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Colophon
File 770:123 is edited for the 20th year in a row by Mike Glyer. E-mail: MGlyer@compuserve.com
Send to 705 Valley View, Monrovia CA 91016.
Editor's Notes
by Mike Glyer
In the last File 770, while laughing off my confusion about which Becky was getting married to Michael Citrak, I made a brand new mistake by mentally reversing the names of the two women concerned. The corrections flashed across the Internet like e-mail lightning.
Tom Veal was not confused. He immediately e-mailed me: "Becky Simpson is Michael Citrak's fiancé. Becky Thomson is the Becky who's not."
Becky Thomson was not confused. "Mike Citrak's fiancé is Becky Simpson. I am not Becky Simpson. I am Becky Thomson. And although I've probably known Mike Citrak even longer than I've known you, and almost as long as I've known Tom Veal, I am not going to marry him! I bet this explains why Citrak was trying to call me late last night... So tell me, Mike, how many times have you run into people who think you're married to the Chairman of BucConeer?"
Mike Citrak was not confused. He was amused: "I do find this all kind of fun."
Roger Wells was slightly confused. "I mean, geeze, you really gave me a start. Michael Citrak and Becky Simpson announced their engagement quite a while back. They've been living as a family (just down the road from me, as a matter of fact) for some time now. I've got their wedding date marked on my calendar. And then you go and tell me that he's engaged to some other Becky?
"Both are fine young women and great fans and all, but physically and in personality Becky Thomson and Becky Simpson are quite different people. How, my gosh, can you possibly keep confusing them? Er, yeah, I guess maybe having recently chaired a Worldcon and all..."
No, Roger, you've confused me with Becky Rae Pavlat....
Signs of the Season: And speaking of Worldcons: In Spring, a young fan's fancy turns to thoughts of reforming the Hugos. It says so all over the Net.
The Hugo Awards need fixing. Everyone agrees with that. Just like everyone agrees we should explore space, then the moment discussion gets any more specific consensus fragments into a million pieces.
The latest passionate question is how to fit web sites into an awards system whose existing category definitions are tailored for printed publications. No one agrees on the way to do this.
Should there be a Best Web Site category? Should all web sites be pushed into the Best Semiprozine category, because of their presumed infinite Net audience? Should webmasters get to declare themselves eligible in existing categories (Sci-Fi Weekly having essentially volunteered itself to compete as a Semiprozine)? Should the Hugos distinguish between sites like Sci-Fi Weekly that seek a mass audience, and other sites that concentrate on fannish interests?
Does the magic of technology make it so hard to see that web sites still present two-dimensional assemblages of writing and pictures, as do books and magazines? There is no mechanical reason not to define web sites devoted to sf and fandom as things to be honored by the Hugo Awards.
Put aside that I really don't need more categories where we can experience the aggravation of heavy-handed Hugo campaigning. Or want to read more handwringing that Sci-Fi Weekly gets all the hits while really deserving fannish websites aren't read by "them." Web sites have so much in common with items already eligible for Hugos, like fanzines and nonfiction sf reference works, that the award definitions should be updated to include them.
R.I.P. Meanwhile, will fans please stop dying until we find a perfect solution to the In Memoriam problem? A few fans are still upset that Intersection began a new tradition of adding short captions ("fan", "editor") to the traditional list of sf fans and pros who have died since the last worldcon. However, I noticed the In Memoriam segment of the 70th Academy Awards consisted of clips subtitled with the person's name and profession ("actor", "hairdresser"). So far as I know, Kate Winslet, Arnold Schwartzenegger and Robin Williams did not indignantly stalk out of the building.
News of Fandom
Clipping Service
The Auld Lang Fund has been set up to bring Dave Langford to Aussiecon Three. Administrators are Justin Ackroyd, Carey Handfield, Eve & John Harvey and Marc Ortlieb. Suitable donations make you a friend of Old Langford. [[Thyme 119]]
Kara Dalkey's Steel Rose made the Locus Bestseller list in February. [[Einblatt 3/98]]
Greg Benford reports his novel Cosm has been selling very well. It has been optioned by Jan De Bent who made Twister and Speed, with 20th Century Fox. The Book of the Month Club has an edition coming out. "Even the science mags are reviewing it." [[Greg Benford; Amazon.com]]
NESFAns Ann Broomhead and Tim Szczesuil are appearing in the Sudbury Savoyards productions of H.M.S. Pinafore and Trial by Jury, March 26-28. [[Instant Message 622]]
Merv Binns and Helena Roberts were married on March 22. [[The Australian SF Bullsheet 95]]
Floating around somewhere is movie script by Robert A. Heinlein in collaboration with Ben Babb (publicist for Destination Moon): Abbott and Costello Move to the Moon. In a letter to Outré, Ron Miller claims: "This one is about a serious scientist (like Dr. Heinlein himself) who is imported to Hollywood to write a technical story on a trip to the moon, and then finds his work 'goes Hollywood' to fit two comedians." Miller wonders if anything was lifted from this script for Abbott and Costello Go To Mars, which was actually produced. (No, but a lot was lifted from it for Starship Troopers.) [[Outré 11]]
The Executive Secretary of the Australian Press Council, Jack Herman, was heard on 3LO defending a newspaper that had published details of the Australian Prime Minister's holiday location, including a map. [[Australian SF Bullsheet 94]]
______________________________________________________________
Conventional Reportage
A Mouse Odyssey
Boston in 2001 told its presupporters: "You got booked out of your year and then priced out of your city. NOW what will you do?" They answered: "We're going to Disney World!"
Faced with $200-a-night rooms at the Boston Sheraton, and unable to find attractive in-town alternatives, bidders looked for another viable site on the East Coast with friendly natives. Orlando topped the list, offering two attractive venues in an area full of MagiCon veterans already helping the Boston bid.
Presupporters were asked to vote between the International Drive location of the 1992 Worldcon (MagiCon), and the Dolphin and Swan, two hotels located 100 yards apart on the Disney World property. Voters in the straw poll favored Disney World over the Orange County Convention Center and adjacent hotels, 366-155.
The Disney site polled 70% of the votes, a decisive showing that voters don't insist upon a convention center for a Worldcon. Ironically, MCFI's Orlando Worldcon would become the first held outside of Chicago not to use a convention center since MCFI itself started the trend in 1989. (Chicago Worldcons can still be held under one roof at the Hyatt Regency.)
If you have questions about the bid, see its web site at:
http://www.mcfi.org
Orlando Furioso
Then there's the group that claims to love Boston soooo much they've refused to endorse the Orlando site and will march on under the discarded banner. But they're not from Boston.
Ken Keller and Suzanne Carnival, two former worldcon chairs, head the "Kansas City In Boston in 2K (+1)" bid. According to Ken Keller, "Kansas City fandom is willing and able to step in and honor Boston's long standing commitment to fandom for a Boston Worldcon by using its already announced facilities, despite the room-rate problems! We've determined they can be easily solved by using several creative approaches that the Boston committee has (apparently) failed to consider. We were surprised and shocked by Boston's lack of imagination. Where's the problem-solving wizardry that has always characterized MCFI's previous 'we-are-the-best' efforts?"
Is there some bitterness here? Does Kansas City fandom still feel the sting of criticism from eastern SMoFs? (Heck, don't we all?)
The KC bid for Boston largely consists of its web pages at
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/6141/
The web site's publicity includes eerily familiar boasts about the size of exhibit space in the John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center and the many hotels within easy walking distance. Though for variety's sake they did manage to typo the name of their facility as "The Haynes Center" in their online press release.
The site also lists the bid committee. In addition to the co-chairs, it includes Diana Bailey, Robin Wayne Bailey, Allison Stein Best, Margene Bahm, Pat Cadigan, Bradley Denton, Carol Doms, Dennis Doms, Jan van't Ent, Esther Friesner, Tim Keltner, Brian Lind, Michael McCain, James Murray, Paula Helm Murray, Bea Owens, Susan Satterfield, Keith Stokes, Wilson Tucker and Barbara Walley.
This canny crew has missed the filing deadline to be listed on the mail ballot. Keller explains, "We will now have to furiously bid as a write-in candidate on the mail ballot.... The bid campaign we've now been forced to develop will actually be able to take full advantage of this, as it turns out, giving us an unexpected edge (we believe) in what would otherwise be considered a hopeless endeavor. Strategy, my dear Mike, strategy!"
No doubt, but is it a winning strategy, or one inspired by memories of hoax bids that got out of hand and threatened to force their creators to actually run a worldcon?
Change Back From Your C-Note
LoneStarCon 2 chair Karen Meschke announces that almost all the bills have been paid and they will be able to fully reimburse the memberships of all program participants and volunteers who worked at least 16 hours.
Hugo Awards
BucConeer's Hugo Administrators, Ruth Sachter and John Lorentz, have finished counting this year's 471 nominating ballots. The final ballot will be announced on Easter weekend (April 10-12).
1998 Disclave Canceled
by Joe Mayhew, Chairman
The 1998 Disclave has been canceled; checks refunding all paid memberships have been mailed. The Holiday Inn, College park, notified me on Thursday, March 19, that they had canceled their contract with us. There had been no previous discussion. It was a bolt out of the blue.
The contract mostly protected the hotel, with little advantage to the user (us). Because of the weakness of the contract, and the lateness of the cancellation (slightly over a month before the convention), I had to cancel Disclave. I mailed out the refund checks on Tuesday, March 24.
Disclave has had problems. A recent one, that a major youth soccer tournament was being held over Memorial Day weekend, making it very difficult to find hotel space that weekend. Thus, even if we got a hotel, overflow rooms in other hotels would be virtually unavailable. Since 1994, Disclave, a modest-size bookish convention, had been repeatedly put into large luxurious hotels with multiple-year contracts. But such contracts were always canceled after the first year. The number of rooms taken was not satisfactory, no banquet, few tips, and their hotels were filled with people offensive to their upscale regular customers and staff. And yet, the elected chairs continued to look for high profile hotels. Our reputation as a dependable, low-maintenance group was fading. I guess it finally winked out.
I presume that, in order to get more rooms taken for our block, the person responsible for coordinating room parties booked an entire floor for an outside (in the sense that their focus was not on science fiction literature) group. I was told they were the "ASB" and that mean "Alternate Sex Bondage." During the 1996 convention, I saw people with pink-ended clothespins on their pockets and asked what they were, and was told they were passes to the ASB floor's sideshow. I was told that there were demonstrations of bondage and other techniques going on.
I protested as such events would give Disclave a dirty name. Disclave chairs are elected three years in advance and should be present at meetings concerning the Disclave. I was at first told I should attend the 1996 debriefing, but then, not notified when it was scheduled. Those who did, informed me that WSFA had not met its room block, that the hotel was being very generous to us. There had been about 625 (including complimentary memberships) at our belly-up convention. The usual reimbursements of staff expenses, room-nights, etc. were canceled, but WSFA paid its bills.
The only hotel which responded to WSFA's inquiry for space for our 1997 Disclave was the New Carrollton "Howard Sheraton" which had again been renamed "Ramada." I was happy we were going back there, as the function space was so huge that it made up for the general shabbiness of the hotel. When I heard that the "ASB" had been invited back and given an entire floor, I protested. Their presence would scandalize most parents, who would be ill-advised to allow their teenage sf readers to attend. The group's behavior might well be illegal, and, because of the omnipresent youth soccer tourney, we needed every room available to the SF readers for whom we had been throwing Disclaves since 1950.
Few of your readers haven't seen a button, heard a joke, or sang a filk song commemorating the flood-out at the 1997 Disclave.
The Ramada wanted WSFA to pay for the damages, but the Ramada's own insurance carrier advised WSFA's President that the damage was not WSFA's responsibility. WSFA had not contracted the space in which the damage had occurred (A New York City cop had rented the room in which he tried to suspend a woman from the overhead sprinkler system, setting off a fire-response which flooded the floor, put the elevator out of business and cause a middle-of-the-night evacuation of the hotel). The Hotel contended that the cop's name was on the list our party Liaison had given, authorizing assignment to that floor.
Until the flood occurred the hotel had been talking with me. Those talks had been going well. So it was rather a shock to find what had happened on Sunday night. I was told that there had been a flood. Because there had been torrential rains on Saturday night, I presumed they were talking about damage to the Exhibition Hall, which had leaked before. Actually, some rooms on the 10-story hotel's top three floors had been water-damaged. Perhaps God is being sued. During the weeks following the Disclave, I could not convince the Ramada that we were not usually a risk, that this aberration was not likely to occur. Nothing like it had (to my knowledge) occurred previously. But the representatives who had handled our account had already gone on to work in other hotels, and the hotel was yet again being sold. They weren't ready to talk contract.
By August, I felt it urgent that we find a hotel. Only one responded to our inquiries. I took it. It was a generous offer, a $75 flat room fee, 1 comp for every 25 rooms booked, etc. Shortly after the contract was negotiated, the Holiday Inn's representative went on to her next hotel. Things went smoothly for a while. Then new managers began to look at our contract, wanting to change various things. As of March 20 only 47 of the 210 rooms needed to fill the hotel had been taken. Disclave had only 283 members, and much of the hoped-for staff were unavailable, having committed to BucConeer instead. The whole business was getting scary. Then the other shoe fell.
The hotel cited letters they had received from our previous two hotels as being the cause of their withdrawal from our contract. I was not allowed to actually see those letters, but was told what I expected to hear about the Ramada Letter, however the gist of the Capitol Hill Hyatt Regency's letter was a surprise. I was told they complained about people walking around the ASB floor naked, trashing rooms, but didn't even mention the block shortfall.
I have not seen these letters. The Holiday Inn's manager, son of a pentecostal bishop, decided to evict Disclave as our convention could possible damage the hotel's reputation. They do a lot of church-related events.
It is possible that if we had had a lot more rooms booked, a different sort of tolerance would have been granted. It is easy and obvious that the hotel behaved rudely, perhaps illegally, and certainly injuriously to Disclave. But we did not have the time or resources to contest their action. If we had forced them to have us, they would have made our weekend hellish. So, I tried to negotiate amicably with them, with the result that they gave me a print-out of the people who were booked for Disclave, so I could notify them to cancel.
I had let it be known in our fliers, etc. that no ASB type activities would be tolerated at Disclave in 1998 -- and they will not be, as the convention has been canceled.
Any convention which turns part of its space or program to outside interests, unless the greatest care is taken, will suffer. Whether the group is S&M-based, political, or from any focus not a part of the identifying character of the convention, that presence will distort the event, alter its reputation and cost traditional memberships.
So many SF fan are convinced that his or her other interests surely belong at their favorite cons, that those cons have become distended and very difficult to run. The resulting "diversity" creates tensions between interest groups, and embarrassment to the managers.
I reported the cancellation to WSFA at the regular meeting on May 20, Friday night, and handed out some refund checks. I spent most of Saturday contacting people, doing paperwork and closing down the con. It was a bit like building a casket. Perhaps for a child. At about 1:00 a.m. I was beginning to shake. I laid down, thinking it would pass, but it didn't. I toughed it out until the morning when I called my sister-in-law (a nurse-practitioner) who took my vital signs and sent me to the emergency room ( I had a quadruple by-pass two years ago, and am diabetically blocked from chest-pain warnings) As it turned out I was having tachycardia (my heart was working too fast and not pumping a lot of blood). They gave me a jolly little drug which they told me, "will stop your heart." Which was not a cheering thing to hear. But only for a few seconds until the heart's natural pacemaker can restore the normal beat. The tachycardia seems to have been caused by stress. I have been put on additional medication, which I hope will prevent further tachycardia when they present their bill. I was sent home Monday morning and have continued the job of burying my Disclave.
Speed was essential. We didn't want people showing up for a con that wasn't there. One friend from California had already bought his airline ticket. Some Nebula nominated pros were coming to Disclave instead of going to the SFWA Banquet in New Mexico.
There are those who will criticize me for responding to your request for details. However, as some version of this is likely to appear in File 770, I want mine there as well. People of ASB-type values are certain that Disclave's problem was caused by "a few irresponsible nuts." They don't see their group's side-show as a problem. Perhaps it isn't. At the time of the Disclave disaster a "Black Rose Society" had booked a convention into the Ramada, which has subsequently taken place -- with or without misadventure.
The final irony is that the youth soccer tournament was suspended for 1998. I hope the Washington metro area's hotels enjoy a peaceful Memorial Day weekend.
++ Joe Mayhew, Chair
Disclave 1998
Ulrika's Journey to the East
Ulrika O'Brien is over halfway through her TAFF trip to Britain at this writing, but here's a Hari Seldon-esque prediction of where she's been:
3/14-16 Corflu UK, Leeds: D.West sacked & burned
3/16 Busman's tour of Leeds, courtesy Jim Trash
3/17 Touring York, with Mike Ford
3/17 Train to Edinburgh & Steve Glover, pub meet with local Edinburgh fan rabble, first round of Not Falling Over training.
3/18-20 Sightseeing Edinburgh and local Scottish countryside; harassing local Scots
3/20 Train to London to Rob Hansen & Avedon Carol
3/20-25 London and Environs; possible raid on Croydon coypu fans; harassing local Welsh & Armenians
3/23-25 Unspeakable adventures with Pam Wells; harassing local Tarts; collect curry-flavor condoms
3/26-27 Probable raid on Folkestone fandom, all two of them, with side trips out among the Downs, in search of ominously missing Ups.
3/28-29 Uncharted territory; Wales in grave danger
3/29-4/1 Reading; gaoled with Langfords to study ancient Welsh
martial art of flaming toast flinging, at the feet of master; harassing local Welsh
3/30 Stonehenge & Avebury assault with Morgan Gallagher, Country tea, subsequent collapse
4/2 London group pub meet, Jubilee, begin hard leg of Not Falling Over training
4/3 Up to Birmingham, Brum group meet
4/4 Birmingham, American touristry with Anne and Alan Woodford, then Brum pub meet final push for Not Falling Over
4/5-4/9 Here be dragons; possible raid on Cambridge Former Attitude Editors Fandom and/or conquering Portmeiron via Chester zoo; harassing local Scotts
4/9-12 Manchester, Intuition -- one shift as Green Room shift boss. What was that about Never Again Volunteer Yourself, swabby?
4/10 RASFF Pub gathering, hit Not Falling Over tape; take Not Falling Over victory lap
4/12 Back to Heathrow and home again to harass local cats & water remains of plants; Fall Over
Ulrika e-mailed me before departing: "I do expect to be pulling a shift at Eastercon -- I fell for the blandishments of Fiona Anderson, and the idea of getting an inside view of how British conventions run. Theoretically, I'll be on some program items at Eastercon, but I've dropped the ball badly in that respect, and haven't replied to the programming folk about what I want to do. I'm told I may be drafted to help with a Fan Fund auction at Corflu. Hal will be traveling with me just for the first week.
"Some of the references above are (possibly) cryptic. The Folkestone fans are Maureen Kincaid Speller and Paul Kincaid. The Croydon lot are Claire Brialey, Mark Plummer, and some others. If I make a trip out to Wales, it's to visit Jo Walton, probably no stop in with G. Pickersgill, much to his relief, no doubt. The fan in question in Chester is Mike Scott."
Ulrika's first TAFF newsletter, Demi-TAFF Americain, gave her trip schedule, a list of N.Am. voters in the last TAFF race, and fund administration notes including: "What we hear from Dan Steffan: Earlier in his administration, Dan was under the cloud of an IRS audit, and felt he couldn't deposit TAFF checks to his account for fear that the funds would be garnished right back out. Instead, he held the checks aside. Some significant number of the TAFF checks Dan held onto during that time period went too stale to deposit, and Dan plans to write to those TAFF donors individually to give a more personalized account, apology, and to request replacements checks." Apparatchik hinted last year that Virginia authorities were levying Dan's accounts for back taxes.
John Hertz, Vanamonde No. 247: "I keep saying how modern air travel is like the Alderson Drive in The Mote in God's Eye (1974), light-years in a moment, but months jockeying around solar systems to reach the jump point: I flew from Los Angeles to San Francisco in an hour, but with ground travel and fiddle-dee-dee at each end, to be in costume and ready to start at 10 a.m. I woke at 3."
Friends of Gary
Join Fight For Survival
Gary Anderson had to miss his own benefit because he was called in on short notice for his first round of "pulse" chemo. The MRI he had then showed what the doctors really already knew, the tumors had started to grow again after being shrunk by the radiation therapy. "The worry about chemo treatment for this kind of cancer is getting the stuff past the blood/brain barrier: chemo doesn't necessarily touch it," explains Cat Devereaux, who e-mails a weekly bulletin about Gary's progress. But there was "marked improvement" shown in a more recent MRI. Because he's responding well, Gary is scheduled for another round of radiation in April.
The "Warriors, Wizards and Wise-acres Ball," went ahead with redoubled motivation. Around 80 supporters gathered in a hall at Trinity Lutheran Church in Manhattan Beach, CA, on January 31 for the largest fundraising event to date organized by The FRiends Of Gary (FrOG). With so many costumers involved, it was a colorful occasion. According to Rick Foss, "Many people who had been in group presentations with Gary and Janet wore bits and pieces of costumes from those groups, in some cases modified for full evening wear. Other modes of dress ranged from very dapper full formal to flapper costumes, vaguely Caribbean linen suits with tropical shirts, Victorian ball gowns, and other eclectica. I chose to dress in an ensemble of purple, green, and orange striped pants with a tuxedo shirt, top hat, and a black and gold silk smoking jacket, and I was far from the most colorfully dressed."
Eric Gerds, Chris Weber and Karen Willson chaired the event. The party goers were welcomed at the sign-in table by a real bullfrog named "Princess." The decorations included balloons, streamers and ceramic frogs holding brains under their arms. Artist Bill Vallely did frog caricatures and signs that had everyone laughing. Windbourne started the evening with a concert set of Gary's filk songs before serenading the crowd with lots of cool "Kill the Beast" -themed songs. There were also a lot of dance sets.
Auction items included framed Star Wars Posters, rare filk tapes, and several autographed Babylon 5 scripts donated by writer Larry DiTillio. Rick Foss served as auctioneer and he recalls, "The tension when [the framed Star Wars posters] went up for bid was incredible. We started at $150 for the poster from the first film, and after the price hit $300 I was having trouble keeping my voice steady. When it hit $400, a weird calm set in.
"As is often the case at auctions of any kind, some items sold for prices which had nothing to do with their intrinsic or open market value. There was very spirited bidding on a custom caricature by Kelly Freas -- the bids went so fast that it was hard to keep track of them. Some stuff got no bids at all and are being passed on to be sold either via the website or at future live auctions at conventions. Some people got real deals, some made a donation and got something nifty to look at and remember that they had helped with a good fight, and it all went toward a worthy cause.
"The atmosphere was very pleasant in all, though we were hoping for a few more people. I think some people were afraid that it would be like public radio during pledge week, five hours of continuous begging for money. It wasn't that at all, but a very fine evening of dancing, socializing, and eating from an overwhelming variety of desserts. And if there were a few times that you saw tears on peoples' cheeks as they contemplated the life and death struggle that this was all facilitating, well, you understood why they cried - a release of tension, or just from happiness that so many people were so generous, or from compassion for Janet, or even for compassion for all the people who don't have this kind of network of friends, and so face the cancer beast alone..."
Treasurer Steve Saunders announced that ball raised $6267.75! FrOG's goal is to raise $30,000, and Janet Wilson Anderson says that to date, they've raised around $10,000 for Gary's medical expenses.
FrOG also raised money at Consonance with a two-hour event beginning at midnight Friday, March 6 (at a filkcon, midnight is prime time.) Not only did they auction items and pass the hat, they took song requests for a donation of so much per verse, and also let fans bid that a song not be played.
During the "Warriors" ball, event co-chair, Eric Gerds, read a message from Gary Anderson saying: "Thank you all so very much for this. Tell everybody how much I appreciate 'em, and that I'm doing my damnedest to stick around. If I make it, it will be because of my friends and family. Because of you, I have a lot to live for. I can't promise to win, but I can promise to give it one hell of a fight. And tell 'em to have one hell of a good time for me!"
The most recent news is that it's definitely a hard fight. On March 15, Gary had a seizure (not just "one more" of the little seizures cause by chemo irritation.) Paramedics transported him to a local hospital where he was stabilized, but still in critical condition and in ICU as of the last post. Doctors believe blood clots have formed in his legs while he's been immobilized by heavy chemo: some came loose, entered his lungs, and a lack of oxygen irritated the brain to the point of triggering a seizure. The doctors cleared his lungs and installed what Cat calls "a Borg implant" -- an umbrella filter was surgically guided into a vein at his groin, that will act like a sieve to keep the blood clots out of his the lungs. Caught in the filter, they will just dissolve. Gary has already returned home.
FRoG Pins: They're sterling silver, about an inch long. Wear them up by your collar as a reminder of Gary and his daily fight. They're only $20. Remember, every little bit helps.
FrOG is a non-profit organization founded to help with Gary's Anderson's medical bills. In the wonderful case that all the money raised is not all needed, the rest of the proceeds will be donated to the National Brain Tumor Foundation and the American Brain Tumor Association.
Uchujin at 40
Takumi Shibano reports that on November 22, a party was held to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Uchujin, at a Chinese restaurant in Yokohama, joined by 125 pros and fans.
Uchujin, Japan's best-known fanzine, started publication on May 15, 1957. Takumi explains that the party was delayed half a year past the anniversary to coincide with the publication of a book, Forty Years of Uchujin. This book consists of a long interview with editor-publisher Takumi Shibano conducted by three members of the Uchujin Club, an index to the contents of Uchujin's first 194 issues compiled by Tosaku Mori, and a list of all 2000 fans who have joined the club over the years.
OSFiC Statement at #30#
Around the world from Yokohama, the picture's not as rosy. Lionel Wagner, Vice-President of the Ottawa Science Fiction Society, has quit as editor of the club's well-done newzine, influenced by this dire vision of local clubs in the Microsoft Age:
"The Ottawa Science Fiction Society is evolving into a loose association of like-minded people in cyberspace.... There is no excuse, if you live in Ottawa, not to be on the internet. We are blessed with FREEnet access, thanks to Carleton University.... Effective the end of [1997], I am resigning as editor of The Statement. I'm tired of fiddling with an old copier to produce a document that is increasingly irrelevant....
"Monthly meetings will continue in a desperate attempt to maintain some personal contact. Attendance is so sparse, they could be held in private homes. members with no e-mail address will be advised by snail-mail via the new reduced newsletter. Private invitations for parties can be accomplished by bulk e-mail. Specific lists will be maintained. We must adapt to the new electronic information age." [[Source: BCSFAZINE 295-6, December 1997]]
Medical Updates
George "Lan" Laskowski announced in a letter to the NASFA Shuttle that he was informed on February 2 that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Major surgery was scheduled for February 25. Lan added, "This was only discovered recently, and was quite a shock to me, my wife Kathy, and my family. I have taken a leave of absence from my teaching job for the remainder of the school year.... Although the operation is serious, the doctor is confident in its success, and I have confidence in him."
Alan Stewart, Australian newzine editor and past DUFF winner, underwent abdominal surgery in January, and further surgery in early February. He wrote in Thyme 119, "The news is pretty good, with cysts large and small being removed, along with other body parts, but this issue of Thyme was delayed."
Elliot Shorter entered a VA hospital in Roxbury, MA for treatment of a leaky heart valve, and had a double-bypass operation on March 20.
Join the Support Network
"Victory celebrations have proved to be somewhat premature," Ian Gunn begins sadly in his March 16 to his support list. "My cancer has flared up again in exactly the same spots, and I resume chemotherapy tomorrow." His doctor had proclaimed the affected organs were back to normal, except for a few spots on the liver. Now the spots have cleared up, but Ian must battle the recurring cancer.
"So much for my hair growing back," Ian deadpans. "This time they're going to hit it harder with extra drugs and five-day treatment sessions instead of two-day ones. At least I'll be an outpatient which means I won't have to spend sleepless nights in hospital (sleepless nights at home are much more preferable, there's books, TV, internet...)
"Karen's pretty upset, but we at least know what to expect this time -- to some degree."
Before the latest diagnosis, Karen Pender-Gunn, Ian and Tim Richards launched a new web page. "There's some Gunny artwork that's too large and cumbersome for its own good, but we'll work on that, too." Log on at
http://www.ozramp.net.au/~fiawol/
Deja Thoris All Over Again
After 25 years at the same Memphis address, Darrell C. Richardson moved to a condo in 1995 but he kept his old house and simply left his 10,000-volume library in place. He also had thousands of pulp magazines in an outbuilding nicknamed "Barsoom Manor." At least he did until October 28, 1997, when police apprehended two men pushing large city-owned garbage cans down the street, filled with boxes of pulp magazines. One of the boxes had a label with Richardson's name on it, otherwise police wouldn't have known who the item had been stolen from. Many boxes of irreplaceable pulps were not recovered, including such rarities as 69 copies of Blue Book Magazine from 1927-1932 and 650 copies of Argosy.
Knightfall
Three days before Arthur C. Clarke was scheduled to be knighted by Prince Charles in Sri Lanka, he was assailed in the British tabloid Sunday Mirror as a gay pedophile. The February 1 headline called for him to be stripped of his knighthood. Ansible quoted the 80-year-old Clarke's outraged denial of the allegations, and statement that he had not been sexually active for 20 years. The Associated Press subsequently reported that a couple of Sri Lanka officials spoke about expelling him from their country, where he has lived for decades.
Yvonne Ridley's article in Faxwise (February 1) added, "Buckingham Palace advisers contacted British embassy officials in Sri Lanka this year to make discreet inquiries after rumors about Clarke's sexuality and private life. They reported that, although Clarke was known to be gay, there was no evidence of paedophilia. The British-born author of more than 80 novels, who has adopted Sri Lanka as his home, was unable to travel to Britain to receive his knighthood from the Queen because he is virtually confined to a wheelchair as a result of post-polio syndrome." The ceremony had been scheduled to take place during Prince Charles' official visit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sri Lanka's independence. [[Sources: Ansible, The Geis Letter, Gary Farber]]
Cue Tips
Dark City, a new movie enjoying great popularity among mainstream fans, has been acclaimed for its visual effects. If you also paid attention to the sound, some of the credit belongs to Ear Whacks, the "dialogue replacement" group founded by Jerry Gelb, brother of Janice Gelb. It's their first major film assignment.
Out to Launch
DASFAx editor Sourdough Jackson has published a book, Sourdough Jim's Space Flight Log. It contains a listing of every orbital, lunar and interplanetary launch attempted between October 4, 1957 and November 30, 1997. Price: $15. Copies may be purchased from the Denver L-5 Society (1280 Sherman, Rm. 214, Denver, CO 80203).
Notable Bookmakers
Minnesota Book Award nominees include Dear Poppa, ed. Ruth Berman (Minnesota Historical Press Society) in the "personal papers" category; and in "SF and Fantasy", Steven Brust, Freedom and Necessity -- Emma Bull is a coauthor but is not mentioned, perhaps because she does not live in Minnesota, John Ford, From the End of the Twentieth Century, and Peg Kerr, Emerald House Rising.
[[Source: Einblatt 3/98]]
FAAN Awards
Winners of the 1998 Fan Activity Achievement Awards, announced at Corflu UK in Leeds, are:
Best Fanzine: Idea, edited by Geri Sullivan, 105 points
Best Fanwriter: Christina Lake, 64 points
Fan Artist: D. West, 94 points
Best Letterhack: Harry Warner Jr., 71 points
Best New Fanzine Fan: Lesley Reece, 71 points
Fan Face #1: Geri Sullivan, 161 points
Award administrator Andy Hooper lined up fanwriter and calligraphic artist Jae Leslie Adams to design and create the physical award. The FAANs use a weighted ballot in which a first place vote is worth five points; a second place vote is worth three; and a third place vote is worth one point. The individual or publication receiving the most points in each category won the award. [[The Australian Bullsheet 95]]
Number One Fan Face
Just 81 years young, Forrest J Ackerman spent time last fall autographing his new coffeetable book, Forrest J Ackerman's World of Science Fiction. Now Forry is at work with anthologist Pamela Keesey to produce the sequel to Ackermanthology, called AckerWOMANthology. It will feature female authors including Leslie F. Stone, Catherine L. Moore, Clare Winger Harris, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and, he hopes, a few more contemporary writers like Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ursula K. LeGuin. He has also inked a contract with a British publisher to produce a collection called Amazing Movies, assembling the stories that were the basis for films, such as "The Four-Sided Triangle", "The Twonky", "Nightfall", etc.
Ackerman is already signed as a guest of honor for six American conventions in 1998, and a fantasy film festival in Manchester, England.
The X-Rotsler Files
LASFS Board of Directors spent part of its February 8 meeting analyzing the mailing list of the club newzine, De Profundis. One of the questions was about copies bouncing from bad addresses. Bruce Pelz, chairman of the board, asked why the issue was mailed to the late Bill Rotsler. Treasurers Robbie Cantor and Liz Mortensen swore they already removed his record from the database. Bruce repeated, "So how did Rotsler get a copy?" I reminded him of the club's unofficial motto, "Death will not release you." Bruce frowned, "He didn't want De Profundis when he was alive!"
Something intentional that LASFS has done to keep Bill's memory alive is starting a project to type into word processing files all the quotations he compiled having to do with months of the year. Many members volunteered to help enter the text in electronic form. The quotes come from 12 out of 200 scrapbooks Rotsler accumulated and drew on for his topical "Quotebooks." Mike Stern, who is leading the project, expects the disks back by the first meeting in May. (Efforts are being made to place the collection of scrapbooks with the University of Eastern New Mexico, where Jack Williamson has taught.)
Meantime, John DeChancie has stepped in to teach the evening "Writing SF & Fantasy" course at Learning Tree University that Bill Rotsler originated. LTU is a private center in the San Fernando Valley (of Los Angeles) that offers college-extension-types of classes. DeChancie's class goes for six Tuesdays in the spring.
Move Over Beethoven
Fanzine fan from the 50's and '60's, Leslie Gerber, was interviewed on CNN January 30. For the past two decades he's lived in -- and run his Parnassus Records search service from -- "Big Pink," the house in West Saugerties, NY, where Bob Dylan and The Band spent seven months of 1967 recording more than 100 songs. Gerber has been in the house since shortly after it was bought by jazz bassist Michael Aminitin, who has now sold it for $149,000 to a former Long Island disc jockey who plans to restore the house as a recording studio.
"Big Pink" appeared on one album cover by The Band, and will be on another being brought out by Les, who says he "started writing songs after [he] moved into the house" (which he had never done before). Parnassus Records deals exclusively with recordings of classical music (and some jazz), which adds a certain amount of irony to all this. Gerber's own record label, also called Parnassus, chiefly issues recordings of string quartets, but has also brought out a couple of collections of pianist Sviatoslav Richter. [[Bruce Pelz, Matthew Tepper, SFC]]
Abbreviations
Edie Stern's patent relating to variable bandwidth wireless communications technology was one of 10 featured in the January 16 News section of the IBM web site (http://www.ibm.com). [[Source: SFSFS Shuttle 132]]
The 1998 NESFA Short Story Contest was won by "The Lives of Ghosts" by Loren W. Cooper (Albany, Oregon). Other finalists include Runner-Up: "The Game" by Terry Hickman (Omaha, Nebraska); and Honorable Mentions: "Miss'ippi Snow" by Debbie Donofrio (The Woodlands, Texas) and "The Secret Ingredient" by Dora Knez (Montreal, Quebec, Canada). The winners were chosen from a total of 79 valid entries. Final round judges were Walter Jon Williams, Jane Yolen, and Ian Randal Strock. [[Sharon Sbarsky]]
The Melbourne SF Club's new official charity is Lifeline. Part of MSFC's support involves arranging a preview of the Lost in Space movie on April 6. [[Australian SF Bullsheet 94]]
Bubonicon 30 will be held August 28-30 at the Howard Johnson East, I-40 and Eubank NE, in Albuquerque, NM. Guests of honor are Robert J. Sawyer, Jane Lindskold, and David Martin. Toastmaster is John Stith. Auctioneer is Bob Vardeman. Memberships: $20 'til May 31, $22 'til August 14, $25 at the door. The con drew 330 in 1994. For more information, contact NMSF Conference, PO Box 37257, Albuquerque, NM 87176, or e-mail mps@ncgr.org. Visit the website at members.aol.com/bubonicon
Speaking of Robert Sawyer, his novel Illegal Alien involves an O.J. Simpson-like trial in Los Angeles of an extraterrestrial, and LASFS gets asked for help in formulating questions designed to disqualify sf fans and space buffs as jurors. Martin Morse Wooster photocopied the LASFS reference for me. Several Canadian fans are Tuckerized. Paul Valcour is transformed into a landmark, "Valcour Hall", and let's not forget Dr. Lloyd Penney, eminent psychiatrist. (If he was musical, he could do a shrink rap.)
Amy Thomson has started leading an sf book discussion group at the new Borders Bookstore in the Redmond (WA) Town Center Mall on the third Monday of the month. Contact amy@jetcity.com
Mr. Skunk Goes to Washington,
or Perhaps, Just to Lunch
Now listen to my story about Mr. Skunk,
Who hung around the NESFA even though they said he stunk,
Then one day fans were meetin' in the room,
And up through the floor come a weasely perfume....
When NESFAns attending their December 14 meeting were treated to a whiff of skunk, President Gay Ellen Dennett mobilized the club for action.
Lis Carey contacted experts and told the January 11 meeting it would cost $150 to humanely remove the skunk. That meant paying through the nose, but most members agreed the result would be worth it. Two exceptions were Mark and Priscilla Olson who promptly bought a subscribing membership in NESFA for Mr. Skunk and argued it was now inappropriate to keep the skunk out of the building.
Lis Carey replied that the skunk might have the right to be in the clubhouse, but not to live there. Now that pest control was on the agenda, Rich Feree moved $500 to trap the lawyers in the clubhouse. Later, Ted Atwood advocated laying a trail of marshmallows from the entrance of the skunk's lair to a proposed new residence at the LASFS clubhouse. According to Instant Message's calculation, "9.24 million marshmallows would be required to cover 3500 miles. Mini-marshmallows for weight control were suggested, accompanied by periodic placement of bowls of water along the route to Los Angeles. Finally, everyone left the clubhouse except for new subscribing member Mr. Skunk."
Deb Geisler took charge of NESFA's serious, scientific approach to Mr. Skunk and reported a few weeks later about efforts at humane removal. "A nice man came to put down skunk chow. The skunk has consumed it. A trap was put out and we caught, not the Last Dangerous Skunk, but a kitten (which Mark Hertel released)."
Serious science having been dealt another blow, NESFAns immediately resumed making other kinds of suggestions. George Flynn recommended putting green stickers on the skunk and loading him in the truck to Boskone.
The first thing you know, his tail's in the air,
The members yelled, "Skunk, move away from here."
Tim Szczesuil said, "Californy is the place you oughta be,"
So they put nine gigs of marshmallows on the road to Beverly....
The Fanivore
Letters from File 770 Readers
Mike Glicksohn
As was noted by several of your correspondents, death seems to be a too large topic in your pages nowadays, but you wouldn't be doing your job if you didn't report on the bad as well as the good in our subculture. Bittersweet though it is to read testimonials to dead friends, it's a part of life and is for the best in the long run.
I last saw Ross at Ad Astra last year. I was setting up for a panel about the Toronto in 2003 bid and he came into the room and sat in the front row. I immediately knew I knew him but couldn't place him at all, so I simply admitted that and he said, "Of course you know me. I'm Ross Pavlac." It was a real shock how much he had changed, even back then.
And by a strange coincidence, I met Ted Pauls for the first time in probably 20 years when I dropped by that very same fannish Sunday brunch mentioned in his obituary. Ted and I were never buddies but I used to publish his column in Energumen and I'm glad I had even a brief chance to touch base with him again before he died.
And, of course, one of the proudest moments of my entire fannish career occurred when I personally presented Bill Rotsler with his first Hugo award which I'd carried back with me from Australia.
Rough times for the editor of a fannish newzine but you did your job with your usual grace. Thank you.
Two other things: I don't know who Kevin Standlee's "sources" are, but he most definitely needs new ones. I certainly wouldn't buy a used worldcon from this man. The Toronto bid isn't "dominated" by anyone (I tried but they wouldn't let me) and there isn't a single person involved with the bidding committee that could possibly be described as a "wannabe professional." We've got a bunch of fans, some computer types, a pair of accountants (but they are nice accountants) and even a couple of lawyers (and even they are nice!) Mr. Standlee's comments are bullshit, pure and simple, and to me they sound like envy from someone who is probably going to lose a worldcon bid against a committee that probably won't.
Richard Labonte (blast from the past time!) was trying to recall The Low-Down, a series of three fanzines conceived of and edited by Richard and written and produced by Canadian fans in 1968, 1969 and 1971. Naively, we believed that fans would appreciate the opportunity to vote on the Hugos on a more knowledgeable basis, so we created a fanzine that reviewed all of the professional category nominees and showcased the fan nominees. If memory serves (which it usually doesn't) we were hoping that future worldcon committees would be so impressed by what we'd done that they would take over the task and continue it on an ongoing basis. Oh how young we all were in the spring of 1968.
Richard is confused about the dates, though. We were in his parents' garage by the 1969 issue of The Low-Down was out by June 8th, well before the Apollo moon-landing (which I watched in Bjo Trimble's house and celebrated by toasting Larry Niven with an eskimo pie: ya had to be there!)
David Bratman
That was a very fine obituary of Ross Pavlac. It captured the man as he was while smoothly putting across the facts of his life. The additional comments by others are equally fine, casting slightly different lights on what is clearly the same figure (none of that "Are they talking about the same person?" sort of thing) through viewpoints very characteristic of each writer. This is the sort of thing a good obit should be, or at least I think so; and if writings on his passing come to the attention of Ross's spirit, I trust he'd be prouder of this than of getting a brief notice in Locus.
As a librarian, I salute your determination to stick with the same zine title for twenty years, despite wishing you'd thought of something catchier. A sure way to annoy librarians is to keep changing the name of a magazine.
I was quite dismayed to hear of the Boston bid's move to Orlando. Not because of the dangers of a long-distance convention: if anyone can run a good worldcon at such a distance it's MCFI. No, it's because I attend worldcons as much for the city as for the con, and I was looking forward to returning to Boston. I've been to Orlando once in my life (before MagiCon), and I'm glad I went but once was quite enough. What worries me is that finances, in particular the downward draft of prices caused by tremendous oversupply of facilities in resort areas, will result in more and more worldcons in resort cities. These are not the places I prefer to spend my vacations in. I know I'm weird; that's why I became a fan.
As a budding codger myself, I want to agree with E. Michael Blake that paper fanzines are vital to the community, but I fear he may be wrong. His suggestion of classing webzines as semiprozines appeals to me, given the spirit of the circulation-size Hugo rules and the difficulty of finding an accurate web equivalent to circulation figures ("hits" are definitely not the same thing), but whether the WSFS BM will agree is quite another question.
Kevin Standlee
Harry Warner Jr. need not worry much about future historians not finding a previous Worldcon called LoneStarCon 1, as long as they start by looking at the Long List of Worldcons that appears in the Worldcon Souvenir Book. Since at least 1996 (the year I edited the list), there has been a footnote by LoneStarCon 2's name explaining that LoneStarCon 1 was the 1985 Austin NASFiC. The List also has a footnote about IguanaCon II's name. Incidentally, timebinders in fandom are working out a Long List of NASFiCs for publication in NASFiC Souvenir Books as well.
I appreciate you calling Henry Welch to order for having classed ConFrancisco in with Nolacon II, but alas, to this day I continue to meet people who are convinced that the 1993 Worldcon left a pile of smoking rubble where the Moscone Convention Center once was. While handing out bid stickers at the door to the San Francisco in 2002 Bid Party at LSC2, I had someone walking by very loudly say something like "Oh, no! Never again! Never in San Francisco, ever! Not another nightmare like that!" But when I tried to get him to tell me what prompted such vigorous objections, he shouted obscenities at me and stormed away.
While I was at this past year's SMOFCon in Boston, one of the questions posed to the SF2002 Bid was "What lessons did you learn from ConFrancisco?" My reply was "Open registration a couple of days before the convention and plan your major events so they don't have long queues." If there is some other major failure of ConFrancisco that I missed there, I want to hear about it, because those of us bidding for 2002 want to learn from ConFrancisco's experience.
Of course, to paraphrase Ben Yalow, what Fandom wants is a 3,000 room hotel with $20/night rates, all rooms on one level (no elevators), no room more than one minute's walk from the function space, all rooms convenient to parties but quiet whenever desired, about 250,000 square feet of function space arranged conveniently for all events, and a wide variety of restaurants within a one minute walk of the site. Oh, and if it costs more than $20 to attend, you're being ripped off. One wonders why anyone ever bids for a Worldcon.
Peggy Kennedy falls victim to a common fannish fallacy when she says "Tech would have cost the same whether or not there had been a Masquerade." The Masquerade is the biggest of the major events, and its tech requirements drive the entire Events Division's tech budget. However, tech is mostly a fixed expense, so once you've shelled out all for all of that equipment, you try and get the most use out of it by using it on the other major events. If there was no Masquerade, the Hugo Awards would probably be the driving event, and its tech requirements are substantially smaller and cheaper than Masquerade. We would get by with a lot less in the way of fancy tech stuff at the Hugo Awards if we hadn't already paid for them to do the Masquerade. I therefore think it perfectly fair to assign the lion's share of Events Technical cost to the Masquerade department, because most of those costs are caused by the Masquerade.
Harry Warner, Jr.
Congratulations on achieving your 20th anniversary of publication for File 770. A lot of other good fanewzines have failed to live even half that long. If I thought I would remain rational for the rest of this year, I might be tempted to indulge in upsmanship and publish a sixtieth annish for my old genzine, Spaceways, in the autumn, something I don't believe any other fanzine has ever done ceremoniously. The Fantasy Amateur and The National Fantasy Fan have passed sixty years of age but they've had more than one editor.
Maybe you'll forgive my failure to fill out the poll ballot. Fanac obligations are pressing me so tightly that I've been skipping votes in recent months in apas and other fanzine polls, for the sake getting another loc or two written in the time it would take to fill in all those blanks.
[[I suggest we call it the Warner Uncertainty Principle, when somebody has to cut back on Fanac in order to do more fanac...!]]
The news about the Boston bid shift is sort of staggering, despite its failure to affect my personal future. Maybe the time is coming when it will become necessary to downsize the worldcon attendance, as the list of meeting sites capable of handling a huge crowd at a price within most attendees' budgets continues to contract.
I liked very much the guest editorial from E. Michael Blake. As you might guess, I continue to be interested only in fanzines that reach me on paper. They have one advantage; unless mutant silverfish go out of control, there is no reason why some copies shouldn't survive indefinitely. In contrast, the changes in computers and equipment may eventually cause present methods of preserving electronic fanzines on discs to become obsolete and it will be as hard as to find antique machines as capable as handling them as some of the earliest computerized records have become today.
The egoboo you generously lavished on me in "Graphic Examples" is appreciated. But even more I like the fact that you took the trouble to give an extended review to a quite small fanzine with somewhat limited circulation. There are quite a few other excellent fanzines in the DASFax category that rarely get more than a sentence or two in fanzine review columns.
I know there is some sort of publication in existence that provides guidance for worldcon committees and officials with little previous experience in what lies ahead. But I think there should be an anthology of pieces like Peggy Kennedy's report in this issue that go into great depth to point out how things can go wrong in specific instances. SFPA has had two or three similar accounts in the past year or two. If such an anthology were kept in print and made available to those who will be in high places at worldcons, it would provide assurance that their own coming problems aren't new and insurmountable ones.
All the material about Ross Pavlac helped to round out my mental picture of him. I don't think he and I ever met, since he became prominent in congoing just after I'd stopped attending the things. I only wish that he could have been the subject of a fanzine honoring him while he was alive and healthy, to give him a more accurate idea of the high esteem in which he was held by many fans. Murray Moore did such a nice thing for me with a special issue of his fanzine, and I'd like to see his example imitated for a lot of the good people in fandom while their careers are still in progress (not, of course, after they've become ill, since that might affect them like Scrooge looking at his own gravemarker in A Christmas Carol.)
Ed Green's faan fiction is hilarious. Reality will probably never catch up with it, but only because of the unlikelihood that the first visitors from outer space would land at the edge of a fan convention. If they did, however, I'm sure events would follow just about the way Ed has imagined them.
None of the articles and locs about Bill Rotsler has mentioned so far one phase of his fanac, and I'm worried about the danger it might be lost for all time. When he was much younger, he produced (by carbon copies, I think) a limited circulation publication entitled Kteic, whose recipients weren't allowed to keep it but were supposed to read their copy and then send it on to the next name on a circulation list appended to this particular copy. It was fascinating, detailed stuff about Bill's life and thoughts and accomplishments, necessarily receiving little publicity in the fanzines of the time. For some reason, he dropped me from his lists after several years and I have reason to believe he continued to circulate new issues for a year or two longer. I wonder if copies of this survive anywhere. Any written Rotsleriana is precious and if there's a file of this particular zine in existence anywhere it should be treasured and somehow guaranteed continued existence.
[[Good point. I received an issue of Kteic once, with instructions to mail it on to the next person (which I obediently did). Maybe one of the long-time fans who got "keeper" copies has preserved them.]]
Wouldn't the best way to distinguish between an armadillo and an aardvark be to yell "Ethel!" at it? If it responds, it's an aardvark.
Gary Farber
"The 1978 Worldcon, Iguanacon 2, adopted its name from a one-shot local convention the group had held in Phoenix."
No, Mike, that's not what happened; there was no such convention. "Iguanacon," the first, was a hoax convention; naming the Worldcon "II" was a joke (although also the Official Name Of The Con) based upon that hoax. You'll have to ask someone with a better memory than me, though, for more details about the hoax con.
At the time I objected to this joke being inserted into the Worldcon nomenclature, as while I heartily approved of jokes and non-malicious fannish hoaxes, I objected to a local joke being inserted into the Worldcon record. I still lean that way, but at this distance, I also find it a pleasant example of Iggy's non-stuffy attitude, which I find a welcome contrast to the vast Stolid Seriousness with which much of modern Worldcon seems now infused.
Cute piece by Ed [Green]. I'm sorry you didn't have more of an obit for Ed Cox; maybe someone can do a more comprehensive piece next time?
Patrick Nielsen Hayden
Gary is correct. "Iguanacon 1" was the subject of a hoax conreport published (circa 1971) by Phoenix eofan Terry Ballard.
One of the little bits of verisimilitude in Terry's conreport had been the assertion that the motel at which Iguanacon 1 changed its marquee to read "Welcome Scientists." Thus inevitably arrangements were made, and at Iguanacon 2 the marquee at the Phoenix Convention Center, for part of the Worldcon at least, read the same.
[[Checking IguanaCon 2's Progress Report 1, I see it adds that the hoax review in Garuda placed "IguanaCon I" in Coolidge, Arizona, "a small town halfway between Phoenix and Tucson."]]
Marty Cantor
I am writing you this note in response to the 20th Anniversary File 770 Poll. I guess that it is only fair that I respond to your poll, even though I never feel really happy about responding to these kinds of things. With most of my written fanac of the past six years having been mostly confined to sporadic contributions to LASFAPA and the odd loc (to odder fanzines), I do not feel that I have enough knowledge of the 1997 crop of fanzines, fanwriters, and fanartists to properly contribute to (or vote in) these categories.
As to those worthy fans and pros who should be honored by being Worldcon GoHs (but who have not yet been given the nod), well, I just do not know who received this honor in the past so I am not about to posit just who should be given the honor in the future.
This leaves the category, "Who are the three fans who have had the most influence on your fanac?" As I did not discover fandom until just before my 40th birthday (some 22 years ago), this also is difficult to answer as the writing style and other abilities which I brought to fandom were developed decades before I found fandom, so I was probably less influenced by other fans than were those who found fandom in their teens.
[[I agree that generally the greatest influences on our fanac were early influences. Back in the 70s, Dick Geis, Bruce Pelz, Mike Glicksohn, and Linda Bushyager did the most to affect my ideas about fandom and fanzines. Some later influences on me became equally profound because I wound up chairing a Worldcon: Mark Olson, Craig Miller and Joe Siclari.]]
I suppose that the only fan I can say who "influenced" me in a noticeable way was the person who turned my life around by "discovering" fandom to me, and that was June Moffatt's son, Jay Konigsberg. And everything has been downhill from there. Getting into apas and then into genzines and such was more of finding my affinities with them after starting to read the weekly disties of APA-L at LASFS. I think that my "growth" in fandom from local club member to old-fartism was a result of not so much being influenced by any one or fans but just a result of turning my already developed self into the types of fanac in which I felt comfortable. When I went to my first Worldcon, Iggy, I had already become a multi-apan and was already considering the production of my first genzine. At the time I found fandom, my primary activity outside of work was reading science fiction and participating in local politics (having been appointed to several commissions in three small cities in which I had one or another interest.)
Joseph Major
"It was 20 years ago today/Sgt. Saturn taught the band to play." Oh yes, we're Sgt. Saturn's Planet Stories Skiffy Band, and how many fans out there won't understand either part of that reference?
When I went to see Johnny Carruthers the other day, he logged onto Sharon Sbarsky's web site and showed me the poll for the two potential sites, and votes for the Convention Center over Epcot. in fact, he said he would rate the Convention Center over Philadelphia but Philly over Epcot. Seeing the difference in hotel rates ($99 against $119) I can understand that. And when Epcot won I could only see one response: Poop-poop-poopy!
Martin Easterbrook raises the interesting point that he finds "there are more faces I recognize working on any U.S. Worldcon [he visits] than new local ones that [he does not]". The Permanent Floating Worldcon Committee has received international notice. Does this mean -- *ghasp* -- a revived World Science Fiction Society Inc. in our future?!
Ross Pavlac: I guess that was what I got for being so restrained. You mention the 1975 Midwestcon. I was there along with, I think, a dozen Louisville fans, all sleeping in one suite. It was one of my first cons. We may have met. (So much for that panel at LSC2!) I may have met Ross. But at that time, who knew?
Cornerstone has published some exposes of some claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse, including a detailed refutation of the claims of a self-proclaimed ex-Satanic High Priest (who is now a Fundamentalist minister and Orthodox bishop -- of his own churches) who lives here in Kentucky. So Ross was in good company there, too.
Johnny Carruthers pointed out how Ross had gone a step farther with the "distinctive buttons" -- after seeing the one Johnny wore, Ross bought repro Captain Midnight Decoder Badges for his entire Secret Squadron, ah, Aardvark Squad. Now that is distinctive.
The Fanivore: Harry Warner Jr. Who wonders about Rotsler being one of those "who had the potential to become a world figure as a writer or an artist." Well, he did many -- perhaps too many -- things. After reading about his movie career I had a stroke of fortune: the local exotic videos store was getting rid of surplus and had one of Rotsler's movies, which I grabbed at once. Haven't quite yet had the nerve to actually watch it, though.
Lloyd Penney: "One unfortunate feature of Locus, before they went to a more traditional photograph cover, was a black banner bemoaning yet another passing in the SF community." They changed because they wanted to have more variety in covers. James Blish had a theory about the link between SF writer births and the influenza epidemic of 1918. Which means this group, or its survivors, are now reaching 80. And you may have noticed that there are not many left. In a few years, I am sorry to say, some Worldcon will have the melancholy task of hosting the last known living attendee of the first Worldcon.
Teddy Harvia
Where does Taral come up with his ideas for cover art?
Tom Becker should receive the credit for continuing the tradition of handing out the Hugo Winners newsletter at the LoneStarCon 2 ceremonies exits. He did all the planning and work. As Head of Pubs I merely said, "Yes, do it."
I have returned from Montreal to Texas. Some of the warmest fans in Canada are with Toronto in 2003. Cool!
Inexplicably, plans to lure me to the NESFA clubhouse during SMOFcon to collect the punfines levied against me never materialized. The failure made scents later when we learned the resident skunk had raised a stink over rumors of eviction from his underclubhouse digs. Phew!
Buck Coulson
Sorry to hear about Eric Lindsay's heart attack. He's certainly not the type for heart attacks, so I was surprised, as well. If he gets another one, he'll be up with me.
Missed the Bartlett-Sloans at Chambanacon last year; I'll hope they can make DeepSouthCon.
Also sorry about Benoit Girard, but Teddy's report wasn't quite accurate. He should have said the Benoit was the first among French-speaking Canadian fans. Jean Linard was a French-speaking fan who made a lot of contacts in the rest of the world, and did it a good many years before Benoit thought about it.
Stay with the wheelchair, Tackett; you don't exactly get used to it, but it becomes a lesser annoyance as time goes by.
As for my medical history, the ankle is healing well, the tendon seems to be reconnecting itself, and we're seeing the specialist once ever four weeks instead of once a week. The threat of amputation is pretty well gone, and everyone says what good blood circulation and nerve endings I have in my feet for a long-term diabetic. Personally, I could do without some of the nerve endings.
Dave Clark
The Peggy Kennedy account of the LoneStarCon 2 masquerade was very interesting. As usual, there was a lot more stuff -- savory or not -- going on behind the scenes than any of us dreamed about. I'd done my own share of grumbling after the masquerade, largely because the fan photo area had suddenly turned into Available Light only, No Flash Allowed. But I got good photos anyway. And if anyone asks now -- in light of all this other stuff that went on backstage -- my response will probably be "never mind."
The Ed Green story was great fun, and I found some amusement in Blake's claims that web-based fanzines are less accessible than paper fanzines with print runs in the dozens. And congrats on File 770 hitting 20 years old! (Does that mean it can drink next year?)
We Also Heard From
Lynn Maudlin: Your 20th Anniversary Issue: better than French Silk pie, and from a chocolate lover, that says a bundle!
Charles N. Brown: Twenty years? That's not too many.
Franz Zrilich: I have File 770:122: good show, though too many of us are dying. I think I'll become an Art Bell fan, instead. They seem younger and less critical than SF fen!
Elizabeth Osborne: C.M. Barkley's article about growing up in Cincinnati was wonderful. I wonder why I haven't heard of him in the past. I hope he finishes his writing project and that he can be seen at our local and area conventions. I was glad to learn of Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati. I hope to go there real soon. It was a surprise to read his article. One expects to hear about what is going on in LA but I was surprised to hear about someone in my own (two hours away) backyard. Thanks.
Joy V. Smith: Peggy Kennedy's "LoneStarCon 2 Masquerade Director's Report" was fascinating. I love to peek and see what's going on behind the scenes. (Always makes me glad it's not my responsibility.) I admire her hard work and perseverance despite everything. Let's nominate her for something! Ed Green's story, "2011 -- The Year We Almost Made Contact", was excellent. I really enjoyed it.
Robert Lichtman: Your account of the Rotsler memorial service was a good one, and I also liked Marjii Ellers' tribute. The next issue of Trap Door will carry tributes by a handful of people. You mention Bill Ellern's recounting of the 100 feet of butcher paper at Forry's on which Rotsler, Bjo and "another artist" drew. I believe the other would've been Jack Harness, given the era.
Allan Burrows: Congratulations on your 20th anniversary. I'd wish you many more, but very few things have more than one 20th anniversary. Instead, I'll wish you at least one multiple of that.
My dear Mr. Coulson! First you protest over fannish claims to visionary status. Now you say that not only have you never met anyone, (fannish or otherwise I assume), who claims to be a visionary, but if a fan were to make such a claim you wouldn't take it seriously anyway! Pish-tush, old thing, I fear you're becoming a curmudgeon!
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20th Anniversary
File 770 Poll
Obituaries
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