{{
Thank you once again for all the interesting letters of comment we received. Readers
comments truly are the energy source that keeps fanzine publishers going, and we
want to assure you that all comments we receive on specific articles (whether or not
they appear in our Letters Column) are collected and sent to the writers of those
articles. Besides comments on Mimosa 25, some of the letters we received
this time requested that we reconsider our earlier decision to cease publication of
Mimosa, so an update on our future publication plans is probably in order.
We've not changed our minds; we won't be publishing beyond issue 30. But M27
ought to appear about the middle of 2001.
Where to begin this time? As usual,
Mike Resnick's "Worldcon Memories" received the most comments, but not far behind
was our own Opening Comments about our "South by Southwest" odyssey last year to
Los Angeles for the NASFiC and Australia for the worldcon. We'll start
there. }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Leigh Kimmel, Indianapolis, Indiana
I enjoyed "South by Southwest, an
Antipodean Adventure," both for a different view of NASFiC (which I spent largely
tethered to a table in the Dealers Room, alas, so it's always great to hear about
what others got to), and for the account of Aussiecon, which I missed entirely. I'd
originally hoped to get to it when Australia first won the Worldcon bid, but life
simply refused to co-operate and I didn't get to go. Still, your account was so
extensive that it was almost like being there.
Mike Resnick's "Worldcon Memories"
was another fascinating visit to Worldcons I never got to attend (heck, some of them
were before I even *was*, and most of the rest were from days before I started
attending conventions). It's fascinating to read about those early days of the
small, intimate (and inexpensive) Worldcons, especially in these days of big-budget
extravaganzas where it's simply physically impossible to see and do everything
(short of cloning oneself multiple times and sending one to each event that's
happening at a given time).
I also enjoyed Forry Ackerman's
adventures in 'Shockholm' (actually in Lund, Sweden) {{ in
"Through Time and Space with Forry Ackerman, Part 10" }}. His account of the
film festival is worth a chuckle, especially the schlocky movies.
The other articles were interesting
as well, including Dave Kyle's story of "The Legendary Hydra Club" of New York (so
named for its nine original members), and the reminiscences of the days of Irish
Fandom (we seem to be losing a lot of our big names in fandom these last several
years, and it doesn't seem like anyone's stepping forward to fill their shoes -- no
wonder people are expressing concerns that fans are a dying breed and fandom as we
know it may soon be coming to a halt).
In the lettercol, I noted Robert
Lichtman's comments on auto racing in relation to having lived through the energy
crisis of the 1970s. It's interesting that we seem to be having a gas shortage
again -- only instead of having gas lines stretching for blocks, we're having prices
skyrocketing through the roof (they're talking about gas getting as high as two
bucks a gallon by summer, which is going to make it that much harder for us to make
our expenses as book dealers at conventions). It might be interesting to speculate
as to the differences in economic policy that led to the two different outcomes.
Finally, I also enjoyed the Closing
Comments {{"Other Places, Other Fandoms" }}, and
especially the account of fandom in Slovakia and Poland. It's so neat to see the
flourishing of Eastern European fandom, especially after the fall of the Iron
Curtain -- and it's of especial interest to me because I studied Eastern Europe as
part of my undergraduate major.
- - - - - - - - - -
Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring, Maryland
I could fill this letter with
memories of Australia, but just let me respond to some comments of Richard &
Nicki Lynch and Eve Ackerman. I agree with the Lynches that the Queen Victoria
Market is a wonderful place. I spent about four hours there -- it takes that long
to see all the booths, eat snacks (such as 'American Donuts'), buy things, listen to
excellent live music, and just marvel at all the stuff that's for sale. But while I
didn't spend as much time at the con as the Lynches did (too many things to see!), I
think they're in error about the reason for the lack of parties. My understanding
is that there were few parties both because hotels charged incredibly high corkage fees and
because Australian conventions, like British ones, tend to cluster at the bar in the
evenings. I noticed that the bar at the Centra was packed every night, and served
as an informal consuite.
I second Eve Ackerman's comments
about the excellence of Australian dairy products {{
in "How I Spent My Summer (Actually Their Winter) Vacation" }}. This is a
country where coffee-flavored milk comes in seven different flavors, all good.
Friends in Sydney also introduced me to King Island cheeses, which are creamy and
delicious. In fact, one of the most pleasant days I had in Australia was sailing in
Sydney Harbour aboard the HMAV Bounty (built for the Mel Gibson movie), eating King
Island cheeses and trying exotic fruits, like blood oranges. And since the Bounty
was used in the Moby Dick television miniseries that starred Patrick Stewart
as Captain Ahab, I have sailed on a ship that was commanded by Patrick Stewart.
Dave Kyle's piece on the Hydra Club
is one of his better articles. As he points out, the Hydra Club was historically
important, since its members tried to form the predecessor to SFWA, and did manage
to create the precursor to the Nebula Awards and the ancestor to Nebula Weekend.
But I haven't seen a memoir prior to Kyle's that explained what Hydra Club meetings
were like. And by ending his memoir with the Hydracon, Kyle doesn't tell us how
long the club lasted and why it ended. Given that the Hydra Club is not as well
known as it should be, any information Kyle could provide about the reasons for its
demise would be quite valuable.
{{
According to Dave, the club faded away sometime in the 1960s. Dave himself had
moved to northern New York by then and only got to Hydra Club meetings infrequently.
Apparently some of the other members had similar changes in their lives. The Hydra
Club was an essential part of the 1950s, where it was needed to get writers and
publishers (then mostly small presses) together. By the 1960s the field had grown
enough that there were other ways. }}
Steve Sneyd, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
In your Opening Comments, you
mentioned seeing a floral clock in Melbourne. Floral clocks used to be very popular
in municipal gardens in the UK, so Oz is perhaps keeping a link with the 'Old
Country'. You also mentioned people riding trams for the sake of company. Here,
with very cheap bus fares for pensioners in West Yorkshire and plenty of long routes,
including circular ones, we get the same phenomenon. Particularly in winter -- not
just to see people and places, I think, but a way of keeping warm without expense of
running up your own heating bill.
In Richard's Closing Comments, he
mentioned being in Slovakia on a business trip. I was also, briefly, in Slovakia in
February -- I gave a paper on using science fiction poetry as a trigger in creative
writing classes, at a British Council symposium at Budmerice Castle near Bratislava
on creative writing in education. One of other participants, Stefan Konkol, turned
out to be a Slovak SF writer. On my final morning in the country, before heading
for the airport, he took me around Bratislava, including to the city's only SF
bookstore, a cellar under a computer games shop (which presumably subsidises the
literature side). There were endless shelves of Terry Pratchett translations, but
also a good selection of other writers. I've got a copy of Konkol's latest novel
(in Slovak) and an issue of Fantazia with one of his stories in it (I was
also pleased to see it uses SF poetry), so your mention rang a bell. (Bratislava
seems to be one of those places never mentioned as a destination, yet everyone
turns out to have been there -- a bit like Tazenda in the Foundation series!)
Evelyn Leeper, Matawan, New Jersey
I'm really enjoying Mike Resnick's
"Worldcon Memories," but I have one small correction. MidAmeriCon was the first,
but not the only, worldcon to have a hardcover program book: Conspiracy `87 (in
Brighton) also had one.
As for Eve Ackerman's description of
the Floriana Guesthouse in Cairns, I won't say that I take responsibility for their
choice, but I was involved. I had been corresponding with Janice about Australia
and she mentioned a hotel they were staying in. I commented that they were staying
in a much more expensive set of hotels than us, and mentioned the Floriana as an
example of our choice. What can I say? Lonely Planet liked it, the price was right
(A$70, or less than US$50 for a room with kitchenette), and its web page didn't
mention the helicopters.
We arrived in Cairns a couple of
weeks before Eve, and had the same room they got. What bothered us was the street
light just outside the completely uncurtained windows. We did get them to hang a
couple of sheets (the curtains were out for cleaning or repair or something), which
were still there two weeks later. If there were helicopters, we slept through them.
Then again, when I was in high school I once slept through a fire across the street
involving several fire engines and police cars (right outside my open window), which
I'm sure did not coast up with their engines off.
If nothing else, this has probably
cured Janice Gelb of ever taking hotel advice from me again -- and Eve will certainly
think twice as well.
- - - - - - - - - -
Eric Lindsay, Airlie Beach, Queensland, Australia
Mike Resnick's Worldcon articles
certainly bring back some memories. I'd (thankfully) forgotten the hospital bands
that MidAmeriCon used. As I recall, you could slip them off, with a little trouble,
and put then back again. Luckily that idea wasn't repeated. I remember celebrating
with Joe and Gay Haldeman, first met at that very con, and have always wondered just
how I was lucky enough to continue to be friends with them, and visit back and forth
for more than twenty years.
Given all the problems Mike reports
at Worldcons, it really is a wonder he has the good humour to continue to present
panels and items at them.
With Eve Ackerman doing an Australian
trip report, I was thinking you almost had an Australian travel issue. Glad Eve
realised exactly what the Aussie Rules Football was aiming at, with their teams in
short shorts and playing in the mud. Just moving with the times. I also admit to
finding USA money very boring, with the same colour and size. What do people with
poor eyesight do to tell bills one from another? Isn't there some rule about
discriminating against blind people that way? Incidently, it seems Brazil is going
to start using our style plastic money, just like many South Pacific nations do.
John Foyster's article {{"Scraps from an Album" }} also brought back
memories. I recall driving to a con in Melbourne with Alf van der Poorten in Tom
Newlyn's Alfa, and a wonderfully fast car it was too. On another Melbourne
convention trip Alf drove down with me in my much more ancient Morris Major. In
the middle of the night on the way back the hood flew up while Alf was driving.
Luckily Alf was able to stop with no damage done to us. It turned out one of the
hinges of the hood had lost the press fit metal pin that completed the hinge. We
drove the rest of the way to Sydney with a screwdriver blade wired through the
hinge, and a nylon cord holding down the rather bent hood. Alf van der Poorten is
now a Head of School at Macquarie University, but as I recall, even in his fannish
days he was accumulating new degrees in various topics at a great rate. Every now
and then if I see something that might interest him (like another Aussiecon), I
send him an email to mention it. It was Alf and Ken Ozanne who started agitating
at the first Aussiecon in 1975 for a second Aussiecon. I now can't recall who
proposed it, and who did the running around.
Milt Stevens, Simi Valley, California
As usual, Mike Resnick's "Worldcon
Memories" in Mimosa #25 did provoke some. The Chase Park Plaza in 1969 may
not be the worst worldcon hotel of all times, but it is a formidable contender for
the title. Thus many years later I can almost appreciate what made the elevator
operators so surly. Imagine coming to work every day knowing that you could not only
be replaced by a machine, but that the machine only cost $29.95. However, at the
time, I briefly considered having an incident with one of the elevator operators
myself. I was on one of the elevators with an elderly non-fan couple on one
occasion when the adolescent elevator operator stopped about one foot above the
floor. The gentleman remarked the operator might try to get a little closer next
time. The operator replied with a string of obscenities. I had a momentary urge
to grab the kid by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and propel him
head first out of the elevator. I had already noticed that the elevator was
controlled by a single lever. How difficult could any thing with only one control
be to fly? In retrospect, I'm sure there must have been some silly local ordinance
against hijacking elevators. Crashing an elevator into the sub-basement might have
caused a few problems.
The elevators weren't my worst memory
of the Chase Park Plaza. The worst thing they did was run out of food on Sunday
with no other sources of food within walking distance. This left fans with the grim
prospect of being left in a convention hotel with nothing to eat but each other.
It's times like that when you appreciate how many fans would qualify as USDA Choice.
Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. They suggested we should eat the hotel staff
first.
The costume 'The Turd' was certainly
a memorable incident in the history of worldcon masquerades. It was also one of the
most colossal examples of lack of prior planning in the history of fandom. The
perpetrator covered his entire body with peanut butter without considering how he
would remove ten pounds of crunchy peanut butter from all over his entire body.
Hotel security had orders to shoot him on sight if he tried the swimming pool. This
meant he had to do it in the bathtub of his hotel room. The next morning he greeted
the maid with an abject apology and a $20 tip. She looked in the bathroom and
commented that she had seen worse. The mind boggles to consider what 'worse' might
have consisted of.
Harry Warner {{
in "The Summer of `39" }} mentions the frequently-deceased Earl Singleton.
Singleton lived such a vigorous posthumous life that I met him in the early `80s.
One Thursday evening, Len Moffatt and I were standing outside the LASFS Clubhouse
talking. An older man drifted over and joined the conversation. He said his name
was Oliver King Smith. The name sounded familiar but it didn't quite ring a bell
with me. After Smith had left, Len told me about the Psuicide. Earl Singleton has
supposedly committed suicide, and the event was reported by one Oliver King Smith.
People who had known what Singleton had looked like saw Smith and noticed Oliver
King Smith was Earl Singleton. Several months after Len and I talked to Smith,
LASFS received a letter supposedly from Oliver King Smith's daughter reporting that
Smith had died. As hoaxes go, that one makes utterly no sense. Smith had only
visited the LASFS once, and only a couple of people had ever heard of him. People
only react when your gone if they knew you were here in the first place.
John Hertz, Los Angeles, California
Mike Resnick, at Chicon 2000,
confessed he'd forgotten the rest of that Scott Shaw story (in his "Worldcon
Memories" article in Mimosa 25) from the Masquerade at L.A.Con in 1972. Shaw
was the cartoonist who entered as the title character of an underground comic strip
he wrote, The Turd. Indeed he was covered with peanut butter chunky, I'm
afraid -- which smeared and dripped and led to the notorious 'No Peanut Butter'
rule. But those effects were not evident from the audience.
He lurched on stage brandishing a
plumber's helper (for non-U.S. readers, a wide rubber cup on a stick used to restore
outflow in what I understand you call a water closet). Like most in the house I
knew nothing of his comic strip, but from his appearance and manner we saw at once
what he was. Laughter.
He paused for our recognition. Then,
in a voice like a sewer, dragging out the words, he roared, "I ... STINK!"
That was so obviously true, and the
perfect expression of this creature we really started laughing. Many of us took it
for his curtain line. He let just enough more time go by, then burst out, finishing
his thought, "... I AM!"
That brought the house down.
Mike Resnick, Cincinnati, Ohio
Ted White, in his letter, caught me
in a misstatement of fact {{concerning Part 3 of Mike's
series }}. I checked the program book, and the panel I referred to at
Nycon III was not supposed to be about whether one editor should be
editing three prozines... but that was what it degenerated into. As for the rest
of the program, I'll stick by what I said; I've been to Rivercons and Windycons and
ConFusions and Boskones that were far more heavily programmed than his worldcon,
and for a fanboy who had come halfway across the country to listen to his heroes,
they weren't on display very often if at all.
"I gather," says Ted, "Mike had no
interest in the dialogue between new hot writers Samuel Delany and Roger Zelazny,
for example..." OK, at the risk of blasphemy, I'll freely admit it. Chip and Roger
later became my friends as well as two of my literary heroes, but in 1967 they were,
as Ted says, hot newcomers, and I -- and most of the fans I spoke to -- wanted to
hear hot older writers who had gotten us reading science fiction in the first
place, writers whom we had grown up admiring.
Still, if you want a pleasant memory
from Nycon III, I'll give you one. Paul Allen, a Burroughs fan who was
publishing The Barsoomian at the time (and later published Fantasy
Newsletter) picked up a copy of Dick Lupoff's Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of
Adventure. He brought it over to Reed Crandall, who had done the frontispiece,
to sign it. Reed not only signed it, but drew a little Tarzan sketch on the title
page. Then Paul took it to Frank Frazetta for an autograph; Frank saw Reed's
drawing, and gave Paul a full-page sketch on one of the blank pages. So did Al
Williamson. Roy Krenkel wasn't there, but Paul visited him one afternoon, and Roy
also gave him a full-page sketch. By the end of the con, I think he had original
pen-and-inks by twelve different pro artists in the book, and was turning down
thousand-dollar offers (in 1967, yet!) for it. Niftiest made-on-the-spot collector's
item I ever saw.
So anyway, Ted remembers things
differently. Fine. Those are his memories, and perhaps he should write them
up (or write them up again, for I'm sure he's done it sometime, somewhere, in the
last third of a century). What I wrote were my memories. They are totally
subjective, and while I wish I had encountered and/or fondly remembered some of the
things that so favorably impressed him about Nycon III, the fact is I didn't.
I suspect that's why we have more than one article about any given subject.
Ron Bennett, Harrogate, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Now, that's a salient point Mike
Resnick makes in his super article, this throwaway remark about the huckster room
displaying only reading matter and not the toys, games, 'media junk', and so forth.
No doubt about it -- we've been taken over by aliens.
Ah, poor John Brunner. One morning I
had breakfast with Roger Peyton, who runs the Andromeda Bookshop in Birmingham. A
terrific guy whom I've known for thirty years. I think his only connection with
fanzines was when he was editing Vector for the BSFA sometime in the
mid-sixties. We were musing about fans and conventions and actually said that as
far as we knew no fan had actually died during a convention. Little did we
know that at just about that time John was having his fatal attack. Surprisingly,
whilst the terrible news was spreading through the convention, it didn't reach me,
which simply goes to show how I'm involved with the Inner Wheels (perhaps I had my
one customer of the con just then). The first I heard about John was the following
morning when Roger confronted me with the startling words, "I'm not having breakfast
with you again."
Interesting that Mike mentions John
as being the first pro to die at a con, whilst I was regarding him as the first fan
to have done so. Perhaps because I'd known John since his days in OMPA, his
attendances at Kettering, during his time in the RAF and before his first marriage.
An exceedingly intelligent guy. Very insecure.
Ah, Dave Kyle. Not only does he
spread before us his tales of people and politics (fan politics, that is), but
they're imbued with, well more than a sense of wonder, with a sweep of the glory
which could be, and should be, Man's destiny. Always optimistic, always uplifting.
A great pity that there's not more of his dry, caustic wit in his writing, wit which,
with its trademark dead pan delivery, always has me rolling about on the floor. A
pity, too, that I don't see more of him these days. A person whose company I've
always enjoyed. Even if he once did want to throw me out of a party at a Coventry
convention (I was saved by Roger Sims). As ever, I loved his article, this on
the early days of the Hydra Club. With my brilliant analytical mind and incisive
intellectual brain, it had never dawned on me that the club originally had nine
members. (Sometimes I amaze myself with my brilliance, I tell you.) A great
article. Only regret for me was that there were only passing references to Harry
Harrison, another fan/pro in whose humour I revel.
Joyce Scrivner's article {{"Bob and Walt, A Remembrance" }} brought back
memories of the `79 WorldCon... my daughter Rachel, sans hair and between bouts
of chemotherapy, my son Andrew having his first contact with computers, the
Commodore Pet with its 16K memory (he became computer mad, ran computer rooms at
British cons when the things were still a novelty, has had his own software company,
has edited his own fanzine... which is a joke as it was the national magazine,
Atari User, has had three books published on computers and is now working in
northern California, not too far from where Robert Lichtman lives. And it all
started at that Brighton con. Wonder what track his life would have taken if we
hadn't been there), the pair of them rushing to me to show me an autograph which
said, "Chriggle Roove," and naturally we've since always called the unfortunate
Christopher Reeve by that name, re-meeting Greg Benford after twenty-three years
and Bob Tucker after twenty-one, of having a Perry Rhodan book-hurling session with
Ned Brooks, of finding a German dealer with four-hundred year old fantasy books, in
German, at some hundreds of pounds per (no, he didn't sell any), that blasted
cricket match on the beach (and me, a cricketer, only finding out about it and
managing to join in about five minutes before it ended).
Marty Cantor, North Hollywood, California
I rarely spend much time reading trip
reports; however, in the case of the various reports of travels to and around
Aussiecon 3, I am making an exception. My trip to Oz was to Aussiecon 2, and I am
as much fascinated by the things seen and done which were different from what I did
and saw during my trip. Even more interesting are the takes on what I did see and
do -- and it all brings back warm memories. Retirement remains comfortable for me;
however, it does not allow the luxury of any travel. My trip Down Under is one of
the highlights of my life and I am glad that you got to experience some of that
wonderful place.
Joyce Scrivner writes about her
meetings with Walt Willis and Bob Shaw. It is sometimes relatively small things
which stand out in remembrances, and that is the case with my connections with both
of these fans. Mostly, with Walt, I would send to him my fanzine and he would reply
with a LoC (although there was the occasional random letter about something else);
finally, we met at the 1987 Brighton Worldcon. The most notable memory I have of
Walt at that time is when we both sat down for some conversation in the Fan Room and
he asked me if I would introduce him to any American fans who wandered by. "I would
be glad to do that," I said, and spent the next few hours introducing him to many
fans, all of whom were Aussies! Not one American fan came up to our table during
that time.
Bob Shaw was a fan with whom I had
conversations at cons in what seemed like all over the place; and, somehow, I do not
believe that he did not make it onto my mailing list until I was near ready to put
Holier Than Thou to rest. Robbie got to know him better than I did, visiting
him at his home on her tour of England after the Brighton Worldcon (I went home
right after the Con as I had to get back to work). My most vivid memory of Bob is
of a quiet, private time the two of us spent together in Australia. I was one of
the horde of fans who stayed with the Ortliebs after Aussiecon 2. Now, the Ortlieb's
place was a non-smoking abode, and both Bob and I smoked pipes. On the Tuesday
after the con, most of the fans staying with the Ortliebs went off to visit
Murchison Falls but Bob and I decided to not go, instead retreating to the backyard
to have a companionable smoke and spin wild theories about the variegated fauna we
discovered inhabiting the grass. All very forgettable and all very relaxing and
unwinding after the frenzy of the con, which had not abated at the Ortliebs due to
the sheer number of fans who were staying there.
- - - - - - - - - -
Lloyd Penney, Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada
Once again, a wonderful scratchboard
cover from Julia Morgan-Scott. I'd like to read some reactions to it from
Australian fans.
{{So would we, actually. Several people commented
on Julia's cover for M25, "The Kronicles of Kaptain Koala," but none of them
were from Australia! }}
Concerning your Opening Comments and
your Fan GoHship at ConuCopia, Yvonne and I were Fan GoHs this past February at our
own local convention, Ad Astra 2000. We had the same dilemma you had, what to do
for our GoH hour. I hate the idea of speeches, so we chose to be interviewed, and
we asked Robert J. Sawyer to do the job. Rob and I are old schoolmates, and Yvonne
and I have known him since his fannish days as a convenor of the local SF club, now
long gone. As has happened at several other cons we've guested at, we expected our
GoH hour to be pretty sparse, but with Rob as part of the team, we filled the room.
We ignored the head table on the risers, and asked the audience to gather around,
and we'd have a chat. That hour was a lot of fun, we told a few stories, we had a
lot of laughs. Rob is a good interviewer, and he ensured the pace was upbeat and
enjoyable. (He's a graduate of the Radio and TV programme at Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute, so he'd better be good.)
I would have loved to have been at
Aussiecon 3, and there had been the remote chance that we would have been there, if
a travel agent had come through with an inexpensive fare. After all the years I've
been receiving Thyme and Ethel the Aardvark, and all the other
fanzines from Down Under, I would have liked to have put a face to all the names I
know there, and going to an MSFC meeting would have been some fun, too. But there
was just too much geography in the way.
Concerning Nicki's article about
'MSTing' the movies {{"At the Movies" }},
at one Niagara Falls convention some years ago, the con made a big fuss about
having for the first time, a showing of the animated Star Trek cartoons,
which had not been seen in many moons. However, one thing that had not been
revealed on the con flyer, and the provider of the animated ST had not told
the convention, was that that the episodes had been purchased from a television
station in Montr‚al, so the dialogue track was in French, and Capitaine
Kirque and Docteur Spock were battling avec les Klingonnes.
(Yeah, I know, Dr. Spock was the baby doctor, but a lot of things were lost in the
translation from English to French.) So, with hours to go before this big
presentation, they discovered that Yvonne is fluently bilingual -- she spent the
entire presentation standing beside the big screen, holding a microphone and doing
instant translations for the assembled throng. Supplying better lines than Tom
Servo, Crow, and friends from Mystery Science Theater 3000 is nothing new
for our little group when the first Superman movie made its initial round
of the theatres, the scene was the crashlanding of young Kal-El's ship on the Kent
farm in Smallville; the young Kryptonian climbs out from his ship, naked, and holds
his arms out to the Kents. A voice pipes up from behind me: "Hey, I didn't know
Superman was Jewish!" And the entire audience dissolved into laughter. We didn't
stop laughing for a good ten minutes. That's just one reason why I'm sure
the people behind MST3K were fans.
Concerning Dave Kyle's article about
the Hydra Club, years after Judith Merril moved to Toronto, she formed a Canadian
Hydra Club here, with many of the local authors as members. Such a club was for
authors only, and as fans heard more about this gathering, the more the word got out
that fans were not welcomed, the less word about the group was circulated. When
Judith died, I don't know what happened to the club; her only public visibility here
was as the 'Undoctor' on the local educational television channel, talking about SF
after episodes of Doctor Who.
Roy Lavender's letter of comment,
about Southern Black Baptists in the same hotel as the 1977 Worldcon, reminded me of
our experiences in New Orleans for the 1988 Worldcon. In our hotel, as Worldcon was
checking in, a Southern Black Baptist convention was considering, and then postponing
checking out. As we sat in the lobby, we were quickly surrounded by these enormous
black women in their best clothes, Sunday hats and purses, as friendly as you like,
enchanted with the idea that we liked SF, and that we were Canadian. There was a
little culture shock there, too, but the phrase "When in Rome..." has served us well
over the years.
Noreen Shaw's letter, about once
seeing the creators of Superman signing autographs in the lobby of Cleveland
theater, made me check my facts about Joe Shuster. He was born in Toronto in 1914,
but moved with his family to Cleveland in 1923. His cousin Frank Shuster is a
famous comedian here, and with his late partner Johnny Wayne, performed as Wayne and
Shuster many times on the Ed Sullivan Show. Frank Shuster now works as a
programming consultant to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which gave Wayne
and Shuster their Canadian fame for close to 40 years. I had the fortune to meet
Frank Shuster some years ago on a tour of the CBC building downtown. Joe Shuster's
Metropolis was originally modeled on Toronto, and the Daily Planet was
actually the Daily Star, now the Toronto Star.
Tom Feller, Nashville, Tennessee
In the Opening Comments, your remarks
about the 'mini-convention' in the Qantas lounge before your flight to Australia
reminds me of Winnipeg, where I think the fans filled up most of the departing
flights.
Regarding Nicki's article and film
rooms at cons, I would prefer that they actually showed films, not videos, and
preferably ones that are not available on video. All the fans who are interested in
videos already have VCRs after all. However, when I discuss this with Anita, she
takes the position that the cons need a video room so that fans who can't afford
hotel rooms can find somewhere to sleep.
By the way, I just read Mike
Resnick's predictions for the future in the latest Stet. I hope that he's
right in predicting that you will still be publishing well into the 21st Century.
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Timothy C. Marion, New York, New York
I don't think it would be unmanly of
me to admit to certain diminutive sized internal organs ... such as my
bladder, so I can certainly empathize with Eve Ackerman preferring the 'smaller
flush' toilets in Australia. But when reporting on this very important matter, she
forgot to mention one of the most pertinent facts regarding flushing Down Under --
does the water spiral down the toilet in the other direction and why? (My
answer, which I guess is obvious, is that the water is really flushing in the same
direction, just that when a northern hemisphere person is in the southern hemisphere,
they are looking at it from the opposite direction.)
I found the late Joe Mayhew's article
{{"My Own Personal First Fandom" }} to be
fascinating. One line quoted ironically out of context: "I suspect that when I
finally cross the River Styx, Charon will ask me, 'Say, how's Jack doing?'" One
regrets that Joe isn't around to write about his personal second fandom.
The fan historical anecdotes by Dave
Kyle and Harry Warner, to me, were of the utmost interest. The mention of Fred Pohl
inspires my anecdote of meeting him -- an unremarkable story, really, except that it
shows what a nice guy he was, as an elderly gentleman, to speak to such a young
squirt like myself. I was hardly more than a kid, just barely grown, having just
moved to New York City (from Virginia) and making my way on my own for the first
time in my life. I was attending a convention, and as soon as I walked into the con
suite, Fred Pohl saw me, a skinny, young, long-haired kid, and greeted me with, "Oh,
another First Fandomite!" I'm ashamed to say that I was so embarrassed by his
attention that I didn't even have a rejoinder handy, and merely quietly slunk
away.
Fabulous, fabulous letters.
Good that you led off with Milt Stevens, as he was very funny, almost as though he
was writing in a Harry Warner type style, but managed to out-do Harry's humor! Ted
White managed to pithily defend himself without sounding overly acrimonious. And
Noreen Shaw's first paragraph, about L. Sprague de Camp, was extremely amusing.
Harry Andruschak, Torrance, California
I read and enjoyed your NASFiC report.
I have Drifted Away From It All (DAFIA) and had no idea that there was a NASFiC in
LA until I read about it in the LA Times newspaper calendar. And by then I had
already volunteered to work all that weekend at the Post Office to pay for my
vacations. I had hoped to see the 1999 solar eclipse but could not get the time off
from the Post Office to cover that event.
And then I read Ron Bennett's article
{{"The Greatest Show On ...." }} and had to
chuckle to myself. Every guide to the 1999 solar eclipse pointed out that the
chance to view the eclipse in Cornwall was less then 5%. As the path of totality
swept through Europe, your chances for clear skies improved, and were at their best
in Turkey and the Black Sea. Which is where most of the USA eclipse tours headed
for, with excellent results.
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Terry Jeeves, Scarborough, United Kingdom
John Foyster mentioned in his article
the RAAF chap who got out of service by standing for Parliament. That was a regular
trick in the U.K. in the days when 'buying out' cost several hundred quid -- but
standing as an MP cost only 150, a much cheaper option.
Also, I was tickled by Ron Bennett's
account of the eclipse. Here in Scarborough it was sunny but with thin clouds. My
photos were a bust.
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Jerry Kaufman, Seattle, Washington
I enjoyed John Berry's article about
Walt Willis {{"I Remember Him -- A Tribute
to Walt Willis" }}, especially his take on Walt's golfing abilities. It
rather humanizes Walt that he was not perfect at everything he did. Too much of
what we write or say about Willis puts him very high on a pedestal, even the stuff
intended to show how warm, approachable and friendly he was. (I've certainly
idolized his writing; Amy Thomson still tells people how I handed her the Willis
issue of Warhoon as though I were giving her the Word of Ghu.)
I also liked Ron Bennett taking the
great British Eclipse down a few pegs. His report perfectly showcases how the media
(newspapers, radio and television) talk up an event far past reasonable importance
or interest, often affecting the outcome. Possibly if they hadn't published such
dire predictions about the terrible crowds that would clog Cornish streets, a larger
turnout would have come and made the locals a decent amount of money. But then we
might not have this article to read. (By the way, Seattle fan Jane Hawkins made it
to Cornwall or fairly near for the eclipse, but I don't suppose Ron would have
recognized her if he's run into her. Still, it makes for a nice bit of what if to
wonder what they'd have made of each other.)
Julia Morgan-Scott's cover and
article heading for Nicki's movie article are pretty impressive. The detailing on
the cover in particular is quite fine, though I can't make out what those things are,
apparently being sucked into a wormhole -- kangaroos undergoing some distortion from
gravitational effects?
Tracy Benton, Madison, Wisconsin
I enjoyed #25 quite a bit, but it did
have an air of sadness -- any timebinding zine would, considering fandom's great
losses in 1999. It's really quite hard to grasp the fact that Walt Willis is gone.
To me he's always been a mythic figure, a legend someone dreamed up to inspire
neofans. I was introduced to him once, years ago, and couldn't shake the feeling
that perhaps this was just a Willis avatar, representing a corporeal existence for
the supernatural being -- that this *person* wasn't really him. Those who really
got to know him feel a deep personal loss, I do not doubt; but to me he's still out
there somewhere, in the ether. I got a loc from him once; it'll stay tucked away in
a treasure-box somewhere as a memento of The Trufan. Thanks for running the
remembrances of him. I particularly enjoyed John Berry's article -- what better
evidence of Walt's legend could there be than as someone who picked up a Gestetner
for a friend?
I enjoyed Ron Bennett's article
about the eclipse, too; it ends with one of the best anti-climaxes I've run across
in a fan article. It reminded me a bit of the Douglas Adams book, Last Chance to
See, in which he ends up spending rather more pages describing the trips to see
the rare animals than on the animals themselves. I think about half of fannish trip
reports are actually just travel horror stories -- if the travel wasn't horrendous,
the author talks about the destination, but if the travel was bad, it outshines the
destination for essay potential!
The cover, incidentally, was quite an
amazing piece of scratchboard work! I really liked the rendering of the "Kaptain"
on the back, mustachios and all.
Gary Deindorfer, Trenton, New Jersey
Your covers continue to be a
stand-out feature of your zine, but the cover to #25 is really spectacular -- so
dynamic, and bursting with energy, not to mention being full of felicitous detail.
I don't know much about the graphics of art, but I believe Julia Morgan-Scott's
cover is done in what is called the 'scratchboard' technique, like that wonderful
cover she did a few issues back of the armadilloes, etc. She is a wonderful
artist.
It is clear that the late Joe Mayhew
was as talented a writer as an author. This is really quite a little episode of
otherwise forgotten fan history. And, yes, I remember "St. Neo" Harriet Kolchak, in
whose house in Philadelphia I experienced my first fannish party, being down there
for the 1961 Philcon where I met for the first time Theodore Sturgeon, L. Sprague de
Camp, and James Blish.
It was interesting to read of John
Berry's meeting with the immortal Walt Willis. I don't think I'd ever read that
tale before. It is clear that John fit right into Irish Fandom, although he says he
is an Englishman, something I never realized before. This is a magnificent
reminiscence of Willis, long may he reign in Valhalla.
Joyce Scrivner's article is very
helpful to those of us who want to know more about Bob Shaw. Of the four or five
Major Fans -- Shaw, Willis, Burbee, Tucker, Bloch -- he was the least of a known
factor to me. But it is clear that he was a congenial, witty agent of life.
- - - - - - - - - -
Fred Smith, Glasgow, Scotland
Many thanks for Mimosa 25.
May I add my voice to the many clamouring for its continuance -- after all it seems
like only yesterday that I discovered you. (Actually it was at Intersection that I
first clapped eyes on Mimosa -- Mighod, five years ago!)
The tributes to Walt Willis were
needed, particularly John Berry's, of course, since he knew him so well. In `55 or
possibly `56, my wife and I visited Oblique House on our way to our holiday in
Dublin. We took an overnight sailing from Glasgow to Belfast arriving at about 6.30
a.m. and were thoroughly taken aback to find Walt and Chuck Harris (who was staying
with the Willises) waiting at the quay to escort us to the house in the trusty
Morris Minor. Because I had warned Walt that we were dropping in en route he
arose from a warm bed to meet us at the boat. That's the kind of person he was.
The Shaws and John Berry turned up later and we ended up spending about ten hours
there. I even played ghoodminton with Bob, Chuck, and Berry, which nearly caused
more demolition of the room, what with the famous Berry leap and Chuck falling down
all the time. (His stone deafness affected his balance). We were also supposed to
meet James White that evening but unfortunately had to catch our train to Dublin and so it
wasn't until the `70s when he was guest of honour at a Glasgow convention that I
finally managed to catch up with him. James was one of nature's gentlemen in
addition to being a fine writer and an extremely funny man. Strangely nobody seems
to have remembered just how funny he could be.
Apart from that brief visit to that
particular Glasgow con (mainly to see James) I had no contact with fandom after the
early `60s and, alas, never saw any of the Wheels of IF again. That's why it's
rather intriguing to see Charles Williams' portraits of Bob and Walt for Joyce
Scrivner's "Remembrance." His 'young' versions are more or less how I remember
them except that Walt looked a bit more like Fritz Leiber. The 'older' versions I
wouldn't know, never having met them as elderly gentlemen.
Walt's Chicon piece {{
"The Harp at Chicon" }} reminded me that I consider "The Harp Stateside" to
be the finest thing that even he wrote and one of the finest sustained pieces of fan
writing that there has ever been. I'm glad I managed to tell him as much before he
had his stroke.
I also enjoyed the rest of this issue,
especially Harry Warner who is one of the most consistent and interesting people in
fandom. Ron Bennett is dead accurate on the eclipse which turned out to be a
non-event. I was in Bournemouth (on the south coast) at the time expecting a
partial, like maybe nine-tenths, eclipse. It had clouded over, of course, so all
that happened was that it became gloomy or, rather, more gloomy.
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Catherine Mintz, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Despite all the wonderful articles, I
confess my absolute favorite was a reprint, "The Harp at Chicon." Willis is like
one of those Chinese artists who take up a brush, make two or three strokes on a
piece of paper and suddenly have a rabbit, complete with a bit of grass in its mouth
and ready to go on the wall.
In the Letters Column, there are
interesting parallels between Harry Warner and Robert Lichtman's comments on racing
and freeway crossings. Personally, I would rather watch pod racing, although the
most recent version of that in Star Wars I was a marvel of special effects
that highlighted the debate over whether the people behind me really had bought
enough popcorn.
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Seán Russell Friend, Brighton, East Sussex, United Kingdom
I think the part I most relished in
issue 25 is the Letters Column, which is the bit of a fanzine I nearly always turn
to first. Although Mimosa's is a tad more serious than, say, Twink's,
it was especially chuckle-making (and heartwarming) to read Roger Waddington's
epistle.
It's good to find someone who writes
plain English instead of fanspeak, for a start, but he seems to echo much of my own
history as an SF reader, and also shares my love of 'Social Archaeology'. It's all
about the art of telling a story -- something highly prized in Ireland, and
something that used to be prized in literature. Perhaps more to the point,
it's about telling an individual story, i.e., a tale whose style could only
belong to that particular storyteller. There are not many writers in SF today who I
regard as having a distinctive style, which is why I still largely read the old
stuff like John Wyndham! And to think that when "The Chrysalids" was released by
Penguin in paperback, the publishers were too snotty to admit that it was science
fiction.
It was about that time Quatermass
and the Pit got its first airing on television so you could say I was scared
into science fiction. I suppose I spent my 'golden years' in Doctor Who
fandom, but I fortunately grew out of it and started to skirt proper SF fandom in
the mid-eighties. I was so thrilled when I received my first issue of Matrix
-- and have been indebted to Maureen Kincaid Speller ever since! So you can quite
understand how wonderful it is for me to see the photos in the "South by Southwest"
article! Everyone looks so friendly, not scary at all! For the first time in many
years, I thought to myself: "I wish I'd been there."
- - - - - - - - - -
We Also Heard From:
Amanda Baker, Pamela Boal, David Bratman, Ken
Bulmer, Ken Cheslin, David Combs, Chester Cuthbert, John Dallman, Rich Dengrove,
Ahrvid Engholm, Joe Fillinger, George Flynn, Robert Kennedy, Ken Lake, Willy Legate,
Rodney Leighton, Fred Liddle, Sam Long, Joseph Major, Robert Peterson, Dave Rowe,
Dale Speirs, Ian Stockdale, David Thayer, Dorothy Tompkins, Roger Waddington,
Michael Waite, Harry Warner, Jr., Taral Wayne, Toni Weisskopf, Henry Welch, Charlie
Williams, and David B. Williams. Thanks to one and all!
Title illustration by Sheryl Birkhead
Other illustrations by Teddy Harvia, William Rotsler, Alexis Gilliland, and Gilliland & Rotsler
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