished, but he would dles, but that fact doesn’t mean I was bored welcome an original story or poem, or draw- in class. But I was 18 throughout that first ings or paintings; or one could give a reading year of college, and still very much a kid. or perform a musical piece related to the (During one class meeting, maybe on Wu course. That first time, I stuck with the fa- Ch’Eng-En’s Monkey, Brian used the word miliar and wrote a pedestrian term paper “ogre.” But he pronounced it “ograh.” I al- comparing Odysseus and Tolkien’s Aragorn. most got a fit of the giggles worthy of a 13- year-old girl.) But the second time I took a course from Bri- an, I created a suite of pen-and-ink illustra- To take a class from Brian was to discover tions for the books we read: pictures of scab- new favorite books and authors. One of his by devils from Dante’s Inferno, the threaten- American literature courses introduced me ing Elvish warrior from Sir Gawain and the to Isaac Bashevis Singer. That term, my pro- Green Knight, the rascally Monkey making a ject was two drawings from Singer’s A stir in the celestial realm by blotting out the Crown of Feathers, including a story about a names of mortals due to die, and an angry goblin, the living-dead character named Killer-Hrapp lantuch. sinking into the ground, from Laxdaela Sa- Bond’s ga. course gave me a reason In one of Brian’s American lit courses, a guy to develop skillfully read one of Walt Whitman’s poems, my artistic “Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking,” to technique. the taped accompaniment of ocean wave sounds. I liked the way Brian included weird He was a books like Wieland and Arthur Gordon Pym. great guy to be your His practice of assigning whole works, not teacher for a anthology snippets, stuck with me when it first reading came time for my own teaching. of, say, Tho- reau’s Wal- Brian listed his home address and phone den. Brian 41 conveyed something that surprisingly few So I had a wish English teachers impart: that you might find to be a child what you need in books. With him, and, as and suddenly became one I’d see a decade later, with Milo Kaufmann, reading wasn’t a pedantic “ivory tower” exer- Brian’s teaching appointment was vulnera- cise, nor was it an exercise in leftist ble to budgetary uncertainties. Except for “consciousness-raising” as so often today. his first year in Ashland, he said, The atmosphere wasn’t heavy, but I knew “somewhere between November and Janu- that perennial human concerns were in- ary” every year, for four and a half years, he volved and a lot was at stake. You’d feel was informed that he wouldn’t be back. He yourself to be more had been able to stay on thanks to awake than usual, and other teachers going on sabbatical hopeful. and one teacher’s two-year absence due to illness. Brian wanted to retain childlike wonder as a “If I were a person whose sense of dimension of adult life. identity is tied to his job, I’d probably Urged by me and Paul be crazy. The test has been not to fall Ritz, who’d known him into the trap of a narrow sense of re- in Ohio, he joined the ality. It would be incongruous for me fantasy apa Elanor. He to teach Thoreau, fantasy, or the Bha- wrote this poem for one gavad-Gita and not realize that of his apazines: there’s more to the world than is immediately ap- Wishes parent,” he I had a wish told me when I to be a star interviewed and suddenly became one him in Febru- ary 1976 for a I burned through the distance journalism of the seventh heaven class. and flickered in He referred to the whiteness of my being a passage in Walden: “If Then looking out one advances and seeing only the dark Brian Bond confidently in I discovered fear and was alone the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life I saw nothing he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” I grew large and red shamed of my wonder Milo Kaufmann cooled and crashed inward Thirteen years after that first World Lit session with Brian Bond, I was a graduate stu- But just as I died dent at the University of Illinois and took a in that eternal second course in literary criticism from U. Milo Kaufmann (born 1934). His other literary I saw specialties were the 17th century—the period other stars, other lights of The Pilgrim’s Progress and Milton’s poet- a thousand lights, a thousand stars ry—and mythopoeic literature. I wrote a 42 journal entry, lightly edited below: to similar experiences. Having survived, he chuckled about that “I must have something “The stereotype is: Lusty youths, bald heads to do” feeling—and this had all come up in forgetful of their sins. But sometimes one connection with the topic of areas of human sees something just the opposite. Wiry Dr. experience, like the possibility of protective Kaufmann in the lit crit class, though arriv- angels, that influential critic I. A. Richards ing for it having already had a busy morn- simply left out.” ing, constantly reveals a relish not only for “thought” as academic pursuit, but for An example of UMK’s grasping of the pre- things like a brisk winter morning or the cisely right word: on one occasion the topic sight of Halley’s comet. was evil, and he referred to that kind of evil that is not Luciferian (rebelling), but a drag, “Kaufmann’s characteristic second-long the dead and killing weight: the dragon pause to get the right word, in one of his hoarding, the spirit “encysted.” Whew! sometimes elaborate sentences, is not so much a matter of pedantry as of a commit- He spoke of his own experience, at about the ment to doing justice to a worthy subject. time of graduation from high school: an out- He is a living example of T. S. Eliot’s notion of-body experience, a sense of the presence that the critic essentially is supposed to of abysmal evil. Another time, he referred to “help his readers to understand and enjoy.” a missionary he knew, who said that in Bra- zil, the diabolic is personal, whereas the far- “Always he speaks from a passion for seeing ther north you go, the more it’s usually things and seeing rightly. By comparison structural, social. with UMK, some of my classmates—younger not only than this prof but younger than I— UMK wanted to get students out of their seem old. I want what he’s got, want the mental ruts. “I fear for the republic when kind of alertness, responsiveness, serious- curiosity becomes a curiosity.” How, he ness, knowledge, and humor that Kaufmann wondered, can a teacher spring young peo- so often displays. ple out of an unquestioning immersion in their own period? “Sometimes academics are reluctant to chal- lenge students with a personal story. But he He would invite students to his and his told us this: wife’s home for monthly informal evening discussions of books about ideas and experi- “Years ago, he was driving along with his ences outside the ordinary. wife and child, the car in such condition that if it once stopped it wouldn’t start again; The reading group was called Splanchnics. I he’d been driving and driving and was get- think the Greek root humorously suggested ting drowsy—but it wasn’t just a mere need gut reactions. I don’t have a list, but my for rest that was overcoming him, but car- sense that the Splanchnics sessions kicked bon monoxide; and he passed out at the around Carlos Castaneda, Fawcett’s Clear wheel—there was a thump—and he found Intent: The Government Coverup of the the car was heading across a field; he’d gone UFO Experience, Peck’s Road Less Trav- right off the road, having safely crossed an eled, ethnobotanist Wade Davis’s book The eight-foot-wide, eight-feet-deep ditch while Serpent and the Rainbow about zombies – unconscious. He figured that the car had to these or similar books. UMK said: the story have crossed the ditch on two wheels at a goes that Castaneda used to take surrepti- diagonal angle in order not to have crashed. tious notes with his hand inside his pants pocket, and his teacher accused him of play- “He guessed there were probably at least five ing with himself! of us present in that room who could attest 43 Out of an estimated hundred books, the two of Brisingamen and Garner’s other early best books they read, UMK reflected years books] is my present-day function within later, were Houston Smith’s Forgotten myth. The difference between that function Truth: The Primordial Tradition and E. F. and what are usually called ‘retellings’ is Schumacher’s little book A Guide for the that the retellings are stuffed trophies on the Perplexed. wall, whereas I have to bring them back alive. It is a Life presents us with problems process not without risk.” that we can wholly objectify and, thus, perhaps solve. But “It’s a recycling of energy. there are also mysteries— Myth is a very condensed questions we ourselves are form of experience -- it is wholly immersed in. Schu- very highly worked material. macher showed that there are It has passed through un- two approaches to dealing with known individual conscious- life’s mysteries. nesses until it has become The polar opposites: almost pure energy.”

1. Reductive: Explain it, unpack I’ve mentioned Brian Bond’s it in terms of the lesser: “life is interest in the childlike. simply chemistry,” “love is UMK too prized “the child nothing but biology.” This is who sees the emperor’s na- the attempt to explain the kedness and the child who in greater in terms of the lesser; often, unfortu- turn hasn’t learned the world’s dirty devices, nately, it is an explaining-away of things the child who doesn’t have a stake in the that we feel and know to be of great im- system, who hasn’t in effect said ‘I am going portance to a fully human life. to let what I see be shaped by what other people say is there to see.’” 2. Typological: Understand mystery in terms of a larger framework(s) that you do not He made a point of recording moments of wholly grasp; for example, free will and fate, energy from his childhood. As I recall, he themselves mysterious, are implicated in the was haunted by the memory of a copy of mystery of the divine. “You sheet music on a piano, il- have the idea of the pres- lustrated by an image of ar- ence, in a smaller frame, or a mies drawn up against one larger reality.” And another with a black gap be- “mystery is typically pre- tween them. served in narrative”; stories are way ahead of exact prop- “When I was about four,” he ositions and formulations. related, “my brothers, who are eight and 10 years older Though it didn’t work out than I, took me along on a for me to attend Splanchnics trip into deep woods. It was sessions, I had some great talks with him in no jungle, but a nice stand of trees, maybe a his office. He was far more learned than I, couple of miles from where we lived” in a but I brought things to the feast too. Dr. Cleveland suburb. Kaufmann relished these two remarks on myth by Alan Garner: “And I wasn’t more than 30 or 40 feet into that woods before I was absolutely over- “The element common to [The Weirdstone whelmed by the sense of presence, a strange

44 presence. The Greeks felt that too, and all Such childhood memories, he said, could be kinds of people have felt that. The Greeks “seed crystals” for meditation and poetry. referred to it as Pan. …It’s a part of nature.” He looked keenly to the future, too; he was, Also, he recalled the experience of bound- like me, an orthodox Christian, believing the lessness that came from “taking an extended New Testament to be definitive and final, yet trip at night. he looked to a coming cross-fertilization of East and West. “I recall once beginning an all-night drive to Florida, taking U. S. 31 past Kokomo, Indi- Christianity, he believed, gets in more of our ana. Kokomo is wealthy because of great life than any of its rivals; it affirms the trans- manufacturing plants on its outskirts, and figuration of time, but not its scuttling. It the by-pass route takes the driver past sever- affirms a communion of persons, not an ulti- al miles of restaurants, huge shopping malls, mate nondualistic unity (advaita). He said and beautified industrial parks. At night, of that Christians look for the total flowering of course, all this is a kaleidoscope of lights. the human person, not for his or her own And mind you, on this partic- sake but for the glory of God, ular evening I was truly en- and for the redemption of all joying those lights. But infi- things. But before the glory nitely more precious was the there are Christ’s cross and distant backdrop, for far be- the crucifixion of self. St. Paul yond the immediate spangle said, “I die daily.” of industry and commerce stretched the interminable Still, Christian faith values the darkness. Knowing I was world. Rather than getting in driving many hundreds of the way of an uncreated Nir- miles south, I found the night vanic absolute, all that is a kind of zone without bor- made is good. There’s a per- ders or ends. And then was fection of the finite. In the triggered the memory. Incarnation the infinite and the finite come together. “In a great flood of deepest emotion, I recalled what the He later alluded to the imago night was for me as a young Dei, the image of God in man. child. I knew again what it It’s there that “some eventual was to be surrounded by infinite promise, by reconciliation of East and West, of the mys- measureless stretches of dark space. The tical and the exoteric-evangelistic, will be world had no boundaries, nor did the future, worked out. We have to have a way to un- nor did my hope and expectation. The derstand, e.g. how the universe is being sus- night, you see, is one of our earliest symbols tained while Jesus, the incarnate Logos, was for the infinite, the fathomless. The night napping.” around Kokomo was speaking a great truth. For we are made for a reality without bor- His English teaching was enriched by his ders. Man’s heart and home is with infini- orientation toward physics, which, with tude, and always there, said Wordsworth. math, had been his first academic study. He But it is one thing to speak the words, and mentioned theoretical physicist David quite another to feel it in your bones and on Bohm’s Wholeness and the Implicate Order your pulse, as you drive into the vast dark- appreciatively and pondered the Bohm- ness.” (That’s from UMK’s 1981 book Heav- Krishnamurtri dialogue. en: A Future Finer than Dreams.)

45 Like Brian Bond, UMK “The Day Boy and the valued students’ crea- Night Girl,” and others tivity. I was saying that Lin Carter reprint- something just now ed in the Ballantine about Kaufmann’s lit- Adult Fantasy series. erary criticism course. Chesterton’s The Man The first paper was to Who Was Thursday is be, UMK said, “half an amazing spy spoof, sport and half a seri- like a cross between the ous exercise.” The stu- old TV series Get dent writer was to Smart and the Book of “propose and apply a Job. critical term of his own invention.” He offered Brian had lots of entic- as examples “porosity, ing books and he let me kitchen ballad, filitra- borrow a number of tion, secular hymnody, abridged ep- U. Milo Kaufmann them. Imagine your- Photo Credit: R.K. O’Daniell ic, crepuscular lyric.” self, a fantasy fan aged 19 or so, and here’s this I came up with a tongue-in-cheek term, ex- professor who’s read all the fantasy books crescence, for a rhetorical device, a you love and relishes them too, and will trust “controlling principle,” characteristic of H. P. you with his copy of Meade and Penny Fri- Lovecraft’s weird tales: the abnormal erson’s staple-bound book HPL, and that “generation” of something, whether it be rare Kenneth Morris tome that Ursula Le grotesque growths produced by an alien sub- Guin praised, Book of the Three Dragons, stance, in the plot, or swarming adjective- and, unpublished in America, A World noun clusters in the style. Away, by the widow of Mervyn Peake, the author of the Gormenghast books. I showed multiple instances of excrescence in HPL’s writing. I started by closely analyz- With Milo Kaufmann, I studied remarkable ing a sentence from “The Dunwich Horror” books by the critic and philosopher Owen using Francis and Bonniejean Christensens’ Barfield, one of the famous Inklings, with C. intricate generative rhetoric of the sentence, S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien and company. in which a base clause and its modifiers gen- Barfield was the author of the mind-opening erate further modifiers. This gave the paper historical study Saving the Appearances. a mock-scholarly start. It was a Soon afterwards, I began to ex- fun paper to write and got a nice change letters with Barfield; my mark. study of his works with UMK was a great preparation for that Independent Study correspondence. Both professors agreed to work with me in independent study. UMK and I also discussed works such as the weird medie- With Brian Bond, I read fantasy val fantasy in verse, by George MacDonald and G. K. “Christabel,” by Samuel Taylor Chesterton, and the King Arthur Coleridge. Our conversations poetic cycle by Charles Williams. ranged widely. MacDonald wrote works such as The Princess and the Goblin, Once we were talking about Co- Phantastes, and Lilith, and the leridge’s “Rime of the Ancient short stories “The Golden Key,” Mariner” and the word

46 “caprice” came up. The Mariner was capri- cluded drawings of cious when he shot the albatross for no real scenes from Le Guin reason. In fact, we humans are creatures of and Tolkien. caprice. That word, Kaufmann said, is con- nected with goats – their sideways jump – It was in that class that that sudden irregular movement. So there’s Brian played the first a connection between “caprice” and two pieces – “Mars, “Capricorn.” UMK loved language. the Bringer of War,” and “Venus, the Bring- Science Fiction and Fantasy Courses er of Peace” – from and Mythlore Holst’s The Planets. I Susan Wood’s article “Of Courses,” in the think the conductor fanzine Energumen #1 (1970) told about a was Leopold Stokowski. Though the LP had free sf class at Carleton College. Common to have been played on a wee portable rec- they may be now, but college courses in sf ord player, this was a great moment. I had- and fantasy were something new on the aca- n’t had much experience of classical music, demic scene, once upon a time. Bond and but now I knew it could be something for Kaufmann both taught them. me. Once I got hold of a copy (Zubin Me- hta’s), I listened to it again and again. Before he came to Ashland, Brian Bond taught in Ohio. His course on fantasy at In a 1975 fantasy Bowling Green State University was called course, Bond assigned Fantasy as Creative Mythology, and was The Tolkien Reader, taught in the spring of 1971. It included Da- Lewis’s Voyage of the vid Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus, Mervyn Dawn Treader, Peake’s Titus Groan, Thomas Mann’s The George MacDonald’s Transposed Heads, and Poul Anderson’s Lilith, Evangeline Three Hearts and Three Lions. Bond also Walton’s The Children participated in a BGSU discussion group, of Llyr and The Song mostly composed of graduate students and of Rhiannon, Colin professors and meeting in homes, that read Wilson’s The Mind Austin Tappan Wright’s Islandia. Parasites, Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Uni- In Ashland, during the years when I was an corn, and Russell undergraduate at Southern Oregon State Hoban’s The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and College, Bond taught two fantasy courses Jachin-Boaz, and Charles Williams’s De- and one science fiction course. scent into Hell as optional reading.

In 1974, Bond’s students read J. R. R. Tol- In a 1975 science fiction course, the texts in- kien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, Ursula Le cluded Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End, Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, C. S. Lewis’s Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s A That Hideous Strength, Mervyn Peake’s Ti- Canticle for Leibowitz, tus Groan, and Jorge Luis Borges’ Laby- Ursula Le Guin’s The rinths, and, as optional reading, Charles Left Hand of Darkness, Williams’s The Place of the Lion. Brian was Thomas M. Disch’s an- visibly hurt by one or more students’ poor thology Modern Science response to Peake. He particularly liked my Fiction, and Dane drawing of Peake’s villainous chef, Swelter, Rudhyar’s Return from though, from my term project that also in- No-Return, with the first

47 half of Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of During and After Teaching Motorcycle Maintenance as orientation Brian didn’t publish a scholarly book and reading. With Brian’s support, the organiza- didn’t get tenure. As far as I know, there’s tion of English students got Ursula Le Guin no connection; his was a full-time teaching to come down from Portland and pack the position, so he wouldn’t have been expected student union for a reading, and to stick to publish. As I mentioned earlier, he was around to talk with students about her writ- one of several teachers vulnerable to job ing. elimination, due to budgetary restraints.

Milo Kaufmann Briefly his home address in Ashland was the taught a science fic- location of “Temple Sundoor,” about which I tion course – per- know very little, although there was an issue haps many times, or two of what seems to have been an arts- but I don’t know and-spirituality magazine called Sundoor. what the readings He sent me a leaflet about it, and a postcard were for sure. to recommend Patricia McKillip’s The For- When we talked gotten Beasts of Eld. about sf on one occasion, he men- Sometime after I moved, Brian tioned Childhood’s and his family left Ashland. I End, Le Guin’s haven’t been able to determine Earthsea trilogy, Lindsay’s A Voy- what the route was by which he age to Arcturus, A Canticle for came to Coos Bay, the same town Leibowitz, and Dick’s Man in the on the Oregon coast where I’d High Castle (which he saw as sug- grown up. He taught at the local gesting the coming cultural inter- community college and became a penetration of East and West) children’s librarian. He seems to and Do Androids Dream of Elec- have thrived in his new career, tric Sheep? At the time of our becoming president of the chil- conversation, he was teaching dren’s services division of the Or- Blood Music by Greg Bear in a egon Library Asso- science fiction course. Perhaps ciation. those other books were included in it. Brian died, aged just 62, in 2005, Brian and Milo had in common a connection leaving a widow with the fantasy-oriented Mythopoeic Socie- and several chil- ty and its zine Mythlore. dren. A celebra- tion of his life was Bond contributed an article on language in held at the Coos C. S. Lewis’s science fiction trilogy as early Bay Episcopal as the eighth issue (which had a splendid church. I haven’t quite caught up with some cover drawing of Osgiliath in its prime, from books Brian esteemed, like The Transposed The Lord of the Rings, by Tim Kirk). The Heads and Islandia, but I have copies. article works with Owen Barfield’s theory of language and consciousness. Reading it, as Many years later, I designed the first course, an undergrad, no doubt helped to prepare so far as I know, that my little university had me to read Barfield for myself later on. ever offered in literature of the non-Western Kaufmann was on the editorial board for world. Brian’s World Lit syllabi and some of issues #58-84. my books from the class were a good re-

48 source for me. I’ve followed up on some UMK recommen- dations. I confess I found Plotinus’s Enne- Milo published two scholarly books, on Bun- ads too tough. I have just finished Otto’s yan and Milton, and academic articles and seminal Idea of the Holy, and lots more, like book reviews, not only on something like Harding’s The Hierarchy of Heaven and Ebner’s Autobiography in Seventeenth- Earth, Dulles’s Models of Revelation, and Century England but Kreuzi- Cornford’s From Religion to Phi- ger’s Apocalypse and Science losophy are on hand. Fiction – whose author he gently chided for not having read No longer am I officially, institu- enough science fiction! tionally, the student of Bond and Kaufmann, but they truly remain Milo shared space in a book in my teachers. which a substantial posthumous document by Tolkien debuted, NOTES on Middle-earth names. UMK *By the way, during the next ac- later dismissed his own piece as ademic year, the university invit- “diffuse” and “poorly argued” – ed me to take early retirement. I but it appeared in this book edit- negotiated a nice deal with the ed by Jared Lobdell and called A university and did take a buyout. Tolkien Compass. It’s not just politics that’s messed up English studies, but the prevalence of fashionable, UMK helped to found Empty Tomb in the esoteric literary theory – queer theory, post- Champaign-Urbana area, bringing together colonialism, deconstruction, and so on. For local churches for grassroots community ser- a specimen, Alex Muller’s award-winning vice. Its magazine, Fresh Fruit, reported on example of Lacanian criticism as applied to the “hidden billions” of dollars that Ameri- King Lear, go here: https:// can Christians could use for the material www.winthrop.edu/uploadedFiles/ needs of hungry people here and abroad. undergradresearch/AMullerArticle.pdf

Born in 1934, he is now retired, Soon after I arrived there, it a professor emeritus, and the ** author of several books of po- became Southern Oregon State ems and prose pieces that I like College, and later still it became a lot, with titles such as The Southern Oregon University. Strangeness, The World Has Edges, Measures of Breath, Errata: In the last line of and So Many Ways to Miss the C.S. Lewis’ poem “Under Sen- Point. He is co-author of At tence” in Dale Nelson’s “Sort Ease: Discussing Money and of Like Tolkien” should read Values in Small Groups, in- “And a Ministry gassing the tended to help church people little holes in which we be real about a sensitive sub- dwell.” ject.

and the Heart Sutra Punctuated Equilibrium

Jaime Merritt Jeanne N. Bowman “Darwin saw evolution as a slow, continuous Catherine’s voice is too calm. We have been process, without sudden jumps. However…you friends since she put up a notice at our little vil- will see long intervals in which nothing lage store asking for families to start a play- changed (‘equilibrium’), ‘punctuated’ by short, group. I was the response. Our babies were in revolutionary transitions, in which species be- diapers, just starting to toddle and talk. Now came extinct and replaced by wholly new they are ready for first grade, great pals, but a forms”. —F.Heylighen, July 22, 1999 Pricipa combination to be watched. They get into mis- Cybenetica Web http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ chief so quickly. One day it had gotten too quiet PUNCTUEQ.html while Catherine and I talked. Our two had planned to start a little experiment with fire in Catherine’s garage. There was a neat pile of papers and twigs laid up alongside the garage door, The phone rings. matches in little hands….We decided to call our I am in class, ready to go back to school now that friend Paul from the volunteer fire department my baby is finally out of diapers. I’ve been preg- over for a serious chat. He was great: a little talk nant or nursing for eight years, at home with the with heart tempered by his being a father of a young ones. It is time to move back into the pair of rowdy children himself. world of working with adults. Why not work at “Jaime’s been hurt. The ambulance is on its way. something I enjoy and have been told I am good Meet him at the hospital.” at? I am taking a short course to be certified as a massage therapist. Okay. Breathe. “It’s for you, Jeanne” I ask the anatomy teacher if the Emergency Room staff is good—she’s a shift supervisor over That’s a surprise. The children are with their there. She asks if I need a ride. Catherine hasn’t friends. I look out the window at the grey sky, told me what happened; just that Jaime is going the contrast of the golden yellow leaves of the to be okay. I didn't press for information. Why ginkgo tree across the street. I am curious, alert. talk when I can be there in a couple minutes? I’ll “Jeanne, there’s been an accident.” find out soon enough. I trust Catherine’s judge- 50 ment, or wouldn’t leave my child in her care. We enter into the ordinariness of the hospital. Our pediatrician comes in the room. She turns The sky is grey. It begins to drizzle. I breathe, white, staggers against the wall. We breathe to- walk to the car, and drive the four blocks. Park; gether. She comes back to doctoring; this is no walk to the emergency room. Fill out paperwork usual accident. She checks the EKG. She asks at the desk, get a cup of hot water and lemon questions “How many fingers? How old are you? juice. The staff knows nothing. Time is intermi- Where do you live? Look right, look up, and look nable. I hold the warm cup, breathe the steam. at the light….What happened?” She cuts away Pace outside the entry door. I remember my Zen clothing, itemizing wounds. Jaime helps her. training as I watch my breath. A walking meditation. He says again, “I got zapped. I was climbing in the tree, and then I pointed at the wire, and then The ambulance arrives. Paul gets out. I make eye I was hanging upside down, and Franklin was contact with Jaime. He is pale, so pale. Alive, out of the tree and screaming and screaming and awake, aware. I catalogue. Limbs look intact. screaming I was dead, and then the men climbed There is not blood? What’s wrong. I touch Jaime; up and got me down.” He has no pain. hold his thigh and don’t let go. Breathe. There is an IV line in one hand, swaths of gauze on the “No sound, no smell, no taste, no touch… other. I see the charred clothing on his legs and smell the seared flesh. Breathe. Paul begins to No suffering, no origin of suffering, no cessation tell me what happened as the gurney is pulled of suffering. from the ambulance. No path, no wisdom, no attainment.” Jaime says, “I got zapped.” The electricity, thousands of volts, took flesh Breathe. Aroma of cooked muscle hits my brain. where it leapt through the air into his hand. Pieces of mantra return. Scorched fingers are rimmed red with charcoal smudges. The current took flesh as it flashed “Emptiness form is emptiness…in emptiness… through and went to ground. Skin on fingers, ankle, and knees left blistered, blackened and No feeling, no perception, no eye, no ear, no gone where his body touched the tree. Cauterized nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; from within. Vaporized. No sound, no smell…No realm of consciousness.” An instant in time. A new language for our family Each breath keeps me in the moment, the man- – skin grafts, donor sites, venous compression, gled heart sutra holding my mind present, while reconstructive surgery. As a mother, I become a the scent of destruction calls my body away. full time nurse. I am immersed in a new culture, There is no time for me to vomit, to cry, or to one that I would not choose to join. faint. No me that wants to.

Jaime Merritt

51 Letters of Comment

Lynn Kuehl ing somewhat bemused by the discussion of the [email protected] allegorical meaning of LOTR and whether anoth- Concord, California er panel member who was a Vietnam vet had I was once an awkward and shy teenager who actually seen what he thot he'd seen, which was read Science Fiction instead of participating in the eye of Sauron painted on some kind of a the high school social scene. So was Cheryl. But shield by a Vietnamese. Cheryl and I didn't really get into fandom until we were awkward and shy adults. We found a I've always taken Tolkien at his word that he did fannish mentor in first fan Art Widner, who not intend to write an allegory of WWII, or of taught English at Diablo Valley College and more anything else, but simply wrote what he hoped to the point, taught a Science Fiction class. Art was a good adventure story. Even so, readers generously allowed us to pump him for history tend to inject their own meaning into the stories and paw thru some of his old zines. Our first they read. Isaac Asimov made that point when he published fanzine was called "Lettercol" and related how he once challenged a college English mostly reprinted old letters to the editor gleaned teacher who was ascribing all kinds of meaning from various pulpmagazines and fanzines. Since to Asimov's stories—the teacher replied that it it was a school project, we got to use a DVC ditto didn't matter what Asimov meant, it only mat- machine and paper. Distribution was to the tered what the readers got out of Asimov's sto- class. Art was apparently tickled that we showed ries. And of course, Tolkien wrote about what he such an interest. The transition to modern fan- knew, which was medieval history and litera- dom came after we met Rich Coad and other ture. I've always thot Tolkien just wasn't satis- young fans such as yourself. Bay Area Punk Fan- fied with the amount of medieval history that dom soon followed. Third Saturday parties took existed so he decided to invent more. And add the place of club meetings and punk rock was the dragons and wizards. The fact that the quest music of our scene. Good times! involved a lot of walking and an awareness of the land and the creatures in it doesn't seem all that Like most other fans, I've read LOTR a time or surprising, but maybe I'm taking Tolkien too three. My very first Science Fiction convention much for granted. Dale Nelson was right about was a couple of hours at the 1968 Worldcon in how eager Tolkien fans were back in the day for Berkeley. A coworker of my dad's was going and more fantasy just like LOTR, which Ballantine she offered to let me tag along. The one panel and other publishers were happy to provide. Or discussion I attended happened to be about Tol- pretend to provide. The Worm Oroborus and the kien and LOTR. I remember Peter S. Beagle be- Gormenghast trilogy just didn't satisfy my crav-

52 ings. I did come to appreciate James Branch Daughter. Iron Dragon’s Daughter is an inter- Cabell and several other authors so Ballantine's esting exercise in making fantasy read more like Adult Fantasy series did broaden my reading cyber-punk. It's the story of a changeling told interest. Lin Carter as editor of the series de- from the perspective of the girl who ends up in serves credit for introducing readers to some fairyland. She works in a factory that builds interesting older fantasy as well as some new dragons. Dragons are kind of like sentient fight- fantasy by contemporary authors. It may not er planes, the youth of fairyland are somewhat have been *just like Tolkien*, but a lot of it was rebellious teenagers, there are shopping malls good reading. Blow-dry barbarians—ha! and apartment complexes for the nonhuman denizens, etc. It's very similar to our *real world* [I agree with teach. The sub-and-un conscious in many ways, and different, of course. I recom- are always at work.] mend it. I've also reread it.

Your musings on rereading books and on the I don't have much to say about the Beatles arti- specific authors you discussed was food for cle. I think it's sums-up that period of popular thot. When I was younger I didn't reread much music and the Beatles' influence reasonably well, of anything. Now that I'm older, I reread books but I'm more interested in other music these all the time. It may be partly due to what C.S. days. The Beatles were great! But plenty has Lewis was saying about finding a cozy fictional been written about them, their lives and their place to go that doesn't offer so many surprises music has been investigated and analyzed to the or challenges to one's sensibilities. But I believe nth degree. I've moved on. I'm rereading really good stories that have enough detail in them that they reveal more [I had moved on for 40 years—as you well know! depth upon rereading. Sometimes important But somehow the Beatles recaptured my imagi- aspects of a story are obscure on first reading. A nation. You can’t write anything that hasn’t al- second or even a third time thru a story can re- ready been written about them, it’s true. I had ward the careful reader with new insights. And been working on a piece about them called The anyway, you do reread some books - in your re- Beatles and the Clash: A Boomer’s Story (about view of Annihilation you say you've read The the division of Early and Late Boomers) but have Fifth Head of Cerberus three times! On the sub- given up on that for now.] ject of *unliteracy*, I'm not familiar with the writings of either Julia Elliott or Jo Walton. I Janet K. Miller is a gutsy person. I took some have a Jo Walton title here at the shop called diving lessons when I was a teenager and decid- Farthing—looks like serious fiction. Not quite ed that I really didn't need to learn how to do what I was expecting from a writer who seems as that. I wasn't very good at it. uncritical (or maybe "alternately critical" is a better term) as she seems to be about modern You say you don't publish fiction, but the piece fiction. Not sure I could forgive her for being so by Vincent McHardy reads like fiction. That's casually accepting of Jerry Pournelle's writing as not a complaint, btw. There is such a thing as she seems to be. I've read one of Pournelle's semi-fictional autobiography. Sutton's piece may books (encountered him at various conventions, also be occupying a literary space somewhere too) and have pretty much sworn-off his writing. between fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Pushing Plenty of other things to read where I don't have on the old envelope there if you're really serious to feel like I'm arguing with the author. about keeping fiction out of your sercon zine, Wm. [I reread. It’s true. But rarely. Lewis’ unliterary conceit gut-punched me because of my lack of [I may very well print fiction. Too many people I formal education, but also gave me a way into Jo know are too good at it to let these stories lan- Walton’s book about uncritical rereading. If Julia guish on ye olde harde drive.] Elliott’s stuff shows up at the bookstore, buy it and read it.] Al Sirois [email protected] I've enjoyed a few books by Michael Reidsville, North Carolina Swanwick. My favorites are Stations of the Tide Back in the day, when I was probably known as (which won a Nebula) and The Iron Dragon's much for being a letterhack as I was for being a

53 fanartist, I was not usually a big fan of sercon lifelong fine-arts teacher and working artist, that zines. Though I do confess that I read criticism displayed in local museums and galleries, but he by “William Atheling, Jr.”, and Chip Delany and has passed on, alas. I’m pretty sure it was our Damon Knight, as well as a lot of history of the Jim Shull, though I saw no examples of his line field—up to and including Alec Nevala-Lee’s re- work. If someone can disabuse me of his pass- cent Astounding, which I could not put down. ing, I’d be delighted to engage and send Jim a But Portable Storage One is such a dazzling pro- copy of the first ish, and this one.] duction with such solid content, that I would be remiss indeed if I didn’t reply to let you know I like seeing photos of fans whose names I recog- how much I appreciated receiving and reading it. nize but have not had the pleasure to meet, so I particularly enjoyed those accompanying Aljo What struck me first, of course, was the excellent Svoboda’s article. I thought Aljo did a fine job of cover (I can tell I’m going to be using a lot of su- sketching in June Moffat’s personality. perlatives in this loc) by Tracy Nusser. Being an artist myself, I appreciate the design and color Dale Nelson’s rather amazing article really stood choice. One nice thing about living in the future out for me as something unique. I can’t remem- is that these days a fanzine can boast a superb ber anyone ever having attempted such a com- full-color wraparound cover like this. I’m not an parison among fantasy-like genres before. I’ve abstract artist, but I enjoy good abstracts when I read some of the books (including A Short Walk see them, and this is one. In fact, the art and pho- in the Hindu Kush), but I’m adding the others to tos taken as a whole are excellent. It was good to my to-be-read list, which for some damn reason see stuff from Grant Canfield and Jim Shull, a keeps getting longer as my life expectancy gets couple of fannish stalwarts, in the lead-off posi- shorter. The really nice thing about being a read- tions. As near as my aging eyes can tell, the Shull er is that one never grows bored. is dated ‘15, though I suppose it could be ’75. The other art in the ish looks just fine, as does the You claim not to be “an astute literary observer” clean page layout throughout. Kudos on putting in the intro to your article, but I think I have to together an exceptionally nice-looking produc- take issue with you. Your observations therein tion that will have pride of place in my collection. seem pretty astute to me! I never claimed to be an intellectual but I guess I am, sort of, kind of, [Grant and Jim’s pieces date from 1974-75, from in that as an artist I live in a shifting world of ide- my old Starfire files. Grant recently resurfaced in as, and am constantly synthesizing various things Bay Area Punk Fandom so I was able to get a in my head. I probably don’t think of myself as an copy to him. I did an extensive google search on intellectual because I have always considered Jim. I found a Jim Shull in Oregon, who was a myself an artist... as if artists don’t use their in-

Unsolved Mystery (con’t) AC Kolthoff Boyton pushed the brush over the puckered edge of his wingtips a last time and set it down in the box. Shoe shine boxes, like sewing kits are rarely replaced or thrown out having hit the sweet spot of infrequent use but timely usefulness. This particular box had belonged to his father, an affable, open-faced man who would brush his shoes with a swing so wide one would think of baseball or physical therapy. It was not in Boyton's nature to expend such energy unneces- sarily. He was a small, tight man; a law librarian and a case law historian. He was revered for his ability to surgically slice between the bone and the meat of a court ruling and flip it all neatly into the peas. And he loved meat. For all the fancy cooking classes he took in the evenings, the sauces and the reductions, the roastings and the bastings, he would return home to the sacrament of meat and blood and salt on a fire started with a match, not a dial.

54 tellect. I am certainly not C.S. Lewis’s “unliterary than I thought I would. I identified with her de- man,” because I will happily re-read a beloved termination to conquer a new skill at a time in book multiple times. My wife doesn’t understand her life when others might find it a tad risky. Her this, and she is probably more widely read than I piece had a very satisfying wrap-up, and it’s ob- am. (In addition to not re-reading favorite vious how moved she was when her instructor books, neither does she like to watch movies showed up. Her pride and satisfaction at her ac- more than once, so we can safely discount her complishment is obvious. It can be hard to opinion.) Like you, I’m not a big Jerry Pournelle change ourselves. Right now Grace, my fantastic fan. His solo work does nothing for me, but he wife, and I are going through some dietary goes down well when mixed with Larry Niven. things in order to improve out health. I have had So I’ll take him adulterated. other health issues that have informed my deci- sion to quit drinking earlier this year, which is a I very much enjoyed John Fugazzi’s overview of Good Thing, but we have to change our eating the Beatles and their impact on rock in the’60s. habits to promote health. Not a lot, as we al- Having been there, and having been a huge fan ready eat fairly healthily, but even so... the older of their music as well as the music of most of the we (the universal “we”) get, the harder it can be other bands John mentions, I found nothing to change habits. Flexibility is the key. new for me in the article but I’ll never pass up any good writing about that music. I agree with I enjoyed and was a bit irritated by Annihilation, his thesis that the Sixties can be divided into as were you. I also read the other two books in three musical segments, which is really an unde- the trilogy and found them much the same. I niable fact on the face of it (as R. Crumb might think you put your finger on it when you said say). I learned how to play drums by banging that the book has no core. It would almost be along to Ringo’s beat on Beatles albums. Ringo more successful as an art installation than a nov- is still playing, and so am I. Please play non-stop el, but then you’d miss the characterization. I Beatles music at my wake if you don’t mind. I took myself to see the film, which I enjoyed, but think most of my friends would appreciate it. which lacked the depth of the book. It wrapped Throw in some Janis Joplin and Blodwyn Pig if itself up nicely, which the book does not, and so you must, but the main offering should be the has to be viewed on its own terms. I wonder Fabs. I still listen to the Beatles more than any what Jeff thought of it? other rock band. In the car you’ll generally find a Beatles album or two, along with Miles Davis The fiction from Vincent McHardy was certainly and Thelonious Monk. My tastes have broad- well-written, but without having a finished piece ened, you see. In fact, my current band is a jazz I can’t comment intelligently on it. Certainly the organization. I stopped playing rock ten years mood is disquieting. ago after having a stroke. It’s just waaaay too much energy outlay for this old guy. [My mistake here. Because Vince is primarily a fiction writer, I should have made it clear that his [This paragraph made me happy. So many peo- piece for the first ish was autobiographical, not ple are bah-humbug about the Beatles. I used to fiction. This stuff happened to him, as have other be one of them, even though I’ve been kidded scary things. I’m hoping Vince will continue to by friends that everything I listen to owes some- write for us. Like pulling teeth, don’t ya know.] thing, in some way, to the Beatles. Recently re- assessing the Beatles from end-to-end was a I found Sutton's piece to be indicative of the great pleasure; and discovering what an amaz- quality of his mind, as I have in the past. Long ing fucking band the Dave Clark Five were! may he write. Many Boomers got stuck on the music of their formative years—I did not, but in old age I am And there we are. As a parting remark, I will say revisiting them with the greatest of pleasure. My this: I keep reading your email addy porta- current favorite band right now is probably [email protected] as [email protected]. As DaVotchKa, from Denver. An amazing band. we lament the recently announced passing of Any CDs or mp3s of your playing out there?] MAD, perhaps that’s as it should be.

Which remark sort of brings me to Janet Miller’s autobiographical piece, which I enjoyed more

55 Cy Chuavin [email protected]

Detroit, Michigan You are not an unliterary man, not even by the strictures of C. S. Lewis. I would suggest instead that you read his short book, An Experiment in Criti- cism, which gives a clearer explanation

Mike Mike Bracken of his arguments, and despite its title, is a very readable unstuffy gem. Lewis suggests that there are two types of readers in the world: one type only reads a book when they have no other

. A long time ago, in a small town far away choice, such as taking a long train jour- from where I now live, I was a teenaged sci- ney, or waiting in a dentist’s office. The ence fiction fan who, with my best friend, other type of reader finds reading much

dreamed of becoming the next Isaac Asimov more important, and would feel their or Robert A. Heinlein. Joe Walter and I pro- life would be missing something essen- duced the first issue of Knights of the Paper tial if reading was not included in it. Space Ship—our very own SF magazine!— I’m sure you’re among the latter. using ditto masters provided by our high

school teachers. We did not know at the [I’ll certainly check out An Experiment time that we were publishing a fanzine, but In Criticism. Thanks for the tip.] we soon learned about fandom.

As circulation of Knights (as the fanzine Why re-read? Well, one reason is that came to be known) grew far beyond the it’s usually a sure bet that if you really handful of family and friends who received liked the book the first time, you’ll like the first issue, Joe and I parted ways as co- it the second time, And I often find that editors and Knights evolved from an all- the new, unread books that I have on fiction publication into a widely circulated offer are not quite what I want to read general interest fanzine produced on a mim- that day (especially if by new authors), eograph and, at the end, via offset printing. and I may read and try a few pages of Throughout Knights’ life, my dream of be- several books in despair, and give them coming a science fiction writer remained my all up. (I probably have far too many primary goal and, thanks to Knights, I inter- books that I may want to read some acted with several writers who were then or day, or that I should read some day later became widely published, award- (because classic or recommended), but winning science fiction, fantasy, and horror are any of them by those crazy authors writers. Whether they realized it or not, they we desperately love like LeGuin or Jane served as mentors and role models. Austen or Cordwainer Smith or Eliza- beth Von Arnim? No, so I break down I published the twenty-first and last issue of and reread a favorite. The saddest part Knights a year after I made my professional for us re-reading junkies is when we writing debut, a fantasy short story in the have re-read a book so often that we November 1978 issue of Young World, and I know it by heart. So you have to lay off slowly disconnected with fandom. I wasn’t that book a long time (I believe it’s fafiated, and I did not intentionally gafiate, called ‘drying out’) until you forget it but my inability to become the next Isaac enough so you can enjoy at least some Asimov or Robert A. Heinlein soon became mild surprise at the turn of events or at evident. least the turn of some phrase. My second and third professional short story sales were crime fiction and, as the late ’70s I re-read John Crowley’s Engine Sum- became the early ’80s, my writing career mer just two weeks after I read it for took me further from my home genre: Crime the first time, but I plead innocence to

Lifecycle ofLifecycle Fan a Fanzine the charge of only seeking fulsome

56 comfort and happiness in my reading, like Jo Walton, because the ending of that novel completely changes Lifecycle, con’t: your perception of the whole novel and what it actually is, and I wanted to see how that felt. And, yes, I fiction! Erotica! Women’s fiction! confess, I did fall in love with the future world in question, with the coop Little Bellaire and the As my writing went, so did my reading, and “saints” living their transparent lives, it seemed a sort I lost touch with written science fiction. of utopia to me (although not written as one), and That further limited my already negligible has been the only sf world I would ever want to live convention attendance. I attended my first in. few SF cons because of my connection to fanzine fans, and without those connec- I did enjoy reading Jo Walton’s What Makes This tions, I fell into the doughnut hole where I Book So Great, although I don’t need to own it. Also was no longer a fan but not yet recognized read Among Others, really excellent, and yes, I would as a pro. like to re-read that one. After meeting her, she is such My writing career—despite my semi-failure a nice, down to earth fan kind of writer, I wish I could as an SF writer—continued to prosper. I’ve enjoy her other books more. written a handful of novels, more than 1,300 short stories, several hundred articles You write about Jo Walton’s train journey, and how and essays, and an unquantifiable amount she finds it a comfort to read while traveling, and it of advertising and promotional material. conjures up a cozy image. But you on the other hand My experience publishing Knights helped “…will leave the book unread most times and look out me land my first positions in publication the window. For me the real world is more interest- production, setting type and doing paste-up ing.” Ouch! Well, I admit that I will always bring far before the advent of desktop publishing. more than I can read, and if there’s some interesting Over time I moved from the production side landscape out there, I will be staring out the window, to the editorial side, editing several antholo- too. But 12 hours out of the day it will be night, and gies, a variety of newsletters, a monthly tab- there’s nothing to see – the real world is out until loid for seniors, a bi-monthly consumer morning. But I don’t know if there’s any more merit magazine for gardeners, and, most recently, or reality in looking out a train window than reading a mystery magazine. a book. You still can’t participate in what you see. I remember sitting in a stopped train on a bridge over Despite few of these opportunities being a river in West Virginia, watching people tubing related to science fiction, every one of them down the river below, and so longing to be there. can be traced back to that first issue of James Blish also wrote somewhere that he consid- Knights of the Paper Space Ship and every- ered viewing landscapes an aesthetic experience, but thing I learned as a young SF fan dreaming one he couldn’t share (like being tone deaf). So many of becoming the next Isaac Asimov or Rob- realities – so many personalities can only be commu- ert A. Heinlein. I’m not living the dream, nicated to us by the written word that I think it a mis- but darn it, I’ve come close. I do profession- take to make it into a real vs. unreal experience. Is ally nearly everything I did as a fanzine fan: music real? Live and recorded? I write, I edit, and I design publications.

I skipped ahead to “The Pivot Point” by John Fugazzi, During the past dozen years I’ve dipped my since you wrote that it was about the Beatles, but it toes back into fandom. I’ve attended a few was rather disappointing to me, since I learned noth- SF conventions as a pro, participating in ing new from it. I was hoping for some new strange panels discussing writing- and editing- factoid, such as that I read in Richard Fortey’s related topics rather than specifically SF Life, where he writes excavating in the Rift Valley in topics, and I’ve participated in two panels Africa for the first hominoids in 1977, with “Lucy in discussing fandom as it was back when I the Sky With Diamonds” playing in the background was active as a fanzine fan. continuously, which is why the first early hominoid And, heck, you’ve just read the first fanzine woman discovered was named Lucy. (The psychedel- article I’ve written in almost four decades! ia of the song does sort of transcend time and space.) Or I hoped his article might be about his first encounter with the Beatles (I was called by my mother

57 from the sand box to watch the Ed Sullivan ments of intense fantasy (and certainly not the show), or some other personal incident (Ann Ma- battles) were my favorite parts. I’m not at all sur- rie who lived next door had a friend who came prised that Tolkien’s favorite book as an adoles- over, and she had actually written to George Har- cent wasn’t a fantasy. I thought that his interest rison and gotten a reply! She had sent him a book in philology inspired his fantasy, and that came on Eastern philosophy, and I still remember that much later in his life the letter George sent was signed in bright green felt tip.) Gack, John Fugazzi doesn’t even tell us I like Vincent McHardy’s mouth guard. who his favorite Beatle was, so how can we know which way his article is biased??!! (Did people [Your long PS on Le Guin was much appreciat- select favorite band members from other groups? ed, but as you can see, space is still at a premi- As much as I listened to Yes, I don’t think I ever um in the locs! Thanks again!] thought of favorite band members – oops, no Jon Anderson.) I can still listen to the Beatles with Brad Foster great pleasure, and the songs still mean some- [email protected] thing to me. I flipped on old record by the Dave Irving, Texas Clark Five, and had to turn it off immediately. I Ya know, with this arty cover, the square binding, really even couldn’t listen to Yes, but maybe the slightly smaller size, the layout heavy on pho- “Starship Troopers” was a bad choice. But I was tos-over-toons, Portable Storage One could defi- trying to determine if my fondness for the Beatles nitely be mistaken as some sort of classy literary was nostalgia, so I think not. magazine, instead of the skiffy little fanzine we all know it really is! This is clearly the next step in [I had not realized how Lucy had come to be the evolution of fanzine production, so let's ride named. That’s pretty amusing, maybe even awe- this sucker! some. I think the teen magazines tried to encour- age “favorite” band members, but it never really [I’m with you there, Brad! Let’s flog this horse ’til worked beyond the Beatles, because there were it cain’t run no mo!] four really different, and strong personalities. I always loved Ringo—and still do—I noticed you Regarding the idea of re-reading books. There are didn’t volunteer a fave! I think the Dave Clark so many to get to, who has time to go back to Five are fucking incredible. The double CD disk those already finished, right? However, a combi- that Dave Clark released (remastered) with 50 nation of lack of funds, plus a failing memory of songs is one long extended orgasm! Yes remain my earlier days, has had me re-reading a number very listenable to me—I put together a compila- of books from my shelves in the past couple of tion of my faves, and it never fails to move me. years. I look at a book, read the blurbs, and all I Punk may have been reacting to this kind of can remember is that "Damn, I know I really en- complication in pop music, but you can’t deny it joyed this, but cannot recall any of it now—why has a certain ability to mesmerize.] not get that enjoyment a second time?" Some- times there’s interesting results—I have started re “Sort of Like Tolkien – But Not Fantasy” by Dale -reading all of my Vonnegut. Some are holding Nelson offers a sort of unique take on the appeal up very well, some less so. But I am struck now of Tolkien, and while he makes me feel less con- by ideas in these that, at the time, clearly got into vinced than ambivalent, I’ve enjoyed a number of my head without my being overly aware of them, the books he mentions already myself, so at the and only in going back can I see "Ah, this is very least it is a new and unusual way to string where I started to think about such-and-such together a group of books readers might over- things differently…". Also recently re-read some look. I especially enjoyed M. R. James’ stories HP Lovecraft—more specifically, a collection of (there are a number of more complete collections short stories with his work, and that of other au- available), and I am not a horror fan, so perhaps thors, writing "in the mythos". Was interesting to some ‘antiquarian’ or other background interest find that, with the span of decades since first is present there. I also especially liked Patrick read, I discovered that while HPL was actually Leigh Fermor’s A Time of Gifts, his non-fiction the least polished and, shall we say "good" writer walk across Europe. It took me three years to fin- in that collection, his was the best story of them ish The Lord of the Rings the first time, but I all. Clearly, HPL was meant to write HPL. On the read it much faster the second time. But the mo- other hand, I have very strong memories of Titus

58 Groan, the first of the Gormenghast trilogy, and I joyed the first Harry Potter book very much—just have reread it now probably a half dozen times, wasn’t compelled to continue the series. Your and look forward to doing so a few more times, implicit suggestion is that I didn’t like Vander- for the sheer joy of just being immersed in that Meer’s book, which wasn’t the case. I was trying wonderfully deep and visual writing. to (briefly) unravel my reaction to it. I refer to the book as remaining “as perpetually irritating as it All I'll note here is I never thought I would ever does fascinating”, and that was my honest reac- see anyone mention the group Oregon in a fan- tion. But it shouldn’t be construed as negative. I zine my entire life. Ralph Towner can do almost realize that much of what little writing I have done no wrong. about books might be mistaken as negative, or disgruntled, that the tone is somehow critical [I absolutely adore Oregon. I once took a friend to without allowing the reader to understand that I see Oregon live, in a smallish venue in San Fran- truly liked the book. I agree with you on the final cisco, seats in the third row. Mid-way through the two volumes of the Southern Reach Trilogy. Van- concert, he leaned into my ear and whispered, derMeer was unable to explain what was hap- “This is soul music.” Indeed. I think he was hav- pening in the first book in the following two, nei- ing a duende moment.] ther to us, nor do I think, to himself. He bit into something really deep in Annihilation and was G. Sutton Breiding unable to let go. Annihilation reads better as a [email protected] stand-alone book, the sea monsters of the deep Morgantown, WV subconscious rising.] M. R. James; HPL; TED Klein; J. G. Ballard; Pao- lo Bacigalupi; John Wyndam. These being the Kennedy Gammage writers that came to mind whilst reading Van- [email protected] derMeer’s Annihilation. Our reading tastes don’t San Diego, California much intersect. Least ways, not anymore, fancy Thanks for doing this Wm. Eye-catching cover that. I found Annihilation a sublimely rendered painting by Tracy Nusser. Love the colors and the crystalline hermetically sealed vison of magic and brushstrokes. Also dig the format and the 21st beauty. Fact is: it reminds me of everyday life in century POD fanzine aesthetic. the fucking here & fucking now, which it is exactly. I decided to read Vol 2. I enjoyed it but it had I envy your writers their encyclopedic knowledge no power in it; but fascinated me as VanderMeer of their subjects. They remind me of my friend unfolded the history and characters involved. Terry Floyd in Apa-50. Reading their stuff, you However the book had no charisma. I began Vol 3 have confidence they are motivated only to con- and soon threw it across the room like Emma vey information they feel is very important. I Thompson hurling Houellebecq. But my reason don’t have a beef with any of them. Only with you being utter boredom. Each volume longer and Wm. Ha! Over a single sentence I disagreed with. worse. Well; for me. Some authors don’t have More about that later! staying power for series books. I’ve listened to all the Potter books twice—was amazed at their con- Alva/Aljo’s reminiscence and memorial to Len sistency; also how really fucked up those stories and June Moffatt was charming. Could totally are. Lev Grossman did it three times in high lyric relate to being chauffeured around before we mode. Hilary Mantel can’t get her third volume were driving. Love the self-deprecating humor, done but the first two—well—she works on anoth- and sadness about our callow missteps. So you er level—her words are rare jewels to be carefully gave away Len’s surprise party. Oops. Not the set on the page, just so. Well. Annihilation was first time that’s happened and it won’t be the last. deeply gratifying. That biologist, fuck yeah. I committed a similar faux pas at dinner last night and regretted it in the middle of the night, [The trigger phrase for me in your letter was that hoping to learn a valuable lesson though it’s we no longer share the same tastes in books. I’m probably too late for that. not sure that’s true. Although we have always had a variance in taste (Clark Ashton Smith) Dale Nelson’s meditation on Tolkien was wide- there has been consistent overlap (Bruce Ster- ranging and valid. I have so many of those Bal- ling, Robert Reed, Roger Zelazny, Samuel lantine paperbacks he mentions: the Lord Dunsa- Delany, Ed Cagle, Charles Burbee, etc.). I en- nys and William Morrises and E. R. Eddisons.

59 Betty Ballantine was certainly influential wasn’t Meer’s Annihilation, Wm. That’s a book I have re she – and so was Lin Carter. One non- -read several times. Thought the movie was stu- Tolkienesque writer Nelson doesn’t mention I pid and sub-par – not saying it is, but that’s my don’t think is Lovecraft – but he and his circle strong opinion. Do we really need to hedge like (Klarkash-Ton) are well represented in the Lin that? Maybe just to be polite. You really hurt me Carter paperbacks, often with colorful fantastical deeply when you slagged Nine Princes in Amber! cover art by Gervasio Gallardo, who is still alive as I write. I’m sure your brother Sutton was all [I liked the film version of Annihilation when I saw over them. it before reading the book. After reading the book I re-watched the film and disliked it. Sutton The other thing I wanted to suggest in addition to also really disliked the film. I’m surprised it was Nelson’s categories which might be of interest to even made into a film. Sorry--after the first three LotR readers is English Romantic Poetry. For Amber books I gave up. It seemed too shoddy, instance, the ending of “Nutting”: “for there is a drug-influenced, and self-indulgent. Zero narra- spirit in the woods.” Anyone who loves Tolkien tive drive. Imagery that didn’t capture me. Not would probably enjoy Wordsworth! Many others. strange enough to keep my interest, unlike Anni- hilation.] Your own “Musings of an Unliterary Man” are anything but unliterary, regardless of our differ- You compared Annihilation to Gene Wolfe, one ing tastes and my own penchant for rereading. of my favorite writers, so high praise. Of course Much enjoyed – though my De Gustibus moment this is the first Area-X book in a trilogy called the came at the end when you disparage Zelazny’s Southern Reach. The second book, Authority, can Amber series. Totally disagree, though I do think be a slog – but it has a powerful ending which Lord of Light is his high point, and another per- sets up the third book. And the ending of Ac- sonal favorite is Isle of the Dead. RIP. Took his ceptance is so lovely and sublime I recommend picture at DISCON II. reading the whole trilogy.

I had a similar suggestion of a new category for But getting back to Gene Wolfe, here’s something John Fugazzi after enjoying his spot-on survey of I wrote 17 years ago: “This year my experience of Sgt. Pepper and the British invasions of the ‘60s: our trip to Vancouver was enriched by the first jazz. He didn’t explicitly make the point that two volumes of The Book of the Short Sun, the bands-with-guitars supplanted crooners-with- sequel to the Book of the Long Sun which I had re orchestras. Of course people still listen to Sinatra, -read in preparation. It’s certainly a vivid story— and I spin my Bobby Darin greatest hits often… weeks later I can still picture myself sitting on the but what about bebop. I have made the case on balcony in Strathcona looking out on the lake Twitter – and actually got some favorable re- while at the same time visiting the steaming jun- sponse – that jazz in 1965 was far ahead of rock gles on Green, and the rotting city of the Inhumu and pop. My evidence? Miles Davis Live at the there. It’s a pretty amazing effect to be in two Plugged Nickel in Chicago, where he seriously places at once—that’s what happens when you are and almost frighteningly deconstructed his own reading a good book. Put it down, check on your recent favorites. Compare the studio version of surroundings, take care of a little business, then “If I Were a Bell” from 1957 with what he was pick it up again and you are suddenly transported blowing in 1965 and you will find something very to another place and time: vividly, viscerally. You new. And if you think this is apples-and-oranges, see it all in your mind’s eye.” please reflect that Miles did maybe 100 albums for Columbia and sold beaucoup records. We saw [I think in Jo Walton’s book on rereading, What him silhouetted against the rising sun on the Isle Makes This Book So Great, she is exactly trying of Wight with all the rockers. to get to this feeling you are describing.]

Loved this piece about diving by Janet K. Miller. Those 12 novels, starting with Shadow of the Tor- Clearly written and made me care about what she turer, constitute a sci-fi (ha – I said it!) tour de was saying. Same with McHardy’s noir, which force that even Tolkien would be proud of had a genius juxtaposition with the diving board (probably). Herbert, Heinlein, all those guys? photo and intro. Definitely.

Getting back to your comments about Vander- 60 Finally, the LoCs, from Wood and Hubbard. Ex- “would-be straighteners” with gentle distain. I pansive and informative. In tune with your whole myself am more strident in character but could- narrative here Wm. Yer bro does have the n’t agree more with what for me is the tragedy of ‘deepest vogue moon mind of geriatric madness.’ the so-called current “leftist” disregard for dis- He has always been way ahead of his time. course and free speech. (Tolkien was a monar- chist! I guess Mom forgave him.) Michael Bracken [email protected] I liked your piece as well—“unliterary” by some- Hewitt, Texas one else’s definition, diving into places of dis- A fanzine! In the mail! Into what alternate reality course only a literary person could, or would, have I awoken, William? I particularly enjoyed want to go. Entertaining and illuminating. I reading Janet K. Miller’s “Blue.” I’ve never straddle both continents—so many books, so lit- learned to dive, perhaps because I’m not a partic- tle time—even for all the books noted on the odd ularly good swimmer, and it was nice to learn envelope and PG&E bill let alone those I’ve actu- how she took the leap, so to speak, at an age ally organized into a small leather-bound book. when most of us wouldn’t. Though not nearly as And yet, like true north, I am drawn to reread— frightening (to me), I finally learned to dance in at times, and certain authors. Rereading Block’s my 50s—Texas Two-Step, Country Waltz, a sim- Scudder novels was not only enjoyable but again plified Jitterbug, and some line dances. I wish I I was amazed and delighted at how well they held had learned at a much, much younger age, and up. I read them in the ’80s and ’90s to the sound perhaps someday I’ll expand my skill set by track of Kevin Welch and John Hiatt—and again, learning more formal dances. [I’ve been pictur- Dale’s “antiquarian” sensibility, Joan-style, ing you dancing, ever since I got your loc!] emerged. Some returned to the shelf with a kind of certainty that I will reread them again in the north Nevada twilight as I ponder whether it’s Joan Breiding okay for my ancient self to go outside “now” [email protected] when it’s 88 degrees at 7:00pm. Pleasure una- San Francisco, California dulterated, and also, a kind of learning that Mom I like the look and composition. Tracy’s cover is mirrored for us without speaking a word—a fabulous. learning of other worlds every bit as “alien” or as Dale Nelson’s piece—very enjoyable—me taking familiar to me as 17th century Holland, Earthsea, notes on some books he mentions—but overall or rural Louisiana in the ’50s. As the Staples his writing is both cozy and incisive. . .and I did a Singers would say, “I’ll take you there.” And I resounding “yes!” as he spoke of humanity’s want to go, sometimes need to go, especially

Unsolved Mystery (con’t) AC Kolthoff

Hubert was in a delicate position when he heard the emergency call ring through the fabric of his suit jacket. His tongue was immersed in stocking, fer- vently licking the delicate flowers woven into the fabric that belied the inten- tions of the woman who wore them. Naked and hooked to the plank floor, the business end of her whip trailing out behind him like a cartoon rat and the handle firmly ensconced up his ass, he momentarily considered the logistics of reach- ing the phone to stop its incessant ringing. But the mood was broken. With a quick tug on the whip and a whap across his head that sent him reeling, she was in her London Fog and heading for the door. He knew it was his brother and he knew it was something bad.

61 when I am near crushed by grief for the loss of a world I’m sure that I lived in once but other as- Phil Paine sure me is a deluded figment of my demented [email protected] heart. Toronto, Ontario Portable Storage felt more like a 1950's "little I also reread for the desire for intimate insider- magazine" than an SF zine, the kind of thing one ness—but this “category” is tiny. Earthsea ranks could imagine Neal Cassady thumbing through in number one—I always travel with one of City Lights Bookstore....though of course sercon LeGuin’s books and certain poets: Merwin, zines always did approach that tone. Carver, Berry, James Wright, Sutton, Zweig come to mind—even Ho Chi Minh’s prison poems— Dale Nelson's piece was very intelligent, putting insider-ness, comfort of seeing a glimpse of my his finger on aspects of Tolkien that I have also magikal self, and a defense of it/her—“you are noticed. I will happily check out some of the less not!” “oh yeah, I am whatever you think I am”— obvious relevant works he discusses. He does “following a star.” not, however, discuss the element that (to me) most clearly distinguished his work from the I can imagine C. S. Lewis felt increasingly angry whole body of fantasy that emerged in the and frustrated even in his day with the changes 1970s—the fact that he was first and foremost a in those who presented themselves on the liter- philologist fluent in languages as different as An- ary scene. He became a Christian in the end and glo-Saxon, Welsh, Old Norse and Finnish, and an what they put forth as Rules, I find, is often a way encyclopedic knowledge of medieval literature to make their deep sense of loss and disappoint- and mythology. His imaginary world was created ment as they see our worlds fall away. Got it. No as a way of manipulating and crystallizing that speeches from Joan on adapting, embracing the knowledge, not an exercise in "world building" to brave “new” world (unless you want to!) but I produce saleable fiction. When LoTR was pub- find bitterness useful only as a passing phase. lished, the publishers assumed they were making The unliterary man was a description and recep- a pious but unprofitable gesture to honour Oxo- tacle heartfelt of all Lewis couldn’t bear to think nian scholarship. Nothing in modern fantasy fic- about. tion can feel like LoTR because the motives and knowledge behind it cannot be duplicated. Nel- Like Dale Nelson, some books remain for their son is spot on when he notes that Britain's aus- “look and feel”, the affection of an old friend, and terity during the period it was written in is signif- a need to protect them—an honor of memory. “I icant in shaping its texture—my Czech friend who read to be alone, I read not to be alone.” I reread it when it was dangerous underground liter- read—sometimes—because I am book drunk— ature behind the Iron Curtain once mentioned unapologetic—open—secretive—inexorably that aspect of its appeal. drawn to places that will “take me there.” I find myself. I lose myself. I murmur apologies to my I liked your "Unliterary Man", even though I beloved Trees as I inhale the smell of books and would have to confess to being a chronic re- remember a its life before mine. “There is a place reader. Many good points. C.S. Lewis always irri- of trees/Grey with lichen/I have walked there tated me because on one page he could be won- thinking of old days”—Ezra [Pound] of course derfully humane and insightful... then on the and one of Mom’s faves and the only poem I ever next manipulative and disingenuous. heard [brother] Wayne quote by heart. At his worst, Lewis would make a charming argu- So carry on! Ye readers—reread or not—the cause ment, then use it to smuggle in notions he was calls us forth!! The cause? To remember of not willing to spell out... e.g. 1) you don't believe course—not to rewrite history to suit our agenda in miracles, poor you 2) wouldn't it be nice to be (s), and to listen: as the wind murmurs and Tol- able to believe in miracles? ; then, consistently kien and LeGuin walk together leaning on their implied but not spelled out: 3) by miracles, of canes—benignly smiling, yet vigorously engaging course I mean religious miracles, 4) by religious, each other. Elvish or Gontish? I can’t quite hear of course I mean Christian, 5) by Christian, of it to say. But I’m there—a part of me—basking in course I mean Protestant, and 6) of course I the light they share so readily. mean the Church of England's miracles, not any others. Tolkien's Catholicism was much different in tone from Lewis's Anglicanism. Tolkien's wid- 62 owed mother had been rescued from destitution come how poor was modern fantasy compared to by a Catholic priest, who had befriended the fam- a golden age that had passed. Not that I disagree, ily, and apparently been a profound positive in- but I also refute the idea of a "Golden Age". Writ- fluence on him as boy and man. He interpreted ers like Roger Scruton give me conniptions while Catholicism in such a way as to make it congenial Travels With A Donkey by Stevenson can, I to his love of nature, rural ways, and respect for think, take the prize for the most somnolence tradition. He did not engage in polemics, and the inducing book ever published ( A hyperbolic mythological world he created is every bit as pa- claim, I know, but have you read it? Or tried to gan as the ancient ones he studied—LoTR is not a read it?). When Mr. Nelson asserts that British trojan horse to sneak in Catholicism or Christian- hard times were blessings, I am about ready to ity. Lewis was always an ideologue on the make... explode. I was born during those post war hard his fantasy world was a device to make Christian times, after all. The whole raison'd etre of LOTR doctrine attractive to children and lure them in, is the effect that greed has on life, on those like Scientologists offering to "analyze your per- whose lives revolve around love and peace sonality" with an e-meter. He managed it very and settled-ness. To imply that a desire for a bet- well, artistically, but it was still duplicitous. ter life, which was the motivator of most people here in the U.K . in the later fifties and in the six- I first encountered Jerry Pournelle when I was ties, was greed made manifest, is arrogant, to put trapped in an elevator with him and stumbled it politely. There is no joy to be had living in sub- out gasping "Christ, what an asshole!". When I standard, damp housing on food rations amongst subsequently found out that he was a bigshot in a filthy sooty environment (despite the impres- the Libertarian movement, my reaction was sion you might have from British TV shows, even "well, so much for the Libertarian movement" Oxford, Tolkien's home, was covered in filth back and ceased to have any sympathy for it. When I then) unable to afford most of those things mentioned this to Don Fitch, Don said "yes, he that you in America took for granted, such as was exactly the same when he was a fanatical TV's and Cars. It was not merely a time of endur- Communist". Having known several fanatical ance but much unhappiness. Mr. Nelson may Communists, it was not hard to conclude that the have only wished to compare and contrast the Libertarian movement was just the same crap Britain of those times with American life for the with the same psychology and pretty much the benefit of his American readership, but I read it same people. as the sort of misplaced nostalgia that we frequently get doses of over here, leading to impos- The other items were all good. sible politics wherein the dominant ethos is that of trying to turn the clock back. That's not being It's a cool, rainy day in Toronto. I think of you conservative, it is being foolish. often, old friend. Your own “Thoughts While Thinking” was enter- John Nielsen Hall taining. You should not let C.S. Lewis's strictures [email protected] reduce your confidence in your own criti- Ramsbury, Wiltshire cal faculties. He was a snobby Northern Ireland Thanks for sending me #1 of Portable Storage. I protestant, with the usual tendency to inflexible also should thank you for Rose Motel, which I dogma that seems to be in the water in would have locced were I not just stunned by that place. His definition of education would its magnificence. If it seems to you that I have exclude the entire American school system, not taken my time getting back to you, that's because to mention the British state school system. I have only just been able to read normal size print again, having been incapacitated on His fiction is always made to bend to his religious that front by a cataract in my left eye (which is world view and his non-fiction full of outrageous the one I use for reading) which has only now misogynist cant, or at least that's how it comes been fixed. And so normal service is resumed. over in the modern era.

I started to read Dale Nelson's article on the Tol- John Fugazzi's article was enjoyable but full of kienesque with pleasure but this turned to mild little nits that I wanted to pick. And it seemed to anger and disappointment as I read on. Not only end very suddenly. Of course, once again, I have did we move on from fantasy fiction to non- to call attention to the American versus the Brit- fiction, but it seemed as if the subtext had be- ish view of the phenomenon known as the British

63 Invasion. It isn't true that lots of American art- is just running into Bacchus Marsh (which is ists faded away in the years after 1964, at least where Bruce Gillespie lived when I first met it wasn't true for us, and in addition to Motown I him). There was drenching rain a couple of feel he could have mentioned the influence of weeks earlier and the burnt browness of the black American blues and soul acts had landscape has been overlaid with a growing tinge over here, an influence moreover that continued of green as all those seeds that have lain dormant well into the 1970's. in the ground germinate. It’s like early spring at the beginning of Winter. Thanks again for a great fanzine, lusciously produced. Please send another issue as soon as you More interesting, but less visually enjoyable, is are able. the way that housing developments are springing up across the country from Bacchus Marsh for Casey Wolf the rest of the journey into Melbourne. They say [email protected] the city will grow out to a population of eight Vancouver, British Columbia million—more than the population of Australia I'm nibbling at PS1. I've enjoyed what I've read when I was born—and while there is a lot of high so far, which is only a bit. Aljo Svoboda's memo- -rise development closer in, it seems that Aus- ries of his early days in fandom and the Moffats tralians still want their own little bit of real es- in particular touched a soft spot in me. I love tate. But such big houses on such tiny blocks of reading other fan's reminiscences. It left me a land, it makes one claustrophobic just to look at little sad, though, because of what felt to me like it as the train hurtles past. I hope the people liv- his disappointment in himself, a kind of disap- ing there enjoy it because it is not pleasant to pointment in ourselves we can carry for our look upon, so I return my nose to your whole lives. His failures were so small, and yet fnz. (Tomorrow my research will take me to the they still have weight. I have my own such, not far side of Melbourne where the development is all so tiny, but I feel keenly the regret of having even more fierce, but I have the latest issue of been less than I would have wished to be if I had Beam to shield me from the view outside the been living up to my own ideals. But we do our train.) best, don't we? It may not always seem like it, but I think we do. I hope I can learn to be still I enjoyed Dale Nelson’s ramble on the theme of more gentle with myself. I hope we all can be Tolkien. I’ve not read any of his writing, prefer- more gentle with our imperfect selves. ring space opera to fantasy in the days when everybody was reading his books and not having felt Leigh Edmonds the urge to read him since. I have, like every- [email protected] body, seen the movies, the long versions in fact Mount Clear, Victoria because we bought the DVD set of the Lord of Dear Billybob, the Rings movies. It does go on a bit but it is vis- I don’t get paper fnz very often and when I do ually entertaining. So while I know the main they look like fnz, which this one definitely did- threads of the story, I still don’t know what is so n’t. Still, what with Bruce Gillespie being forced fascinating about the text. One of these days, out of paper production almost entirely, I sup- perhaps. But that didn’t stop me from enjoying pose it is not unexpected that other fanzine edi- Dale’s article which was like a travelogue of the tors would find other ways of publishing. I hope highlights of fantasy tales so I feel as though I’ve that you will one day put this on efanzines too so been informed about a lot related to fantasy writ- that those who are not fortunate enough to get ing, without having to read any of it. So, thanks the paper version will have access to it. for that, but thanks also for the excellent and entertaining writing too. As usual, I saved up this issue for a train trip down to Melbourne for work, this time a series of On the other hand, your long piece about being oral history interviews for a commissioned histo- unliterary left me feeling dazed and confused. I ry I’m working on. So when I’m reading your expect that there was some kind of structure in ‘The Musings of an Unliterary Man’ and I come there but I did not find it. It did make me think to the paragraph about reading on the train about my own reading habits, a meditation also (p.33) I take my nose out of your fnz and see brought on by listening to a podcast recently what’s going on outside. As it turns out, the train started by David Grigg and Perry Middlemiss,

64 called ‘Two Chairmen Talk’, because they’ve both agree, opera has that effect on people and Valma been Aussiecon chairmen. What strikes me is and I saw a lot of it when we were living in Mel- how methodical they are in their reading, and bourne, and some in Canberra. I recall clapping they do a lot of it. Perry set out to do a lot of seri- until my hands were bleeding stumps at a perfor- ous reading before he made his nominations for mance of Pagliacchi, and I don’t like verissi- the Hugos and then read the entire list of nomi- mo. (The Bohemians and Madam Butterfly has nations before he voted. It seems that they both, some nice moments, but they do go on for such a like Bruce Gillespie (and others, I suppose) keep long time.) I do regret not making the trip down reading lists, which is not something on my list of to Melbourne to see two of my favourite operas a things to do. I’ve been trying to read a bit of stf year or two back, Einstein on the these days and there are a few half read books Beach and Nixon in China, but they are becom- scattered around the house, but nothing that ing repertoire standards so perhaps I will catch compels me to read any of them through to the them one of these days. end. Maybe I haven’t got the old sensawonder any more or maybe I haven’t picked up the right Enough for now, but keep them coming, they will books. In the meantime journals like History be appreciated. Australia and Technology and Culture are piling Steve Jeffery up, also unread. I tell myself that if I ever give up [email protected] this researching and writing history lark I’ll have Kidlington, Oxon the time to do some real reading, which seems The 'Sort of Like Tolkien' article pretty much hits like an increasingly attractive proposal. the mark as to why JRRT and LOTR appeal to a [I had to laugh about your comment of feeling certain type of reader (and can be vehemently dazed and confused, Leigh, and the inability to rejected by others - was it Moorcock who described it as "epic Pooh"? But I like Pooh; I have find any structure in my piece. Now you know a shelf of Pooh books, so poo to that.) why I rarely write sercon material of the literary Conservative, nostalgic, agrarian stewardship, type!] rooted in a sense of depth of time and landscape

(for which also, as Dale points out, see Alan Gar- I must be getting on when I found the most ab- ner, and also, I would suggest, Robert Hold- sorbing aspect of John Fugazzi’s piece was com- stock's Mythago and Grail Quest sequences.) No paring his list of bands from the 1960s with my wonder a section the ’70s hippie flower children own mental list. I think his categorization of the went for it in a big way decades into three periods makes sense but I reckon that Rubber Soul and Revolver were the But which brings me to “Musings of an Unliter- height of the Beatles’ creativity and Sgt Pep- ary Man,” where the second two paragraphs per was just over the top of the slippery slide struck more than a chord and could have been down the other side to things like ‘The Long and written about me. But we diverge on the opening Winding Road’, though there is still some good of the third paragraph. I am not a compulsive re- stuff on the double white album. reader, as Walton is (and like you, I never quite [I agree with you about Rubber Soul and Revolv- understood how she can do that and have time er. Sgt Pepper began their “long” decline (in for anything else) but I do come back to selective- quotes because it was actually rather brief.) Let It ly re-read a few handfuls of books and stories. I Be is the only “bad” album the Beatles made (in don't understand an aversion to rereading quotes because, well, it was the Beatles, and it (unless one has a near photographic memory) was hard for them to make a bad album); every- any more than Walton's compulsion to continual- thing after Revolver had squishy McCartney ly re-read the same books. Perhaps, like the phi- songs, mean, cynical Lennon songs, and spaced losophers of Tlon, Walton seeks 'not truth, but out Harrison tunes. Ringo was the only one that amazement'. Though when she does choose to remained relevant! —See my loc further along.] read and analyse her feelings about a book rather than gush about it, she can do it and throw up What else? Some entertaining stuff but I must interesting insights. For Walton such re-readings restrain myself so just a passing comment on Ray are 'comfort reads', a return to a fuzzy safe place. Wood”s letter. I never saw Joan Sutherland sing And that may be where the difference lies. I by- in person so I don’t know what her presence was passed the comfort reading of Blyton and Ran- like. On record her technique is outstanding but some. Or if I didn't, I don't remember it. Alice— her tone is too round and fruity for my taste. I

65 or more properly one of Tenniel's illustrations in be uncomfortable listening to it again a week lat- an old family edition— terrified me for ages. And er? "No, let's listen to Let It Bleed" —and what, what I took from Pooh was as much a sense of the week after that? inevitable loss as whimsy. But if you wouldn't mind listening to Abbey Road I also don't understand people (one of whom is again how would that be different from rereading sitting next to me as I write) who don't see the something you know you enjoyed? Admittedly, point of watching a movie more than once ("but most people, when they got a new Beatles album, you've already seen it"). There is always some- could listen to it, or tracks on it, many times in a thing extra to be gained from re-reading or few weeks, whereas even habitual rereaders prob- watching a film more than once—unless, of ably wouldn't want to turn around, having read course, you are blessed or cursed—I am never The Left Hand of Darkness, and read it again sure which—with a photographic memory (I must immediately; and again. read Borges' story again). I mean, would you only listen to a piece of music once? Not many people Well, I will assume that you are not averse to lis- would admit to that, so why should it be different tening to the same music repeatedly. You might for a film or a book. want, then, at some point, to think about ways in which listening to music and reading a book are I think though that Lewis is making a hasty different, and see if that elicits any insight into judgement in classifying (condemning?) the once why you aren't a rereader but are (I assume) hap- -only reader as 'unliterary'. Lewis was an aca- py to listen to the same music. demic scholar, but also later a Protestant, and both of those may indicate an allegiance to and It is kind of a curious thing. One is, I assume, respect for the authority found in a text over usually more passive in listening to a recording questioning (although later Lewis would ques- than one is when reading. When I listen to "You tion, deeply). And perhaps there's also a parallel Never Give Me Your Money," I am hearing the to CP Snow's 'Two Cultures' essay. You may read exact same instruments, played exactly the same narrowly but deeply, mining a handful of books way, and the same vocal, for the same duration, for their treasure and insights, or widely, in a sort etc. There is no difference at all in what's coming of strip mining approach, looking to find connec- out of the speakers. On the other hand, when I tions, parallels and coincidences between differ- read the Le Guin (which I’ve read only ent works, authors, genres. There's often a deep once! might be due for rereading), I am almost joy and satisfaction in serendipity. Maybe the bound to notice some things at one time, and oth- approach of the 'unliterary reader' is not neces- ers (as well) if I read it again. sarily down to lack of attention but to impatience and a search for novelty, wonder or connection. When I listen again and when I read again, memory comes into play. "Ah—I love/loved the Dale Nelson bass at this point in 'You Never Give Me Your [email protected] Money'!" "Here's the explanation of the ansible— such a cool idea." If I'm a trained musician Do you avoid rereading a book because you (which I'm not), I probably grow in my sense of would feel bad about taking the time to do so, how various musical elements are at work in the when there are so many books you haven't read song. If I am a "literary" reader—here's one of the at all but would like to read? key things—I can pick up on things that, the first time, I might not have attended to much— Or—to the point as regards memory—do you because a first reading is typically largely occu- avoid rereading because you think that, if you pied with the satisfaction of curiosity, finding out did, it would be like trying to have the same expe- what happens next. rience all over again, which would be boring? For Lewis's "unliterary" reader, the arousal, and But then, if you would feel "guilty" about reread- satisfaction, of narrative curiosity is the big thing, ing, or (fear you would be) bored, I wonder how or anyway one of the biggest things. George Or- you feel about music. My examples will be dated, well, in his bookshop essay (I think), noticed peo- but let's say you went to a friend's house and lis- ple who would come into the store, spend per- tened to Abbey Road once through. Would you haps several minutes looking at a book, and,

66 when they realized they'd read it already, put it Much Said the Cat.) As for Julia Elliott, her name back. And I'm sure that some books are written, rang no bells, so I didn't salivate. Still, if I are intended, primarily just to arouse, and satis- find The Wilds, I just might remember what fy, curiosity, and the authors wouldn't expect you've said, and pick it up. people to read them again. There's a place for such books; sometimes we do just want some- [Is there a particular Connelly book you’d recom- thing to pass a weary but sleepless few hours. mend? I may seem more negative in my reviews than I intend. I tried to make it clear I enjoyed [Yes, Steve, Dale, I reread—usually something I Swanwick’s book; he is a very creamy stylist. He haven’t read for many years and remember fond- is intentionally derivative, but it’s hard not to be in ly, or when I embark on a “project”—but not of- the genres he’s chosen to inhabit (so why not be ten. A few years ago I reread all of Roger mindful about it?), and he has great fun mucking Zelazny’s novelettes and novellas, which was about in the soup.] very rewarding. I’d like to see a nice fat collection of just the novelettes and novellas. I reread Gene I enjoyed both John Fugazzi on the Beatles and Wolfe. It’s the only way to understand what he is their influence through Sgt Pepper, and Janet K. about. Sometimes. I re-watch films, and, of Miller on learning to dive (something I was too course, I do listen to the same music over and afraid to learn). And I will be looking for the con- over and over and over again (Oregon, anyone?) tinuation of Vincent McHardy's death-adjacent …!] memoirs.

Jerry Kaufman I liked all three of Jeff VanderMeer's "Southern [email protected] Reach" trilogy, but don't think anything gets Seattle, Washington more clear as they go along. Still, I think the sec- I like the name of the zine, which sums up what ond and third books, Authority and Acceptance, writing has done for civilization, I think. And are worth your time. I had to smile wryly when Tracy Nusser’s cover is a wonderful abstract that you pointed out the Lovecraftian feel of Annihila- "reads" to me as a landscape with sea dragon. tion because S.T. Joshi, the World's Foremost Authority on Lovecraft, hates the book. (He's I never knew Len or June Moffatt and often won- written about it at length on his blog.) dered what was so special about them. Aljo's written a splendid piece that tells me more about [Amusing that Joshi should be so reactionary. them, so now I should check their TAFF Trip Re- Perhaps by now he feels protective of the Love- port and other sources to continue learning. craft Canon. Let’s face it—Annihilation is an existential horror novel, and maybe a science fiction I found a lot of attractive suggestions for reading one, too. Like Sutton, I felt the two following in Dale Nelson's piece on Tolkien. The way he books to be bloated, but I read them. I don’t think categorizes the elements of interest is intriguing. VanderMeer reached any clarity, either, but he For books about walking, I recommend Rory was desperately searching for it.] Stewart's The Places In Between, about walking Iraq, and The Marches, walking the Scottish and David Shea English borderlands. Ellicott City, Maryland A few thoughts on Mr. Fugazzi’s article. One, his William, I have the Jo Walton book you discuss, standard of importance appears to be, how many but haven't read it yet. I am looking forward to top five “hits” people had. That’s a very limiting reading it and comparing my reactions to hers, standard. Bob Dylan is mentioned briefly twice; and yours. I'd say that I am not much of a popu- Jimi Hendrix only in passing; Eric Clapton not at list as you describe her—I don't often read books all. I would regard all of them as being at the top that appear on any best-seller list, whether genre of influential rock figures. Two, there’s a passing or general. (There are exceptions to this; I'll read mention of Motown; but Mr. Fugazzi does not anything by Michael Connelly that comes my trouble himself to consider Aretha Franklin, or way.) Michael Swanwick is a favorite, though, James Brown, Ray Charles, Otis Redding, Wilson and I may enjoy The Dog Said Bow-Wow more Pickett. . .I could go on. The entire interface be- than you did, if I ever pick it up. (But I have a tween black and white musician is apparently different collection in my to-be-reads, Not So irrelevant to his purpose, to praise a single al-

67 bum. On a purely personal level, if I had to pick stretch). Triangle and Forever Changes were my favorite albums, Sgt Pepper probably would every bit as innovative and challenging; pro- not make the cut: Gram Parsons’ Grievous An- duced with depth, and more moving and person- gel; Steve Miller’s Number Five; The Stone al than Sgt. Pepper, which, overall, was an intel- Poneys’ Evergreen Volume 2; Stephanie and the lectual psychedelic set piece, no matter how well Burn’s Arlington would. conceived (thanks, George Martin!). Sgt. Pepper was the beginning of the Beatles’ downward [You said it, David, Going deep into Motown and trend into isolated musical performance, squab- other aspects of the Pop scene was irrelevant to bling, and boredom. (Ringo remarked that he John Fugazzi’s purpose, which was very narrow. learned to play chess during the recording of Sgt. John can write endless reams about all types of Pepper because there was so much downtime music, and does. I must say, though, you caught while individual Beatles cut and fussed with their me out with Stephanie and the Burn. Mr. Fugaz- tracks in isolation chambers, rather than playing zi?] together as a band.) Richard Dengrove William Breiding [email protected] [email protected] Alexandria, Virginia Tucson, Arizona I see two themes in Portable Storage One, God In re: John Fugazzi’s piece on the Beatles. While and cool. With me, forget God. I am way the hell I understand why Sgt. Pepper is considered the too secular. I no longer try to fight God with logic important album that it is (and it is good), one of and disbelief. In fact, I accept him. However, he/ the things I think John neglects in noting is that she/it cannot take a big part in my life. I don’t the Beatles were part of a trend, and not neces- even remember using religion to swear. Being sarily even the spearhead, that was bringing cool is something else. I am up to my hemor- depth, complication and nuance to rock and pop rhoids in cool. Am I go- music. The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds was released ing to say I’m cool? At in May of 1966, exactly one year prior to Sgt. 73, I don’t feel ‘cool.’ Pepper. The Byrds’ 5th Dimension was also re- And make no mistake leased in 1966, as well as Simon and Garfunkel's about it, cool, like God, Parsley Sage Rosemary and Thyme. John men- is a feeling. Not a word tions that everyone was at the top of their game with an exact meaning. in 1966, and that is certainly so. By 1967 the Ironically, that I don’t Cyrkle, the Turtles and the Left Banke were cre- feel I’m cool hints I must ating complex, interesting pop albums, both mu- therefore be cool. I agree sically and lyrically. Big Brother and the Holding my being cool at 73 Company also released their first album in 1967, would be a dubious Don Herron, William Breiding and while it was blues-based, it still had a huge distinction to many— 1975; Sacramento impact, both on the public, and other artists. including myself. I Even Paul Revere and the Raiders put in a bid for can’t even be the king something other than polished garage rock with of dubious cool. their song “Undecided Man”, setting Mark Lind- [Never too old to be cool, dude. Get up on that say’s vocals against a string quartet, on Spirit of dubious thang.] ’67; not to mention the first two albums by the Doors, and Sinatra’s “A Very Good Year”, all re- Don Herron leased in 1967. [email protected] San Jose, California Two other albums were released in 1967 that First saw a copy of PS1 on April 18 in Albuquer- were as equally compelling as Sgt. Pepper: que, when Harry Morris showed me the author Love’s Forever Changes, which has gone on to photos in the back when we stopped to pick him take its rightful place in the hall of fame of classic up to go out to lunch—we showed each other our albums from the sixties, and the Beau Brum- major scars, after lunch. mells’ Triangle, which, unfortunately, has remained an obscure gem. Both of these albums Reading thru the copy that awaited me when I could be considered “concept” albums, if John got home, it did provide that hit of a fanzine of Fugazzi is calling Sgt. Pepper a concept album (a

68 yesteryear (in modern clothes) and the editorial ets of the story. ambition bit reminded me of a thousand such that went before. I'm world-weary or expe- A book that I plan on reading again is Jeffry Eu- rienced enough to suggest: Pub Your Ish. Don't genides’ "Middlesex" which is the finest example talk about Pubbing Your Ish. of writing I've experienced. But I want to wait for that long winter month to do it again. Most of yr ish was egghead material—the guy with the letter about peak audience experiences [I read Middlesex on your recommend, Jim, and I that transcend rational thought (or whatever), or was not fond of it. It was too much ado about even you with several paragraphs, or maybe even nothing in Detroit, and the hermaphrodite aspect pages, on the topic of not rereading books. Me, I of the book, well, it amounted to nothing much, love to reread faves, few experiences are compa- as well. Different strokes, as they say.] rable to doing the Ops again in order [Dashiell Hammett] , or dipping into Machen and compa- I have read nearly all of Chuck Palahniuk's ny. But to each his own. Courtesy Publisher’s books, and would read some of them again be- Weekly I constantly read the brand new and nev- cause he takes me to wonderful places. And Mi- er-before-seen, kind of as a way to keep some- chael Cunningham's books would all be worthy what current. Still, you do realize, right, that of a second read. While often depressing, his sen- most people don't read any kind of books at all? sitivity to life keeps me interested. If a huge bestseller moves out a million copies, that's considered a triumph—but a million is a I've never enjoyed fantasy nor sci-fi. I loathe Tol- minor fraction of the people who live in Brook- kien and anything like that. Radical ideas about lyn, not counting the people who live in the rest rigid conformity to good, evil, gender and sexual- of the country, much less the world. If one best- ity bore the hell out of me. That being said, I have seller nabs one million readers and another nabs read Ursula LeGuin and enjoyed her work very a different set of one million readers, they have- much, because she broke that conformity. I have n't broken out of the boroughs yet. For what it's tried to read others, see movies about this stuff, worth, anytime you're thinking and writing about but no. Good versus evil and dragons and prin- some book, current or from your past, you're cesses and stuff just make me want to run home making like an egghead. And sounding like an and watch gay porn. Also, sci fi that does not use egghead, or I wouldn't have noticed. The egghead real science makes me cringe. Star Trek is proba- element was intrusive, but what are you going to bly the most notable example. The tv show was write about? Football? space babes, and then it morphed into corporate oligarchs in space. Any sci fi book that ignores [With only a fifth grade education I’ve never even science and leans towards "men having great ad- remotely thought of myself as an egghead. Exis- ventures in space" makes me laugh, like a crazed tentially, it’s as improbable for me not to acutely hyena. (No I do not think we will ever go to Mars, examine the processes of fanzine publishing as it nor should we, and there is no science showing was for Bill Bowers!] we can. This however does not stop people writing about when we're going.) Jim Ru [email protected] I also prefer to think we are completely alone in Brunswick, Maine the universe. That makes it all the more strange. I must be literary because I have read many And really, given the enormous random events books more than once, some several times. I read that created life here, why would there be? Also, Michael Cunningham's "The Hours" three times for millions of years, to this day, it's just life feed- and "A Home at the End of the World" twice. I ing on life. Life is kind of a pathetic creation, read many of Herman Hesse's books at least when one ponders it closely. What is the point of twice. I have read Walt Whitman so many times I it being anywhere else? It doesn't really do any- couldn't count. I have read all of Christopher Ish- thing that changes the universe. Maybe the uni- erwood more than once. And the list goes on. verse created us just to look at itself for a mo- Reading a book more than once is very much like ment. We're basically disposable cameras. But seeing a film more than once. (Harold and then again, why would a universe need to do Maude at least thirty times.) The nuance of the that? I read science magazines like Scientific editing and skill of writing presents different fac- American and stay in touch with many online science sites, and I read nonfiction science books.

69 "I Contain Multitudes, The Microbes Within Us There are rooms in some museums now to take and a Grander View of Life" by Ed Yong was the people so overcome by art they need medical at- most recent and explains why our bodies are not tention. [Swooning, are they?] our own, and how biology is not fixed in one standard gender, sexual norm nor agenda. Heter- osexuality is just one version of many forms of I've had close encounters with that sort of thing. reproduction. Turns out all those bugs on our Nureyev leaping across a stage still boggles the body have entire societies that differ from hu- heart. Listening to Chopin takes me into a deep mans. It's such a remarkable book I've gone back revelry. Led Zeppelin circa 1973 live. I've been in several times. (He also has a YouTube Channel.) art museums and had to sit down from emotional overload. I've had religious experiences that I read a graphic novel last month called Logi- come close as well. I once walked a labyrinth at a comix and it's about Bertrand Russell and his church in Tucson and for some reason it touched work with Wittgenstein, and it was wonderful. I me so deeply I fell to my knees, not praying, just then studied more about Wittgenstein and found from not being able to stand up. It left me in a him fascinating. sense of awe. I felt wrapped in the universe in a very intense way. Thing began to shimmer. (I [That actually sounds pretty cool. I’ll have to also took LSD 25 and felt that, but that's differ- check it out] ent.)

I love reading poetry books and will randomly While I type this Notre Dame is burning and the pull stuff from the library just to sample this and rose window of that church also shocked me with that. But mostly I listen to music for poetic con- beauty when I visited Paris. It's gone now, which tent. (I love the lyrics of Indiana Queen.) Frank is perhaps why art touches us so deeply. We Sinatra is out of tune. Ha ha! When I hear his know it will be gone, if only from our lives, at music I wonder how the bands did it. Lady Gaga some point. All things must pass. When I lived in is also out of tune. But, I realize I am the minori- New York we would go to Vespers to hear the ty on both. choir and organ at St. John the Divine, the largest cathedral in North America. Again, the sense [Nope. You’re wrong about Sinatra. He flirts con- of awe and wonder overwhelmed all who attend- stantly with being out of tune, but never quite ed. But then there is what I would call gentle du- gets there. It’s that tension that gives his work ende. A sense of calm, peaceful serenity and love staying power—or can make it too irritating to from a piece of culture. I've felt that many times, listen to for some. I haven’t listened to enough sometimes with just a group of people sitting Lady Gaga to notice if she’s singing out of tune.] around playing live acoustic music together. Kate Duende is a fascinating concept. It reminds me of Wolf has that vibe. Stendahl Syndrome. The affliction is named after 19th-century French author Stendhal But you mentioned faeries. I have a faerie story (pseudonym of Marie-Henri Beyle), who de- as well. My partner had been diagnosed with HIV scribed his experience with the phenomenon dur- in Seattle as had many of my friends. He freaked ing his 1817 visit to Florence in his book Naples out, left me, and hung out with Louise Haye who and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. tried to cure gay men with teddy bears and hugs When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, and expensive seminars. Many of my friends where Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo and began to depart. Galileo Galilei are buried, he was overcome with profound emotion. Stendhal wrote: "I was in a A friend invited me to a gathering of the Radical sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Flor- Faeries in Oregon at Breitenbush Hot Springs. I ence, close to the great men whose tombs I had was so miserable I said sure why not? But when I seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime drove there it was out in the country, and I was a beauty ... I reached the point where one encoun- total inner city, punk rock queer guy. I wanted to ters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so leave, soon. But I couldn't find my friend so I vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had looked around. There was a large room in a lovely palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call old building. (This place has been a spiritual re- 'nerves'. Life was drained from me. I walked with treat since the ’30s.) And in that room were the fear of falling." about fifty gay men. They were sitting in a circle, in various costumes of the most humorous kind,

70 or naked, or just wearing typical clothes, or what- this topic as the younger gays and lesbians start ever. Some were in each other's arms listening as groups based on this idea of ecology. They ad- one by one people entered the middle of the cir- dress the current crisis in our planetary habitat cle. People would either share a story about their from that perspective. (Out for Sustainabil- lives, or perhaps sing a song, or recite a poem. It ity. And numerous zines, cooperatives and web- was random, but the men around the circle lis- sites now exist.) I was once at a faerie circle in tened intently, stayed affectionate and attentive Central Park where this was the main topic of the with each other, and it was all very lovely. And I circle. We sat in the middle of commerce and em- had never, ever seen anything like it before! pire discussing how men loving each other, ro- mantically and sexually and culturally can affect The men were old, young, fat, different races, just society. And that not all biology is based on het- everything, all having this experience. I was used erosexuality. And that our love for each other is to gay bars, bath houses, pretty much all that in- powerful, radical, and fay. ner city stuff. I was used to gay men sizing each other up. This was gay men listening to each oth- This is the story about lions and bison, dragon- er's stories, and allowing space for our humanity. flies and swans! And we've been here before. I stood there for a few minutes, and suddenly, I started shaking. And tears filled my eyes. And I Gentle Duende to you. stayed for the entire gathering, and went to many more after that. It was never perfect, and sometimes that vibe never happened at gatherings. But We Also Heard From: Lloyd Penney, Paul when it did, it was just beautiful. Duende, gentle. Skelton, Frank Vacanti, Ray Wood, Ingrid C. Downey, Tony Cvetko, Terry Floyd, John That one experience changed how I viewed every- Lichten, Paul Di Filippo, Steve Stiles, Hope thing after. I realized something important about Leibowitz, Harry O. Morris, Donald Sidney- myself which never left me. And after that I end- Fryer, Pete Young, John Hertz, Billy Wolfen- ed up in Bisbee, Arizona and took that vibe with barger, Roger Sween, Bobby Goodspeed, Bruce me, which was kind of perfect since that vibe was Townley, Susan Breiding, Marc Schirmeister, happening all around me there. Not all gay men Steven Black, Julian Martin, Rob Imes, Dan get a chance to have even five minutes of that Steffan. L. Jim Khennedy. [There were some kind of humanism. I was very fortunate. awesome letters in there from you guys. Sorry to have to WAHF you. Pretty please write more, One of the things most often discussed at faerie again!] circles is the role gay men play in the ecology of the planet and the culture, which is more than Contact! just raves, discos and baths. (The zine RFD still exists and I often have art and writing in it.) Re- [email protected] cently I have been reading more and more about

Unsolved Mystery (con’t) AC Kolthoff

Rachel pulled on her dark-skinned boots and walked across the church floor. She thought about the people in coffins who were carried down the aisle, the hushed conversations between pastor and congregant in the back corners, and the stolen kisses in the choir loft above where her rumpled bed now sits. She cobbled together a story of their lives, and on mornings like this one, she would pretend to greet them individually, in their cotton shirts and skirts, bearing cookies and coffee cake. Of course she would. She searched for the stories that make up lives lived and deaths died. She was, after all, a detective.

71 The Gorgon of Poses G. Sutton Breiding

A Letter to Virginia Woolf

My Dearest Virginia, In January of this year, 2019, I immersed myself in the last 6 years of your life through your Diaries. As I read, I underlined; as I finished each year, I stopped: and collected my underlinings into hastily scrawled notes. When I had finished the final year, and had to say farewell, I took my steno book full of notes and re-transcribed them, saying hello again and again on page after page in a booklet I have called WHEN HER VOICE TURNED TO GLASS. This morning—it is late February and seems a million years have passed—I spent a bit- tersweet hour with you, steeping myself in your Beingness through these many scores of golden scraps —your mind so wholly seductive!

72 O dear Virginia! how can I ever thank you - but maybe with these echoes and reverbera- tions of you—on my Dollar Store binder paper?—and writing—in this era you would hardly believe possible to exist! Always I think of you, my cherished friend—kindred spirit indeed!—for truly you are a friend to me as no living person could ever be - or ever was – excepting—my mother—my mother— And, I should just like to say—I believe your suicide to have been a great act of bravery— and giving yourself to your beloved river - and you did the right thing— I can read more of you, of course - but that will not come close to alleviating the pangs I feel—I miss you dreadfully and sublimely and I am walking with you always through your marshes and over your downs and in the secret maze of shadows that was your London— Well—I am all crazed and gibbering! your unknown fan from the distant and very ugly future— —Sutton

Postscript I just had a sudden vision—you—alone—wandering—word haunted—beneath Elizabethan stars—in another world—and—there is pear music—a letter to be written—the call of the pheasant—the Thames lapping at your mind—scraps of madness—silence—poetry—beauty and despair at 2 a.m.—your traveler's notes left behind—your voice breaking into a million pieces—on the floor of your moonlit study—and I—writing hard—death and magic— helpless—in the mood—to burn—all my poems—and fill my pockets—with—stones

73 Author Bios

Alva Svoboda is a self-trained and largely unrecognized auto- archaeologist who aspires to create, before passing among the shades, a 3D-printed exact reenactment of his fannish pubes- cence composed entirely of vanilla fondant. Anyone with exper- tise in such matters is invited to contact him as soon as possible.

Cheryl Cline is the grandma of feminist bibliography, a tack-sharp savage wit, and bookstore co-owner. She lives in Concord, CA in a rad mid-century modern home.

Don Herron debuted on this scene with a review in the Harry O. Morris Jr zine Nyctalops no. 9 in 1974. He has led The Dashiell Hammett Tour in San Francisco for forty-two years. A couple of interesting, if rife with irrita- tions, jobs held down on the side would be night cab- driving and editing The Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick. His most recent lair is atop a ridgeline in San Jose.

Rich Coad has been in, or at least in close proximity to, fandom for about 45 years. Sadly his attempts to add sartorial splendor to the hobby have, at best, had mixed results. Over the years, Rich has produced a fannish fanzine, Space Junk, and a sercon fanzine, Sense of Wonder Stories, along with some lesser publications. He still enjoys reading science fiction and wishes that some of his favorite authors would achieve the sort of success that they deserve.

During his deep ecology phase in the mid '80s, James C Bodie was a blue jay. Photo credit: Pat Jolly

74 Billy Wolfenbarger is a poet, short story writer & composer of personal essays, who joined fandom in 1960. Grew up in Neosho, Missouri, now living in Springfield, Oregon. Pub- lished scattershot in America, also some things in Canada, England, Australia, South Africa; once translated into Italian. He greatly enjoys Columbian coffee, a fat cheeseburger, and a good night’s sleep.

Dale Nelson met fandom in 1969. His collection Lady Stanhope’s Manuscript and Other Stories was published by Nodens Books in 2017. He writes for the Tolkien news- letter Beyond Bree and CSL: The Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society.

Jeanne Neltje Bowman wonders if she will ever receive the volume that was to publish her prize winning poem “The Light- house”. Was it for New South Wales school age talent, or Aus- tralia wide? Friends expect her to publish a report on her Trans- Atlantic Fan Fund excursion in similar due time.

Michael Bracken, co-publisher with Joe Walter of the first six of twenty-one issues of Knights, has since written a handful of novels and more than 1,300 short stories in various genres. Learn more about Knights at http:// fancyclopedia.wikidot.com/knights. Learn more about Michael at http://www.CrimeFictionWriter.com Photo credit: Amber Bracken

Existentialist G. Sutton Breiding ‘s un- expurgated bio can be accessed at Wikipe- dia. Gauloises not included.

AC Kolthoff lives in Tucson and cannot retire soon enough. She used to smoke Kools.

75 KENT MOOMAW On Saturday, October 11th, 1958, Ohio fanzine editor, and loyal member of The Cult, Kent Moomaw (1940-1958) turned 18 years of age. Two days later, on the morning he was to report to his draft board, Moomaw decided to commit suicide instead, and did so in a most gruesome and determined manner, by slitting his own throat.

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