TThhee MMeettaapphhyyssiiccaall RReevviieeww 2266//2277 JJuullyy 11999988 ISBN 0814-8805 Graphic by Ditmar The Metaphysical Review 26/27 July 1998 96 pages FROM BRUCE GILLESPIE, 59 Keele Street, Collingwood VIC 3066 Australia (ph & fax: 61-3-9419 4797; e-mail: [email protected]) Printed by Copy Place, 136 Queen Street, Melbourne VIC 3000. HOW TO GET IT Available for letters of comment (if e-mailed, please also send your postal address), written or graphic contributions, traded publications, donations or subscriptions ($30 within Australia: write cheques to ‘Bruce Gillespie’) (overseas airmail: equivalent of US$40 or £20; please send your country’s bank notes, or cheques marked ‘Bruce Gillespie’ already converted to Australian currency). THANKS This issue was made possible by a generous financial grant from Dr DAVID J. LAKE of Brisbane. Many thanks also to the support of ELAINE COCHRANE through recent difficult times and DICK JENSSEN and IRWIN HIRSH for their help in providing the graphics. GRAPHICS Front and back covers: DITMAR. PHOTOS CATH ORTLIEB: p. 3 * DAVID LAKE: pp. 8, 12, 16 * JOHN LITCHEN: pp. 25, 27, 33 * IRWIN AND WENDY HIRSH: pp. 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, 54 (both), 75 * GARY HOFF: p. 85 3, 83 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS THE EDITOR * BUCK COULSON * SYDNEY J. BOUNDS * RICK KENNETT * BEN INDICK * RALPH ASHBROOK * STEVE SNEYD * HAROLD MACLEAN * JERRY DAVIS * GEORGE TURNER * DAVE PIPER * ED MESKYS * IRWIN HIRSH * E. D. WEBBER * MARK PLUMMER * ELIZABETH BILLINGER * ROSLYN KOPEL GROSS * wahf 8 ARRIVING HOME DAVID J. LAKE (includes ‘Confession of a Complex Man’) 25 PAASCH EYLAND ISLA DE PASCUA ILE DE PAQUE EASTER ISLAND RAPA NUI JOHN LITCHEN 39 MOUNTAIN RUINS AND ANCIENT WELLS: LONDON—JERUSALEM—HAIFA: MAY 1994 DOUG BARBOUR 46 TWELVE DAYS IN ITALY: A CHAPTER IN THE 1987 GUFF TRIP REPORT IRWIN HIRSH (includes ‘GUFF’ and ‘Previously Published Chapters of My Trip Report’) 55 PEOPLE REMEMBERED JENNIFER BRYCE * ALEX SKOVRON * JOHN BERRY 61 PEOPLE & FABLES JOHN F. RAINEY * E. D. WEBBER * WALT McLAUGHLIN 64 FEATURE LETTERS MAE STRELKOV * JAN CREGAN * MAUREEN KINCAID SPELLER * SKEL * JOSEPH NICHOLAS * CY CHAUVIN * ANDY SAWYER * GRAHAM STONE 2 I MUST BE TALKING TO MY FRIENDS AFTER GEORGE At 10 p.m. on Sunday, 8 June 1997, we arrived home with Lucy Sussex and Julian Warner from visiting John Bang- sund and Sally Yeoland at Geelong, to find that our house had been broken into for the first time in the eighteen and a half years we have lived here. Many TMR readers will be familiar with the doomed sinking feeling that follows such a discovery, but it was new to us. Despite all the burglaries that keep happening around Melbourne, somewhere at the back of our mind we believed we were safe; it would never happen to us. The burglars found it so easy to enter from the back of the house that it was only surprising that we had not been burgled years ago. Our locks were so feeble that there was no sign of forced entry on the back door or window. Because we had left home about midday, we had not left any lights on. Maybe some such precaution might have kept us safe. When the burglars entered the place, they found that the door to my room was deadlocked. Using the pickaxe they found in the back shed, they smashed through the heavy door to my study, then prised the deadlock out of its socket. Wooden chips were all over the floor. The effort proved worthwhile: they took a bag containing Elaine’s very George Turner (photo by Cath Ortlieb). expensive camera equipment, as well as my inexpensive CD player/radio/cassette player. Some jewellery that had been told at the funeral. Elaine’ grandmother’s, were carefully stolen so that it ap- John Bangsund spoke first. Most of what he said was in peared no clothes had been disturbed. From the hall the the July 1997 Ansible. Like John, I remember a heartstop- burglars took the answerphone/fax machine, but luckily ping moment when Leigh Edmonds and I were introduced Elaine still had the old ordinary phone hidden away. We to Caesar, George’s Great Dane. I get the impression that rang the police immediately. the nearest George’s heart came to breaking was when he A few minutes later, Judy Buckrich rang to tell us that arrived home in 1970 after a year away to find that Caesar George Turner had died. He had suffered a major stroke had been poisoned two weeks before. The novel Transit of on Thursday night, news we had heard only 24 hours Cassidy is George’s tribute to Caesar. before, so we were better prepared than most of George’s I spoke next. I didn’t speak very well, but then, I rarely friends, who had not heard about the stroke. Perhaps do. I had found out the day before that I was supposed to George died at the exact time when we were being burgled. say something. At 5 a.m. that morning I lay in bed trying to The repercussions of that night will go on for the rest of think of something pithy and pertinent. In the end, I wrote our lives. down nothing and took with me a few of George’s docu- We shouldn’t have felt safe. Collingwood, an inner ments to quote from. Later I remembered all the things I suburb, has been increasingly afflicted by drug-related wanted to say. crime during the last few years. Now we really don’t feel safe. Judy Buckrich is George Turner’s biographer; we hope We’ve already had a security door put on the back door, and that her book will appear before Aussiecon III in September locks on all the windows. Since we’ve heard dozens of other next year. She addressed her remarks as a letter to George, people’s burglary horror stories since 8 June, we’ve also telling us his life’s story. This was the real eulogy; the story installed a monitored alarm system. It’s all insurance, not of the man’s achievement. guaranteed safety; we will feel afflicted for some time to Andy Dunwoodie spoke last, introducing us to a much come. During the weeks after That Night I suffered a few more mellow figure than the rest of us have ever met. panic attacks, and lost six kilograms. (Later they went back Through Jim Dunwoodie, George’s best friend of the last on.) 25 years, George had become part of a large family living in Although we didn’t feel like leaving the house, on Ballarat. When he moved to Ballarat after his first stroke, Wednesday 11 June we attended George’s funeral in St George became more than ever part of this other life. Kilda. It was a cold and overcast day. I’m not sure how many ‘Uncle George’ was how Andy described him; ‘a plain man’. people attended the funeral. Someone mentioned a figure George was about as complicated a person as I’ve ever met, of 100. Many had not been prepared for the news. but it was moving to hear that he spent his last few years I’ve never thought of George as a lighthearted person, among people with whom he could be ‘plain’. Andy’s best but it’s interesting how many amusing tales about him were story was of George sitting at the dinner table with the rest 3 of the Dunwoodies. In the middle of the conversation, there I’ve had no trouble to retrieving George’s unpublished was always a point when he would disagree with whoever was manuscripts. No finished jewels, unfortunately, except the speaking. We know the feeling, Andy. novel that’s currently travelling America, but there’s the The proceedings from the funeral were published by the first third of what would have been George’s best novel Australian Science Fiction Foundation in its magazine The since The Sea and Summer (Drowning Towers). I sent every- Instrumentality; available for $10 subscription from PO Box thing useful to Cherry Weiner, George’s American agent. 215, Forest Hill VIC 3131 (or e-mail: mortlieb@vic- Jack Dann and Janeen Webb have bought the unfinished net.net.au). piece for their forthcoming gigantic collection of SF and After the funeral, Jim drew me aside. ‘I think I should fantasy by Australian writers. I hope to publish a collection tell you that you’re a beneficiary of George’s will.’ Me? Why? of George’s non-fiction in time for Aussiecon II. I welcome In what way? suggestions for must-include items. Judy, John and Sally, Elaine and I went for lunch after- The odd thing about becoming the literary ghost of wards. On the way Elaine and I had bumped into Stephen George is that his voice to me now rings louder and stronger Campbell, whom we had seen last about ten years ago. He in my head than ever before. Some of his generalising looked well, but said he had no permanent address. It was articles have dated badly, but many of famous pieces, in that sort of day. which he delves into particular works or authors, are as true We went to Scheherazade, the last of the great old St now as when they were written. Kilda Jewish restaurants. I made the mistake of ordering Since George’s funeral we’ve been working seven days a chicken schnitzel, while the others were sensible enough to week, and waiting for cheques to appear, and wondering order nothing more filling than chicken soup. when the next burglary will take place (we know that a car Around the table we told lots more stories about George, was frightened away from the back lane that night; probably and speculated about who would be George’s literary it was Them coming back for more).