Thanks once again to everyone who sent up a letter (or e-mail) of comment.
Receiving your letters of comment really does motivate us to do more issues.
Please be assured, too, that all comments on the articles in Mimosa (whether
or not they see print in the Letters Column) will find their way back to our
contributors, which provides additional motivation to them as well.
The article that gained the most
number of comments was Nicki's closing comments about alternative fanzines in the
Washington, D.C. area, and the local newspaper article that described them. First
up, though, are some comments on Dick's opening essay on the wonders of Internet,
and Dave Kyle's look back at the Science Fiction League... }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring, Maryland
Many thanks for Mimosa 14. I
suspect that it's a bit of a milestone that a zine as fannish as yours is on the
net, but I would hate it if fanzines were only to be one more island in the sea of
data. The fanzines I like most are the ones that surprise me and tell me something
I didn't know. I'd think that alt.fandom would be very limiting, and
wouldn't have room for articles on beer or religion or old films, or topics that
would appear on other nodes. Moreover, no one has solved the problem of storing
electronic fanzines. Of course you can download files, but reading a stack of
printouts doesn't have the same pleasure that leafing through Twiltone does. And
of course there's no room on the net for illos by Stiles, Rotsler, or Gilliland.
{{
Actually, although a few fanzines (such as Dave Langford's Ansible) now are
available in 'electronic' form, Mimosa is not one of them, for precisely the
reasons you list. The only real tie between Mimosa and the Net is that we
welcome e-mail letters of comment. }}
[[
ed. note (2005): Obviously, things did change in the years following publication of
M14, and a Mimosa web site did come on-line. ]]
David Kyle's piece on "The Science
Fiction League" was interesting, but leaves more questions about the League than
it answers. If David Kyle is still a member of the SFL, does that mean it still
exists? Can I join? Can I start a chapter? Can I become a Doctor of Science
Fiction? (Patrick McGuire is the only fan I know with a doctorate in sf, but even
he had to convince his advisors that his dissertation on Russian sf was actually
political science.) And does Kyle know if which of the two surviving SFL chapters
-- the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society and the Philadelphia Science Fiction
Society -- is the older? I know the dispute between PSFS and LASFS about the age
of their two clubs has been going on for decades and will probably never be
resolved, but you'd think by now some neutral fanhistorian would have settled the
question, and with all this expertise, Kyle would be a very suitable Solomon on
this issue.
- - - - - - - - - -
Harry Warner, Jr., Hagerstown, Maryland
This was another fine issue,
although some of the material shares the old Mimosa problem of not striking
fire with comment hooks no matter how well written and how entertaining it is. I
did react to the editorials, though. No matter how enticing you make it seem, I
dare not even think about trying Usenet. I can't keep up with the stuff that
arrives without benefit of computers and telephone lines. By the time I
read them and write a page about each, I'll be back to the old height of the stack
of unLoCced fanzines.
I gather from Nicki's editorial
{{"The *Zine* Scene" }} that you escaped a possible
terrible fate in the form of newspaper publicity, which makes me happy. Of course,
the article's claim that 'alternative press' publications became popular in 1982 is
nonsense. Such periodicals have at least a couple centuries' history behind them
and 1982 was apparently cited because it was around then that Mike Gunderloy began
to publish Factsheet Five and to incorrectly call them fanzines. I doubt if
they exist in nearly the quantity today than back in the 1960s when they were
usually known as underground publications. I've been reading a big biography of
Thackaray and discovered that he was involved in a number of such ventures in his
youth, more than a century and a half ago.
Dave Kyle's article is a very useful
complement to the long article about the Science Fiction League published by Robert
W. Lowndes a year or two ago. Reading Dave's recollections about the SFL made me
regret even more bitterly than ever that I never joined it. Since I was a packrat
even in my teens, I probably would still have one of those beautiful lapel buttons
and some stationery and other relics of that venture. I can't remember for certain
why I didn't join; maybe it was an erroneous belief that all these science fiction
fans were middle-aged and elderly people while I was not yet in my teens, or maybe
it was the need to cut out a coupon from Wonder Stories. Any mutilation of my
precious prozines was unthinkable in 1934.
Patrick McGuire, Columbia, Maryland
On Nicki's "The *Zine* Scene", I
missed The Washington Post's article listing Mimosa, although I have
seen other ones about this new wave of non-sf-fannish fanzines. It's not clear,
however, if this phenomenon can be taken to refute one supposed cause of the
hypothetical greying of sf fanzine fandom. People usually have not asserted that
it's harder to publish a fanzine today than before. On the contrary, it's easier
(although the expense might be a barrier to the very young fans). The argument is
that there are other things to do (conventions, role playinggames, and various
computer activities such as bulletin boards and games) that are even easier, or
have faster gratification. It would be perfectly consistent if sf fans, by
tradition logical thinkers and technophiles, might be moving out of fanzines into
new frontiers such as these even while punk-rockers, Brady Bunch addicts,
and the like were just starting to pub their ishes. There could be some irony in
closing with Nicki's comments in an issue that opened with Dick's enthusing over
his discovery of the Internet. On the other hand, I'm still unaware of any solid
evidence that fandom is graying to a greater degree than we would expect from
general demographics (i.e., the end of the Baby Boom). Some younger fans
show up in all the fanzines I follow regularly.
- - - - - - - - - -
Jenny Glover, Leeds, United Kingdom
I very much enjoyed reading the
latest Mimosa, until I came to the closing comments on the zine scene.
Your point: that these zines are considered radical (though they don't use SF
content) is a valid one, but I wondered first whether a tradition always needs to
be kept going, and secondly why the younger fans are always volunteered for it.
I've just seen issues of two Brit zines and while the editors may perhaps have kept
a youthful attitude, it certainly isn't matched by their chronological ages.
I also think of a fanzine as being
something people aim for, rather than something they come to from something else.
That's not to say that fanzines are only for people who don't know any better; what
I'm trying to say is that the move towards producing a fanzine should be a
positive one, rather than being enticed away from, say, computer nets or
multi-sided dice, in order to fit someone else's ideas of how a fanzine should be
produced. It's exciting, therefore, that there was a feature on these local
Washington zines and also that there were enough to make it an interesting
article.
My own fanzine, very much dormant
currently, but showing signs of recovery as my fingers twitch and I come up with
ideas, started before I came into fandom. I knew of the existence of fanzines, and
even had seen a few, but my concern was to distract someone I knew who was sick, to
give her a new hobby, and so I asked her for help. She produced some very bad
articles, followed by some not-so-bad ones, followed by some ok-ish ones (or maybe
my editorial skills were being honed by then). I produced the fanzine, and the
circulation was absolutely minimal (I think the circulation of issue 1 was
eight copies). Looking back at it, sure, it's pretty awful. But the intention was
not to produce a prize-winning fanzine, but to give this person some goal to aim
at. It worked to a certain extent -- the person, whom I loved very much, grew out
of writing articles and started on a book. She would sit propped up at the kitchen
table, her characters whirring about in and out of her head, and soon, while she
still took an interest in the fanzine, she and it parted company, which left me
free to take an abrupt turn towards Science Fiction.
I know it was a pretty bizarre
reason for starting a fanzine; the fanzine went into hibernation shortly after she
died. I'm wondering if my period of mourning is officially over, now that I feel
pangs and urges to start pubbing an ish again...
- - - - - - - - - -
Irwin Hirsh, East Prahran, Victoria, Australia
Thanks for Mimosa 14, which
arrived here in good condition a couple of months ago. The covers by Kurt Erichsen
are a nice one-two. When I looked at the front cover I thought it was one of the
weaker covers you've presented us. My initial feeling was that there was nothing
new here, another kids playing with rockets story. Then I looked at the back cover
and saw the joke. It was almost as if Erichsen had read my mind and was playing to
my experience and biases.
That definition of a zine from
The Washington Post, which Nicki quotes, is interesting. 'Produced for
kicks' I like. There's a thrill about publishing a fanzine, watching it evolve
under your direction. And because we do it for no other reason than we want to,
we're into fanzine publishing for the kicks. But I'm not sure about the last bit:
'at a loss to the publisher'. With the fanzines I've published I've never felt I
was publishing at a loss. By the time I'd made the decision that I want to pub my
ish, the matter of money has been passed. It's just a question of how I want to
spend my own time and money. I wonder how people who regularly water-ski or spend
their weekends bush-walking feel: That they are doing so at a loss, or that the
activity is money well spent? The idea that fanzine publishing is done at a loss
suggests that there is a business of fnz-publishing, when, in fact, I was in the
hobby of fnz-publishing. That people choose to spend their money publishing a
fanzine is one of the charms of the activity.
Terry Jeeves, Scarborough, North Yorkshire,
United Kingdom
Dick's "Alt.Clueless" had me drooling at the
thought of using my new PC to contact all sorts of interesting people -- until I
realized that one had to pay a phone bill, and over here that gets pricey.
[[ed. note (2005): Once again, things did change
in the years following publication of M14, and Terry did manage to gain
Internet access. ]]
Mike Glyer's article {{"A Child's Garden of Rockets" }} related some
highly entertaining 'rockets' and one must be thankful that they were all passed off
without bloodshed. Kyle was also interesting. I remember the days of the SFL but
as a youngster of ten, and I was in no position to find out how to send 15¢ or
whatever to such a far off land as America. I did write a letter to Wonder,
and another to Astounding, but those early letters sank without a trace and
my first prozine letter didn't appear until 1948.
The front and bacovers by Kurt
Erichsen were also great and reminded me of a brief stay many years ago with Mike
Banks in Milford, Ohio, when we fired off numerous model rockets made by Mike --
who later went on to write much SF as well as several books on rocketry.
- - - - - - - - - -
George Flynn, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Mike Glyer's piece on Hugo-award
mishaps was (sobering) fun, and I should respond by telling about some of the ones
I've been involved with. For example, when I was Hugo Administrator in 1980, we
had the last official presentation of the Gandalf Award for Grand Master of Fantasy.
('Official' involves a theological argument that I won't go into.) The voting
itself was exciting enough: We had a tie for the winner, confirmed by a couple of
recounts, until at the last minute a final ballot arrived by sea mail from England
and gave it to Ray Bradbury by one vote. So I sent the results off to Lin Carter,
who sponsored the award and was responsible for showing up with the plaque.
That was the end of my official
responsibility for it, since other people were in charge of the ceremony; but of
course I was on hand that night just in case there were any problems with the
results. Things went fine until emcee Bob Silverberg called on Lin Carter to
present the Gandalf -- and it turned out that he wasn't there! (Apparently he
didn't come to the con at all.) There followed general consternation, sarcastic
cracks by Silverberg, and the horrified realization on my part that I was the only
person in the building who knew the result. So I rushed a note to the stage, and a
couple of Hugos later Silverberg announced the winner. But I never did hear
whether Bradbury got his plaque.
- - - - - - - - - -
Guy H. Lillian III, New Orleans, Louisiana
As a Nolacon committee member, I am
distraught to discover that Mike Glyer dislikes Ned Dameron's design of the 1988
Hugo Award base. Rather than assault Mike's faultless aesthetics with such an
eyesore, I volunteered to take the offending trophy off his hands -- or mantle, as
it were. I was also a nominee that year in the Fan Writer category, and would have
been only too pleased to number the Nolacon Hugo, or indeed any Hugo, among my
possessions. No matter what the base, I hope I would regard it with gratitude and,
dare I say, graciousness.
- - - - - - - - - -
Mark L. Olson, Framingham, Massachusetts
I liked Mike Glyer's article on
Hugo ceremonies with one quibble: He may remember nothing from
Chicon V's 'perfect 100-minute ceremony', but I distinctly remember
at the time wishing that the elaborate charade introducing that year's rather
pedestrian Hugo rocket design had been much, much shorter.
It's a pity that there seems to be
so little overlap between the set of adventurous and creative Hugo ceremonies and
the set of successful ones. Some day some Worldcon will do a complex, creative
Hugo ceremony with no technical glitches, which starts on time, with no one unable
to get seating, that isn't too long, and with no mistakes. And overhead, one by
one, the stars will go out.
- - - - - - - - - -
Buck Coulson, Hartford City, Indiana
Ah, yes, Rocket Stories. Actually,
the base for our Hugo looks very nice, even after 28 years knocking around our
house and going through two moves. The rocket, however... We weren't at the con
to receive it and it wouldn't have done any good even if we had been, because the
rockets weren't ready yet. We got it through the mail, nine months later, and the
rocket looked a bit like it had spent all that time knocking around the asteroid
belt in the hands of an incompetent pilot. Pitted, in other words. Nobody had
blown a hole through the drive section or anything, but it did look like a
hard-working ship. Well, the Hugo had started having a primary and final ballot
in 1959, and Yandro had been on it every year until we won in 1965, and for
3 more years afterwards. So we started calling Yandro 'the world's best
second-rate fanzine'. Had to quit that after we won, but we decided that a
second-rate Hugo for a second-rate fanzine was quite appropriate. We found it was
very useful for holding 3-inch rolls of tape in our previous dwelling, but here
it's on top of the piano with the other trophies and an inconvenient location for
tape. Pity; there never used to be any cries of "Where the hell's the masking
tape?" It was right there in plain sight.
- - - - - - - - - -
Hans Persson, Linkoping, Sweden
Mike Glyer's Hugo article highlighted
some of the goofs and oddities that have taken place during the years and is
probably as good a proof as any that you will be one of the better-remembered
winners yourselves. Since you almost were cheated out of the Hugo during the
presentation at the 1992 Worldcon, people will continue to write about the event
long afterwards.
Meanwhile, Dave Langford's article
about making newszines on location at a convention {{
"You Do It With Mirrors" }} was very entertaining, and managed to convince
me that I should never get involved in such an undertaking.
As for Ahrvid Engholm's article on
Swedish fan hoaxes {{"Vanishing Fans" }},
the last time I saw him he seemed to be real, but then on the other hand I
can't vouch for the real sender of the article, so I suppose we will have to
continue to be uncertain here.
- - - - - - - - - -
Vincent Clarke, Welling, Kent, United Kingdom
A very good issue, casting light on
fan history from the `30s to David Langford's brilliant `93 Helicon report. I was
particularly interested to see Ahrvid Engholm's glimpse into Swedish fandom. When
I came back into fandom in `81 after a 20-year absence, Walt Willis wrote me a short
exegesis of what had been going on, including the fact that the Swedes had taken
`50s British fanzines at face value (just as we, in the `50s, had based our
Conventions on U.S. zine reports) and had more or less modelled their fandom on what
they'd read. Except for some lurid and hardly-believable news items that escaped
from Sweden this is all I've heard, and I'd love to read some sort of fan history
of that country.
- - - - - - - - - -
Eric Mayer, Rochester, New York
How much can one believe an article
about Swedish hoaxes?! It seems to me, almost twenty years ago, someone tried to
set up a hoax apa. Now that just wouldn't seem to be workable. If you know its
going to be a hoax then how can it be successful? Today, hoax fans would have to
be rather low key wouldn't they? Any BNF would be expected to show up at
conventions pretty quickly, thereby blowing the cover. Any new fan who popped up
and didn't attend cons would probably be considered a hoax, real or not.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dave Rowe, Franklin, Indiana
First, I must object to Guy Lillian
referring (in your letters column) to Arthur C. Clark's 2001 novel as a
"rather simplistic von Daniken pastiche." Especially as the novel was published in
1968 and therefore predates all of van Daniken's 'Garbagetrucks of the Gods' series.
In fact you'll find that in or around 1968 von Daniken was languishing in an
Austrian jail for fraud!
No doubt you've received many LoCs
about fan-hoaxes inspired by Ahrvid Engholm's article. (By the way, is
Ahrvid a hoax? The name looks suspiciously like a bad anagram. Anyway...) Back
in the early `70s, "Gray Boak's" editorial in his fnz Cynic revealed that he
was really a hoax created by a USAF pilot Pat Henderson stationed in England, and
he had had so much fun with the 'Gray Boak' hoax that he's also created a hoax
female schoolteacher working at his base and called her (would you believe) 'Pat
Henderson'.
The truth was the whole thing was a
hoax-hoax. 'Gray Boak' was Gray Boak and 'Pat Henderson' was a female
schoolteacher based at a USAF site in England.
It was the last of a long line of
Pat Henderson jokes which started when her much-heralded appearance at the London
Circle's Globe was delayed by Gray's car breaking down. And when it appeared that
she was not going to appear, someone started accusing Arthur Cruttenden of actually
being Pat.
Gray's editorial was immediately
known to be a joke in Britain, but in the States it caused some confusion and at
least one New York City SMOF phoned a counterpart in Los Angeles to compare notes.
In those pre-fibre-optics days and living in the British Isles where you can't get
more than 100 miles away from the coast, being the subject of a trans-continental
phone call was mega-egoboo.
Steve Sneyd, Almondbury, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire,
United Kingdom
Swedish 'Hoaximus' sounds as though
it has an almost Germanic thoroughness... an amusing read, but I was felt with
strong feelings about the author's apparent total lack of concern for the poor lass
who was seduced by the bogus Canadian-ness of the hoaxer. Alright, she was
obviously gullible as hell, but surely that kind of sexual gratification by use
of deception is not only grounds for prosecution (under Brit law, anyhow) but also
a fairly unrefined cruelty. Just because something happens in fandom doesn't,
surely, wash it free of all 'normal' interpersonal relations codes?
The two movie articles were
fascinating, especially Terry Jeeves' lovely wallow in the past {{"The Movies" }}. Yeah, I remember going in the
cheap front row, then trying to sneak uphill away from that mind-boggling spot when
the lights went down. I also remember having to avoid sitting under the balcony
edge or you got ice cream or whatever dribbled on you.
- - - - - - - - - -
Bill Donoho, Oakland, California
Terry Jeeves's mention of movie
serials reminds me that I always felt deprived because the small town in Texas I
grew up in only had one movie theater. It had serials every Saturday, but they
were mostly western things. The only remotely science fiction serial they showed
was In Darkest Africa with Clyde Beatty; it was mostly a jungle film, but
there was a lost city complete with a white goddess and Bat Men. I loved it! I
sat through several westerns just to see the latest chapter.
I was nine years old then. That
serial was shown again on late night TV a couple of years back. I taped it, but I
haven't had the courage to watch it yet...
- - - - - - - - - -
Rich Dengrove, Alexandria, Virginia
Ahrvid Engholm's `80s Sweden may be
been the last refuge of the science fiction hoax. I haven't heard of any good hoax
in science fiction lately. We have lost that part of our youthful vigor -- among
others. I have asked, and no one can remember the last good hoax. Not even those
little green men from the flying saucer could remember. And that was despite the
fact that they were wearing fan badges.
Concerning David Thayer's article on
war movies {{"I Can't Watch: A Personal
Look at War Movies and More" }}, I have this to say: how can you want to go
back and re-live the Vietnam War in movies? If I had been through hell, and Vietnam
seems like hell, I don't think I'd want to re-live the experience, even vicariously.
If Hamburger Hill would make me re-live it, I think I would avoid that movie
like the Ten Plagues. It doesn't seem like an experience you can get right no
matter how much you re-live it. So, there must be something about it I, a draft
rejectee, can never understand.
Nobody can please everyone,
especially with movie reviews. And Terry Jeeves didn't satisfy me. I think Korda's
Things to Come is overrated. It's too pretentious; half the dialogue is
done in epigrams, people saying great things while standing there like cigar-store
Indians. On the other hand, I think The Phantom Empire is radically
underrated. It's true that it's better than laughing gas if you're an adult, but
as a kid I loved it. It mixed my favorite genres: westerns and science fiction.
And, like Terry, I adored those scads and scads of robots.
- - - - - - - - - -
Juanita Coulson, Hartford City, Indiana
My movie-going experiences fall
somewhere between the real old timers' and David Thayer's. Nobody seems to have
mentioned The Devil Commands (which Robert Bloch and I once chatted about
enthusiastically and at length at a long ago Midwestcon). Or what it was like to
be youngish and female when the expert entomologist (female) in Them chews
out "Stand back, little lady, and let a Man handle this" for his ignorance and
asininity and actually makes him back down. Square cube law idiocies about big
ants and all aside, that single exchange alone was worth the price of the picture
for me and thousands of other young women.
Ken Lake, [[
ed. note (2005): at the time, in transition, somewhere in... ]] United
Kingdom
David Thayer's piece somewhat niggled
me: as a schoolboy living through the Blitz, Battle of Britain, etc. (from age 8 to
age 14, we never knew if we'd be alive the next morning), I found British WWII
films as essential part of coming to terms with life, but U.S. ones pure fantasy
(although Mrs. Miniver, for all its error, caught the feel of the times
superbly -- N.B. neither the U.S. Army nor Errol Flynn won the war in Burma).
- - - - - - - - - -
Tracy Shannon, Monona, Wisconsin
I thought Dave Langford's "You Do
It with Mirrors" in issue 14 was a great conrunner's microcosm: the inadvertent
volunteer, the late-arriving equipment that fails to work, dealing with offending
(and offensive) people, exhaustion, horror, mass-hysteria, and total collapse. Not
to mention immediately being asked to do it all again. Quite a nice little
cautionary tale, in all, and he even managed to work in the perennial complainers.
While I was working on a Friday at-con newsletter for Wiscon, The Mad Moose
Gazette, someone wandered in with a fake panel review. Since panel #2 had
previously been dropped, their report described it as being entitled 'Iron Ian' and
concerning the men's movement in Britain, featuring such panelists as Nigel Rowe.
I joyfully published this piece of nonsense...only to have a fan complain to me the
next day that panel #2 must have been scheduled far too early on Friday, since
she's missed it! She was quite miffed with me (I was head of programming).
All in all, a great issue as usual.
I freely admit that I dread the day Sharon Farber gives up either writing or
medicine. Not that her articles have much to do with fannish history, but who the
heck cares when they are as fascinating and entertaining as these are.
- - - - - - - - - -
Elizabeth Osborne, Inverness, Florida
Sharon Farber's "Tale of Adventure
and Medical Life" was great as usual. You want to say to the doctor that you feel
bad but also, even if you're not faking it, to be believed. That can tend
to make patients exaggerate their problems. Like a visit to the car repair shop.
As soon as I turn into the service station the strange knocking under the hood
stops. Then I have to spend a half hour talking about "this strange sound that
the engine makes."
- - - - - - - - - -
R Laurraine Tutihasi, Los Angeles, California
I just finished reading your latest
issue. Enjoyed it as usual, especially Sharon Farber's continuing escapades as a
medical practitioner.
In the letters column, Buck Coulson
may feel comforted by the fact that some libraries have collections of fanzines.
I learned this recently in a conversation with Bruce Pelz. He and other fans
contribute zines to these collections.
{{Libraries with science fiction fanzine collections (that
we've heard about) include the University of Alabama, Syracuse University, UCLA, and
the University of New Brunswick (Saint John campus). }}
[[ed. note (2005): We should have also mentioned
the large collection of fanzines at Temple University in Philadelphia. And it
turned out we were in error about UCLA's library having a fanzine collection.
Instead, we should have mentioned what is now probably the world's largest
collection of fanzines, incorporating the former collections of both the late Terry
Carr and the late Bruce Pelz. It's at the University of California at
Riverside. ]]
I found getting involved in fanzine
fandom even easier than Don Franson describes. For me it started with some flyers
I picked up at Torcon 2 in 1973. As a result, I subscribed to Andy Porter's
zine, which I believe was called Algol at that time. I had a letter
published in that. People picked up my address from the lettercol, and I started
to receive fanzines. As I received fanzines and locced them, more people picked up
my address. It continues to this day.
Ethel Lindsay, Carnoustie, Angus, Scotland
I do enjoy the Sharon Farber stories
and feel that anyone who calls her callous must have very little perception. The
detachment needed for doctors also applies to nurses. Getting emotionally involved
never helped any patient.
In the letters column, Andrew P.
Hooper's mention of anti-fannish feeling among some modern fans touched a chord in
me. I once had my TAFF report criticized for being 'too complimentary' to my hosts!
Fandom enriched my life, such a pity if this does not happen now.
- - - - - - - - - -
David Clark, Berkeley, California
One habit I've developed with
Mimosa is to always turn to Sharon Farber first. Now, I know that you've
had other people comment on how they do this, but it's very unusual for me. The
publisher's term for me, if I remember correctly, is 'grazer'. I just start at the
start of a magazine and plow my way through to the end. But Farber makes me jump
to her article first. I even jumped over the Langford article last time!
Speaking of Langford, I enjoyed his
Tales of Olde Heliograph. I've been hearing about the Helicon newsletter from
various sources, along with the occasional unfulfilled promise to show me a copy.
(Usually followed by grumbles of "Why can't your newsletter be like
that?") It's also interesting to read of British conventions. After a few
years of Baycons, Westercons, Worldcons, and the like, I'm used to the idea of
young people acting like fans. Langford's article presents the image that in the
U.K., the pros are acting like fans. We may not be ready for this over here.
- - - - - - - - - -
Lloyd Penney, Brampton, Ontario, Canada
Concerning Dave Langford's article,
I remember when our con did newsletters...we actually stopped producing them,
though, and just used a huge corkboard. First, no one wanted to work on the
newsletter (and we haven't had one now for about five years), and second, people
were too busy Collecting The Whole Set to actually read them. "You changed the
programme!" "We announced the change in the daily newsletter. You did read
it, didn't you?" "Ummm... errr..." I will readily admit that I laughed at Dave
Langford's piece until I cried and beyond, and Yvonne got a few chuckles out of
it, too. (She's a tough audience, Dave.)
- - - - - - - - - -
Henry Welch, Grafton, Wisconsin
Thanks for issue 14. I really
enjoyed "You Do It with Mirrors" and I don't think I'll ever be able to tell my son
to "go to bed" with a straight face.
{{Hm.... }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Steve Jeffery, Kidlington, Oxon, England
First up with Dave Langford (first
of many, we hope). This is hilarious. And well complemented by Steve Stiles'
cartoons. The sight of gophers laden with multicolored reams of Cactus Times
is becoming a high point at major conventions, and after; the Mexicon foray of
scurrilous and litigatious tidbits extending to several post-convention
extra-numerary issues (Volume 4, issues  and  ). Rob Hansen,
in Then #4, described the Fan Room as a convention within a convention.
My one innocent venture into this secret realm found a scene straight out of the
Inferno, as written by a fan, which Dave captures perfectly. You could
cross 50 years of publishing technology (all of it downhill) as you crossed from
the overheated desktop publishing, on which Dave was typing furiously while other
fans were cheerfully frying eggs on its casing, to Vin¢'s sparking and smoking
e-stencil, to a couple of ink besmeared fen kick-starting an ancient duper into
activity. At times, a small demonic figure erupted through this smoky uproar,
trailing four-letter invectives. "Abi Frost," Dave explained with an oddly strained
smile.
Concerning Mike Glyer's article, I
have held a Hugo. Not mine, I hasten to add. And the base didn't even fall
off. I dunno, I think they're quite impressive. Certainly they could do a lot of
damage in the wrong hands, and they seem very useful for keeping the pantry door
closed. Awards are what you think of them, and what they mean to the recipient. I
hope you enjoy yours, even if it does stop that last book falling annoying of the
edge of the bookshelf.
- - - - - - - - - -
Gary Deindorfer, Trenton, New Jersey
Since I have a cat, Butch, I always
get a big charge out of "Chat, the 4th Fannish Ghod." Harvia always amuses, as he
does elsewhere in this issue. And speaking of artwork, Joe Mayhew's heading illo
for Dave Kyle's article, and the other Mayhew illos for the Kyle offering, are
superb.
Shelby Vick's piece {{"Time Was..." }} I perceive to be quaint, like
something from Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe. I don't know why, but Shelby's writings
always strike me that way. But they are something I like, a lot.
Maybe I feel more kindly toward the
Willis letter-file reminiscences {{"I Remember
Me" }} than I have in the past, but they are growing on me. I especially am
ghassed by the Robert Bloch letter. Bloch is always so witty.
Also, I feel more kindly toward
Sharon Farber than I used to. I can see her point that a doctor has to be callous
to a certain degree, and that this does not at all mean that said physician is a
quack.
David Thayer (whom I hear is a close
friend of Teddy Harvia's) saw combat first-hand, in person, and I can understand
why this experience spoiled war movies for him. Very well done piece of writing.
He writes as well as his friend Teddy draws.
- - - - - - - - - -
Leland Sapiro, Big Sandy, Texas
Extra-clever idea on the front and
back covers of Mimosa 14 by Kurt Erichsen: various artists have shown
the launching of an unguided missile, but here's the first one to also show
its unexpected arrival...
One correction to Ed Meskys's letter
{{about a police raid of Harlan Ellison's apartment in the
early 1960s }}: it wasn't drugs that the stoolie reported in Harlan Ellison's
apartment, but firearms -- a supposed violation of New York City's strict Sullivan
Law on their unlawful possession. (Harlan exhibited these weapons to audiences in
lectures he was giving on New York City street gangs.) As a result, Harlan had to
spend a night in NYC's legendary jail, the Tombs -- an experience re-counted in his
book Memos From Purgatory.
With respect to Shelby Vick's note
on the Establishment attitude toward this sf trash, note the word-order here: the
phrase 'trashy sf' would imply the possibility of non-trashy sf, which for
the Establishment is inconceivable. The classic instance is Charles Hornig's being
ejected from a public library (in the `30s) for daring to bring some of these sf
trash magazines into the building.
{{Sounds like that might make a good article for a future
Mimosa! }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Roger Waddington, Malton, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Though comparing and contrasting,
as in those homework assignments, while not having known here, not even knowing
she existed, Howard DeVore's "Nancy with the Laughing Eyes" came much more alive
for me, I could see the person she was; and considering the above, that's really
uncanny! If anything could be truly described as being true to life, this must
surely be in the running.
Gregg Calkins, Jackson, California
Sometimes when reading Mimosa,
I stop feeling like an old fan and tired, and it almost seems like I am back in the
good old days (which were then, of course, the present) once again. Reading Willis
and Vick and Jeeves seems like normal times, and the occasional contributions by
Kyle and DeVore (who were already even then old pharts from the past) make it even
more contemporary, somehow. The mimeographed pages on Twiltone continue the
illusion (you could improve only by using several colors) that today is still
yesterday. Alas, the end of the issue eventually comes and I am returned to the
horrors of the present. Still, knowing that Walt and ShelVy, and Terry are still
alive is...comforting. Too often the news is sad, as was Howard's touching letter
about Nancy Moore Shapiro. I knew her, not well -- it's Hal Shapiro at the
Chicon II that I remember best, although her picture is vivid -- but
still her death diminished me subtly. Only 59, my own exact age. Nothing has
touched me so centrally since I lost Lee Jacobs and Ron Ellik, perhaps not even the
death of my own stepson. I fear this will be a misunderstood statement, and as I
have not the will tonight to explain it in detail, I consider retracing it...still,
I've said it.
{{One of the fulfilling things about preservationism,
even in fanzines, is the knowledge that you've done something -- even if only a
little -- to prevent the memories from fading away. We are only a forum for this,
though; we appreciate people like you and Howard DeVore for taking the time to
preserve and document memories of people, happenings, and organizations that would
otherwise eventually be lost.
But back to the 'food' theme of this
issue... We received many responses to our solicitation for contributions,
including everything from limericks, to recipes, to vignettes too short to make
stand-alone articles. The following letter contains one of these mini-articles...
}}
- - - - - - - - - -
Ahrvid Engholm, Stockholm, Sweden
You mentioned that next Mimosa
would be about fannish food. I can only contribute with the fact that the most
important fannish food in Sweden is unpiled peanuts. It all began in the `60s when
Lars-Olov Strandberg housed the majority of the meetings for the Scandinavian SF
Association in his apartment on Folkskole Street in Stockholm. In these meetings
unpiled peanuts became standard food. The peanuts were present on every meeting for
one and a half decades (until the late `70s), and they are still present now and
then even when Strandberg doesn't arrange the meetings.
In the early '80s the local Stockholm
convention Nasacon decided to start the Great Peanut Race. We took the idea from
the Great Pork Pie Race of British Eastercons. The rules were simple: you should
transport an unpiled peanut approximately two meters, by mechanical devices or
other means. You were not allowed to simply pick up the peanut and carry it -- but
anything else was permitted.
In the mid to the late `80s, the
Great Peanut Race reached incredible scientific heights, through the research of a
group calling themselves The Peanut Defence Initiative (consisting of Thord Nilson,
Jorgen Stadje, Nils Segerdahl, and others). I could mention:
- The electroshock peanut controlled by the red button. The button was designed
to resemble a nuclear warhead release button, and there were a number of computer
displays and electrical apparatus in the setup. When the red button was pressed, an
irreversible countdown started, and after ten seconds the peanut was flipped
away.
- The electric spoon peanut consisted of a precision motor that held a spoon. The
peanut could be tossed up in the air and caught again by the spoon, tossed up in the
air and be flipped away with the backside of the spoon, and the device could do lots
of other neat tricks.
- But most impressive of all was the maglev peanut, that is, the magnetic
levitation peanut. The Peanut Defence Initative built a working magnetic train
track, where the peanut floated on a small carriage. This contribution was also
shown on the national Swedish TV News, which did a report from Nasacon.
So, peanuts, that's what Swedish fan
food is. In Linkoping's SF Society, they eat a sort of candy that looks like flying
saucers, but I don't know how the tradition got started. An ex-fan, one John Tehlin,
around 1979 invented an ice cream called 'Fanana Split', basically ice cream with
chocolate sauce decorated so that it would look like a starry sky. In the ice
cream you'd stick a banana, and make it look like a spaceship by applying fins cut
out of paper on it. Tehlin gafiated really fast, and has now reappeared as a
stand-up comedian on Swedish TV.
And of course, tea has always been
important. Along with Strandberg's peanuts you should drink Lipton's yellow
bag-tea; nothing else would do. The SF clubs in Stockholm and Gothenburg later had
their tea fanatics forming special groups. In Stockholm we had the 'Tea Drinking
Party (the party for a better tea culture)' that published numerous issues of its
zine The Tea-drinker. On the Minicons at the end of the '70s, the Tea
Drinking Party would organize tea corners, offering 25 different brands of tea.
The party was lead by two people that called themselves
'SuperExtremeColonelGeneralPartyChairman' and
'SuperNotQuiteAsExtremeColonelGeneral VicePartyChairman'.
Catherine Mintz, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
I was especially interested in the
mentions in Mimosa's letters column of old fanzines and their expected
lifetimes. I purchased a thin sheaf of N3F zines back in the beginning of 1993
from Andy Hooper; some of what I have will be reprinted in the N3F's letterzine,
Tightbeam. Now I'm on a hunt for old neffania, particularly that from the
forties and fifties. While Donald Franson has a collection running from the early
sixties forward, and I have some things from the very early sixties that I received
from Howard DeVore, almost everything from the first two decades is missing. I'd
greatly appreciate xerox copies of the older zines.
There is a lot that is of
contemporary interest in these old fanzines. For example, an issue of
Fanvariety contains an "All Our Yesterdays" column by Harry Warner, Jr., an
"STF Quiz" about pulp magazines by Bob Silverberg, and several early illustrations
by Bill Rotsler. Harry Warner's piece starts out like this: "It happens like this.
Joe Fann puts out an excellent fan magazine. He digs up material which other fans
have labored to write, and a hundred or so persons receive copies of the issue. The
magazine is read, it becomes the topic of letters to the editor, and that's the end
of it. The years pass, fans come and go, new fandoms spring up, thousands of people
pass through the field for long or short periods. And in those future years, only
a tiny proportion of the new fans see or read that particular fanzine and its
contents. It seems to me a dreadful waste of good reading matter..." The voice is
familiar and the comments apropos.
I'd appreciate any help your readers
can give in the hunt for our past.
{{We're happy to second this request. }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Robert Bloch, Los Angeles, California
Thanks to you both, Mimosa #14
will accompany me to Necronomicon to read on the plane (while the idiot next to me
works on his computer -- they always do nowadays). Scary to realize that Willis,
Harris, Kyle, and others are still apparently in possession of all sorts of
incriminating material from forty or more years ago. One would think all that
stuff had been shredded by now!
- - - - - - - - - -
We Also Heard From:
Harry Andruschak, Lon Atkins, C.S.F. Baden, Pamela Boal, Ned Brooks, Terry Broome,
Gary Brown, Ken Bulmer, Dennis Caswell, Russell Chauvenet, Esther Cole, Chester
Cuthbert, Nick DiChario, Carolyn Doyle, Cathy Doyle, Linda Dunn, Leigh Edmonds,
Walter Ernsting, Sharon Farber, Tom Feller, Elizabeth Garrott, Tim Gatewood,
Janice Gelb, Judith Hanna, Mark Harris, Harry Henderson, Binker Hughes, Alan
Hutchinson, Ben Indick, Tom Jackson, Ben Jason, Irv Koch, Linda Krawecke, Dave
Langford, Sam Long, Adrienne Losin, William Lund, J.R. Madden, Joseph T. Major,
Bill Mallardi, Laurie Mann, Pat Molloy, Lewis Morley, Joseph Nicholas, Pär Nilsson,
Jodie Offutt, Bruno Ogorelec, Mark Olson, Karen Pender-Gunn, Robert Peterson, Sarah
Prince, Charlotte Proctor, Peggy Ranson, Tom Sadler, Ben Schilling, Noreen Shaw,
Els Somers, Malgorzata Wilk, Bridget Wilkinson, Walter Willis, and Ben Yalow.
Thanks!
Title illustration by Alexis Gilliland
Chat cartoon by Teddy Harvia
Other illustrations by William Rotsler & Teddy Harvia, William Rotsler &
Sheryl Birkhead, Brad Foster, and Sheryl Birkhead
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