{{
We very much appreciate all the letters of comment we receive. It's not possible
to publish all of them in our letters column, but we do want all our correspondents
to know that your comments are in fact being passed on directly to the contributors,
whether or not your letter sees print here. So please keep writing us! Our
contributors value your feedback.
Almost as soon as we mailed out
issue 18, it became clear to us what the leading comment-getter would be --
Ian Gunn's wonderful spaceport cover. We received many comments on it, by
far more than any other cover we've ever had. That looks like a good place to
start. }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Catherine Mintz, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Number eighteen was a good issue,
including the wrap-around cover drawing of a spaceport only a little more strange
than some airports I have been in. I particularly liked the enterprising pickpocket
-- who could scarcely be described as light-fingered, since he is all tentacles --
and the ideographic signs for where to find your luggage, your pet, and whatever
the skull dripping liquid means.
Hmm... Could it be that not only
Elvis but Great Cthulhu lives?
- - - - - - - - - -
Teddy Harvia, Hurst, Texas
Ian Gunn shows rare mastery for
drawing overpopulated alien scenes. I'm for giving him acres of paper and worrying
about how to publish the resulting cartoon. (Trying to find the WingNuts in his
latest effort kept me occupied for hours.)
In Rich's opening comments {{"Lost in the Sixties" }}, removing the crossout from the
phrase "such as eating this fanzine" makes for amusing ambiguity. He has good
taste.
{{It seems to read better that way, too... }}
In the letters column, anticipating
Irv Koch's complaint about Chat being confined, I released the beast (Chat, not
Irvin) from the mundane real world back into fantasy. His next adventures will
again have him stalking and eating fans. Perhaps even Irvin himself.
- - - - - - - - - -
Buck Coulson, Hartford City, Indiana
We do have a photo of Roger Ebert
wearing the lampshade referred to in Richard's opening comments, though that photo
was taken from across a fair-sized room. And who can recognize anybody wearing a
lampshade, anyway? He also wrote letters and contributed a few items to
Yandro. That Midwestcon may have been the only con he went to.
Someone a bit less famous who was
active at the time was Sidney Coleman; I noticed his name being coupled with
Stephen Hawking in an Analog article a while back, but not many scientists
become as well known as TV personalities. Sid had a ready supply of somewhat acid
humor, and probably still does, though I haven't seen him since Discon II in 1974,
or thereabouts. We started wandering around in that enormous hotel, and eventually
got lost and took a while to find our way back to civilization. At one point there
was a room full of wicker furniture, which reminded me forcibly of The Twilight
Zone. Sid was a marvelous conversationalist, when he held his talk down to
subjects I could comprehend.
- - - - - - - - - -
William T. Goodall, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom
The story in the Opening Comments
about Roger Ebert is quite revealing. Having read a great many of his film reviews
thanks to Microsoft Cinemania, I already suspected that he was a bit more
knowledgeable about sf than he was prepared to admit to outright (hey, the man's a
serious film reviewer). But his coy little denunciations of improbable plot
devices in major sci-fi movies retrospectively take on a new flavour now I know the
guy is a closet *fan*.
In Dave Kyle's article {{"Raised in the Roaring Twenties" }}, his comments on the
public perception of sf are spot on. 'Sci-Fi' as far as the general media are
concerned is synonymous with lamebrained illogical childish credulous junk. Of
course, most popular entertainment media (tv, movies) are lame-brained junk but
'sci-fi' is somewhere at the bottom of that barrel. The X Files and
Independence Day are reaffirming that tired old 'sf-fan = UFO nut' just when
one might have hoped it was going to die out.
Vincent Clarke, Welling, Kent, United Kingdom
The cover for Mimosa 18 is
fascinating. I haven't unravelled all the pictographs yet, but it's a magnificent
scene. Ian Gunn has impressed the hell out of me. In fact, all of the interior
illos are good and I particularly like Teddy Harvia's Shakespearean characters at
the head of my small piece. I'm also fond of Sheryl Birkhead's pseudo-ATom heading
for Walter's column.
Dave Kyle's memories are in some
ways similar to mine, born three years later. I can't remember when I knew that SF
was my preferred reading, but at 10 years old I saw Scoops No. 1 in a wire
rack outside a newsagent, instantly borrowed two pence from my father and bought it.
Scoops was a weekly paper with all-SF stories, articles by rocketry
enthusiasts, and lurid covers. It lasted 20 issues -- it was not only before its
time, it couldn't make up its mind if it was a juvenile or should appeal to
everyone. The indecision was fatal.
I still didn't know about American
SF'zine, but somehow came across Flying Aces, which I expect Dave knew. It
was another U.S. product, and featured hard news about flying meets in the U.S.,
plans for model planes, and fiction which was more than 50% fantastic. It was
while searching in a pile of large-sized zines for copies of Flying Aces
when I was 14 that I came across a four-year-old copy of Amazing Stories. I
then stopped reading Flying Aces, and you can guess why.
- - - - - - - - - -
Ken Bulmer, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, United Kingdom
Dave Kyle's "Roaring Twenties"
article makes fascinating reading, and the romantic nostalgia comes through very
clearly. As he says, it's odds on that his experiences were paralleled by lots of
those early devotees. Aeroplanes were the great and glorious future, and we were
innocent enough to enjoy WWI aerial combat adventures. I remember when Dave was
staying with us, I dug out a small file of Flying Aces, probably the top
aviation zine of that type, which really perked him up. I add that because of FA's
size they were stored away from the bookcases where the bomb fell, so their
condition was still remarkably good. I look forward muchly to the next instalment,
and must thank both Dave and you two for writing and publishing this brand of
material.
- - - - - - - - - -
Roger Waddington, Norton, Malton, North Yorkshire,
United Kingdom
I can say, without fear of going
over the top, that I absolutely loved Ian Gunn's cover; with so much going on, it
reminded me of nothing so much as the 'Where's Waldo?' books. Of course, if this
had been intended to be 'Where's Elvis?' rather than 'Where's Waldo?' then the game
would have been over in seconds.
I enjoyed the account of Dave
Kyle's apprenticeship in science fiction, as another pilgrim on the road. Each of
us might think we were among the first, surmounting overwhelming odds in our
discovery; but compared to America in the Twenties, Britain in the Fifties must
have been like a wonderland, so welcoming to sf was the climate. There was John
Wyndham, a best-selling author on the strength of catastrophe novels like The
Day of the Triffids (though he started off around Dave Kyle's time); the most
popular series on the radio was Journey Into Space, with an audience measured
in millions; and later on, there would be Edmund Crispin, Robert Conquest, and
Kingsley Amis spreading the message, hot-gospellers all.
The title of Kev McVeigh's article
{{"Some of My Best Friends Are Pros" }},
perfectly sums up my other Sense of Wonder on discovering fandom; that as well as
enthusiasts discussing science fiction in the pages of fanzines, the writers and
artists themselves were more than willing to give their time and energy to
contribute as well. There was always an extra thrill of recognition in artwork
from people like Jack Gaughan and Dan Adkins, and letters from such as L. Sprague
de Camp and Piers Anthony.
{{
And it continues to this day. There are many people who contribute to
Mimosa, for instance, who have a better name recognition for fiction or
artwork sold professionally, yet still consider themselves as fans. You see the
same thing in many other fanzines. }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Rodney Leighton, Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada
I really enjoyed "Some of My Best
Friends Are Pros" by Kev McVeigh. It was highly amusing but also, I thought, did
an excellent job of contesting this 'filthy pro' foolishness, which I can't
understand at all. People should be proud to have successful authors among them as
acquaintances and friends.
An intriguing and amusing story by
Vincent Clarke {{"A Small Skirmish on the Borders of
Mundania" }}, with a very good illustration by Teddy Harvia. Harvia's 'Chat'
cartoon was also good, as always. A weird coincidence: about the time Mimosa
arrived, I had a bobcat running around the yard and barn. It looked quite a lot
like Chat. I don't suppose Teddy sent him up here to get revenge on me for my
"Teddy Harvia is not an artist" comment?
I really liked Sheryl Birkhead's
illo of Nicki's closing comments. Is it strange that I am seeing more and more of
her work which I really like since making those unwarranted teasing comments in
Fosfax? And I also liked that 'I Am a Fanartist' illo by Sheryl. Yes she
is. It fit in well.
Steve Green, Olton, Solihull, United Kingdom
I enjoyed very much Kev McVeigh's
contribution to Mimosa 18. (Since he asks, Martin Tudor and I do have
theories regarding the true author(s) of Wavering Criticism, but -- as of
yet -- no conclusive proof, and it was more than eight years ago...)
Like he, I've done a fair number of 'promo' interviews over the years, including
several for prozines, though I doubt I'll ever get the same high again as when I
interviewed Stan Lee for Interzone. Talk about meeting your childhood
hero...
- - - - - - - - - -
Brad Foster, Irving, Texas
I was totally blown away by that
Gunn wrap-around cover. I've always liked Ian's toons, but suddenly he's doing
these huge epic fannish murals! I just got finished sending off my Hugo ballot,
and he got my vote for first place for sure -- now it looks like he might be
blowing us all away!
{{It wasn't to be in 1996; it's not often that someone
wins in the Fan Artist category the first time nominated. But watch out for him
next year! }}
I also loved Steve Stiles's tale
{{"Art School" }}. It's nice to find another
struggling artist out there. Not that I'm saying it's nice to hear that Steve is
struggling, but that too many artists seem to be starving. I myself am in that
'struggling' stage, one notch up from starving. I think the next step is
'reasonably well fed' artist.
- - - - - - - - - -
Kevin Standlee, Sunnyvale, California
Thank you very much for
Mimosa 18. Love the Ian Gunn cover, especially inasmuch as I had just
recently seen his cover for Thyme 106 (which I nominated for the Best
Original Artwork Hugo). As with the Thyme cover, I continue to find new
things in the piece every time I look at it.
Fred Lerner's story {{"Sci-Fi Days" }} about Sci-Fi's preoccupation with
"punning, mock parliamentary procedure, and other manifestations of young fans
reveling in their eccentricity" put me uncomfortably in mind of current meetings of
the Bay Area Science Fiction Association (BASFA), where I was recently accidentally
elected President. Recently, the routine approval of minutes of a particular
meeting became the subject of much parliamentary humor, as the motion for approval
was laid on the table, taken off the table, and put back on the table repeatedly in
what appeared to be an attempt to annoy the President, although it did give me
practice with the various parliamentary forms.
BASFA's primary source of income is
from fining members for making puns, and one of our pastimes is making up new rules
for fining members for making puns. The basic pun tax is 25 cents, unless you can
convince five other people to pay 10 cents on your behalf. You must put the pun
fines in The Jar, and if you miss the jar, it costs an additional ten cents. If
you toss the fine toward the jar and happen to hit one of the club officers, it's
considered an 'assassination attempt' and costs $1. If you knock the jar off the
table and break it (it happened once), you must match the money in the jar and buy
a new jar. If someone has to explain your pun to you, the 'cluelessness tax' is
$1.
The point of all these fines is to
raise money to buy our clubhouse. To date (about five years), we've managed over
$3,500. Our rules make it extremely difficult to actually spend money, so we still
have over $2,900 left. We figure this ought to purchase about three square feet,
but we're working on it!
George Flynn, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Thanks for Mimosa 18. The
cover is wonderful. And the inside's pretty good too. But having switched from
mimeo to commercial printing, shouldn't you change the title to something like
'Printosa'?
{{Hmmmm... }}
It's interesting to read in Fred
Lerner's memoir of how the CCNY club "would argue passionately how to cast the
club's corporate vote for the Hugo awards." I gather that there were once a fair
number of clubs that did this, but the practice had pretty well fallen into
desuetude by the time Hugo voting was restricted to 'natural persons' a few years
ago.
{{There probably ought to be an exception to that
restriction for any sf club that chooses to support a worldcon by buying a
supporting membership.}}
I started to read Les Cole's
article about how the Little Men claimed the a piece of the moon {{"The Men Who Claimed The Moon" }}. As you may know,
NESFA laid claim to the whole moon in 1970, I think in ignorance of what had gone
before; it didn't notify the press, either. But we have gotten a good amount of fun
out of it since.
{{
George included in his letter a list of 'rules' that were passed concerning the
moon, including the following entry from December 1970: "[Tony Lewis] showed the
moon map from the November 1970 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine. Hugo
Gernsback crater was identified, as were Ley, Verne, Wells, etc. As a result of
this increase in cultural knowledge it was moved, seconded and passed that the Moon
be designated as NESFA's Moon and that the Aerospace Cadets protect it." George
went on to mention that the Aerospace Cadets were commanded by Col. Harry Stubbs
(a.k.a. Hal Clement), whose title was 'Lord of the Wings'. Who says NESFA
is a sercon club?? }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Ahrvid Engholm, Stockholm, Sweden
It is always interesting to see an
artist, like Steve Stiles, write and especially when he writes about how he started
his career. Some tend to think that artists can't write. I think artistic and
verbal talents goes together. Remember that, for instance, Bob Shaw started as an
artist.
Fred Lerner's article about New
York fandom was interesting. I have read everything I've been able to find about
New York fandom in the days of the Futurians in the 40s, but naturally New York had
a fan life after that and that's interesting reading. Dave Kyle covers the period
before the Futurians, I note, which also is interesting. New York is such a huge
city. It probably has more people than the whole of Scandinavia, in one single
place. It's so much easier to do fanac when you can take the subway to anyone,
instead of having to fly or take the train for half a day.
I feel a bit of envy when I hear
about British and American fans tell about the famous pros they know, like in Kev
McVeigh's article. You have many more chances to meet the big names in the sf
field. They live in North America or Britain, and you have many more conventions.
In Sweden, the only chance to meet a foreign big name is to invite one as GoH.
This is of course done, but we have fewer cons, so we seldom get to know all these
nice people, like Harry, Chris, Brian or whatever their first names are. We have
local pros, maybe half a dozen of them (or more like semi-pros -- it's hard to make
a living as an sf writer here). After a few years the local pros have all been
GoHs on our cons so then we have to start the rotation again. "This guy was GoH as
far back as five years ago! Let's invite him. Practically nobody has met him!"
(Alternatively, you can find more obscure local GoHs: "This guy wrote an article
about science fiction eight years ago and once in an interview said he liked sf.
Let's invite him!")
Les Cole's article raises
interesting questions about ownership of the Moon. Back in the colonial days,
ownership of far away territory basically came from putting your flag there first.
It's a questionable criteria; it for instance totally ignores anyone who happens to
live there first, like the American Indians, and has the misconception of owning
the land. For the Moon, the USA put the flag there first, or perhaps the Soviet
Union if you count robot vehicles, but that's hardly relevant. Who will own the
Moon, the day it is economically feasible to go there on a bigger scale? I don't
think the UN owns the Moon. We can't even settle who owns the Antarctica. There
is probably a few plots for good sf stories in this.
Ruth Shields, Jackson, Mississippi
I love the wraparound cover by Ian
Gunn (whose artistic signature I always read as "Jan" at first). I spent a long
time picking out all the delicious details; I especially liked Elvis's luggage, and
the signs directing one to all sorts of dubious destinations. And I wonder who
belongs to the spiked suitcase. And...well, it's lots of fun.
Sharon Farber's doctor jokes were
amusing but less interesting than her reminiscences. I think my favorite essay in
the issue was "The Men Who Claimed the Moon"; it's great to envision the hard work
they put into this grand hoax, and satisfying to read about the response it drew.
(Too bad that the political types didn't respond better.)
- - - - - - - - - -
Joseph T. Major, Louisville, Kentucky
Concerning the proposed history of
1960s fandom referred to in Richard's opening comments, you can rest assured that
no one will like your work. First off, everyone whose point of view did not get
accepted as the final version will object. Everyone whose particular interest did
not get at least half the book will feel slighted ("Lynch has utterly failed to
comprehend the great interest and growth that fan gardening experienced during the
sixties, and his incomprehension leaves the book vitiated."). Whereas those who
dislike certain interests will object if they are mentioned at all.
{{
All too true, but it wouldn't be the first time that happened. Anyway, it's
important to realize that the proposed history of the 1960s would not be the
definitive history. Other points of view would obviously be just as relevant,
should anyone want to write one. }}
The price we, including Dave Kyle
(in "Raised in the Roaring Twenties"), pay for there being as much good SF being
available today is the glut of "empty calories forced upon [us] from everywhere and
every direction." So much being available means that while worthwhile work is not
being shut out, less-good material also gets in. Who ever would have thought that
anyone would ever be complaining about there being too much science fiction out
there! Still, looking at the local super-bookstore and seeing shelves of tie-ins
(Trek, Star Wars, "Magic", etc.), franchised universes, and Piers Anthony, I
can rather gain a certain understanding of Kyle's feelings in the matter.
Roxanne Smith-Graham {{in "Born That Way" }} can rest assured that she was not
the only one at MidAmeriCon to underestimate the future of Star Wars. Fan
artist Phil Foglio has drawn in his own memorable fashion the scene of how he
thoughtfully avoided fame and fortune by declining to participate in Lucas's work.
And I myself remember going into the Star Wars room at the con, looking
around, and being only mildly interested. When the movie opened in Louisville, I
hoped that it would stay in that particular theater long enough for me to be able
to get to see it in Dolby sound on a 70-mm print. I could have done so a dozen
times, and I was so broke then (it was right after my first graduation from college)
that I could not get to Louisville that often.
About eight or nine years after Les
Cole started the ball rolling with the Little Mens' Moon Claim, the Antarctic Treaty
put in abeyance all territorial claims in Antarctica. Britain, Australia, and New
Zealand claim great pie-wedges, with France holding a small one. Norway claims a
substantial part of the coast. Argentina and Chile claim areas based on their
colonial grants, and have gone so far as to establish colonies in the Antarctic
Peninsula. Given that settlement seems the most effective way of proving control,
they may be right, or left anyhow. Which points to a resolution to the problem
that Les and the Little Men were trying to address, and which D. D. Harriman worked
on in "The Man Who Sold the Moon."
Harry Warner, Jr., Hagerstown, Maryland
Although a couple of the
contributions seemed sort of sketchy, most of them are detailed and vivid enough to
maintain your high reputation for fan history material. Steve Stiles, for instance,
provided me with much information about himself that I'd never known. If memory
serves, the High School of Music and Art he attended is the same one that served as
locale for the television series Fame some years back, although you'd
imagine from the series that it produced nothing but rock music.
The fine new installment of Walt
Willis's series {{"I Remember Me" }} caused me
to think once again about the probability that almost all fannish correspondence is
doomed to be lost. I don't think any of the institutions that preserve fanzines
have any interest in letters between fans, unless perhaps some of the correspondents
became famous pros. Certainly there is no place in fandom that can serve as a
depository for preservation of letters. Very few fans leave, at their death, direct
descendents who will preserve correspondence files as a symbol of filial piety. So
it would be good if other fans would imitate Walter's example and publish in
fanzines extracts from their letter files, guaranteeing continued existence for some
samplings.
Les Cole's inside information on
the Moon claim is probably the most valuable item in this Mimosa, from the
standpoint of fan history preservation. I can't think of anything else that has
ever happened in fandom that was carefully planned in advance as a publicity stunt
and received so much attention from the mundane media. Just think how many talk
shows Les would have been a guest on, if television in the early 1950s had them in
the abundance of today.
- - - - - - - - - -
Gary Deindorfer, Trenton, New Jersey
Steve Stiles is not only one of the
best fanartists going these days, he is also a very fine and funny writer. This
story of his days in "Art School" is a comic masterpiece, and fills me in on a
period in Steve's life I didn't know that much about, although in a personal letter
he'd already told me that Steve Bochco story. This proves there is little justice
in this world: Bochco the S.O.B. is a multimillionaire whereas Steve Stiles, a nice
and unassuming guy, breaks his back just to make a buck.
Some issues back in a letter of
comment I had expressed displeasure regarding Walt Willis's "I Remember Me" column.
I have since changed my mind. Walt's column is invaluable fan history, though at
times it seems a bit self-congratulatory when Walt quotes letters from fans
copiously complimenting him about his writing, which (come to think of it) usually
deserves to be so lauded.
Anyway, I especially enjoyed the
John Brunner letter to Walt. John was a fine and fiercely intelligent man. If he
was not a science fiction writer of the first rank, he was better than most. My
favorite Brunner novel is The Squares of the City, which is especially
fascinating to anyone who, like me, likes chess.
Gene Stewart, HQ USAFE, APO AE
Just before he died, I was in
correspondence with John Brunner over a review I'd written on his superb
Children of the Thunder for Catharine Asaro's Mindsparks. He thanked
me for spotting the underlying Greek myth he'd employed, but found no joy in my
positive review. He was despondent, convinced that his writing amounted to little
and would be read and remembered not at all. My protests to the contrary fell on
deaf ears, as, at the time, he had literally no books in print in USA. (I'm not
sure the situation has improved even now; it's a ridiculous shame all around.) He
also refused an offer from John Carr to write some War World stuff; it wasn't his
cup of tea, that strutting right wing stuff. It was appalling to see so great a
writer reduced to a flat cynicism about himself and his work. Consequently it was
both revealing and saddening for me to read the Brunner letter included in the
Willis article. He seemed destined to be in conflict. If there be a consolation,
I suppose it's that we're left with his writing -- we really ought to talk it up a
bit more often, eh?
{{
Brunner's place in science fiction's history seems pretty secure; he was not only
a first rate writer, he was also on the forefront of bringing new concepts into
science fiction, an example being his novel Shockwave Rider which anticipated
the Internet and computer viruses. There have even been a number of articles in
computer journals that reference Brunner and his novel. }}
Michael A. Burstein, Brookline, Massachusetts
Being a major fan of DC Comics
superheroes, I greatly enjoyed Steve Stiles's article "Art School." It was
particularly interesting to read about the School of Visual Arts, because in the
Spring 1995 semester (the last semester I lived in New York City, just before I got
married), I took a course there! It was a night course, which met once a week,
called "Writing for the Comics" and taught by Denny O'Neil, the senior editor of
the Batman books. Although I haven't written for the comics since taking the
course, I learned a hell of a lot from Denny on story structure, even more than I
learned at Clarion, I think. Of course, Stiles's experience was quite different
than mine -- he's an artist and was a full time student -- but that was exactly why
I found his article so intriguing. And it was well-written, too!
I really identified with something
Dave Kyle said in "Raised in the Roaring Twenties." I have difficulty imagining
what it would be like to live in the world before science fiction, but I well
understand the difficulties of explaining science fiction in a world saturated by
it. When I told co-workers about my Hugo nomination, one of them told me how much
she loved SF by saying that she watches Star Trek all the time. Now I too
enjoy Star Trek, but it rankles me when I hear someone refer to Star
Trek as if it is the be-all and end-all of SF. When I tell my co-workers that
the story was published in Analog, I get blank stares.
{{
But it might always be that way. When we became active in fandom, in the mid 1970s,
the most visible well-done science fiction production up to then was the movie
2001: A Space Odyssey, which was regarded in the mundane world as little
more than a cult film. It wasn't until the late 1970s, when Sci-Fi productions
like Star Wars came along, that science fiction started to become chic.
There's some irony in that somewhere. }}
As always, it was a pleasure to
read "Through Time and Space With Forry Ackerman." I love his stories of fandom,
especially ones like the story about the fan from Japan, Tetsu Yano. Older stories
about fandom always puzzle me a little, though, as fans perpetually seem to (a)
have no money and (b) be very mobile. I mean, the guy stayed in the U.S. for six
months?! Who paid his rent at home? What if his house had burned down?
And now we come to my favorite
article in the whole issue, "Born That Way" by Roxanne Smith-Graham. Articles like
this make me wistful. Why? Well, with trepidation I admit that I knew very little
of fandom and conventions when I was growing up. I went to my first convention in
1992, at the age of 22, and all weekend I was thinking, "My God! Where has this
been all my life?" Like Smith-Graham, I read the true quill from a young age, but
I didn't get to meet my idol, Isaac Asimov, until my middle to late teens, and
never at a real fan-run con. Her stories of meeting Forry Ackerman and ignoring
George Lucas were wonderful, and have really sparked my desire to attend a
Worldcon.
Sharon Farber is another writer who
never fails to entertain, and the latest installment of her series {{"Tales of Adventure and Medical Life #13" }} is no
exception. I have one brother who's a paramedic, and another who's an Emergency
Medicine Physician, so I have a slight insider's perspective on these jokes. For
example, I had already heard the duck joke and the neurologist/balloon joke from my
brothers...but the one about the dogs floored me. The ones about insurance
companies and HMOs, on the other hand, were frightening, as they hit far too close
to the truth. Which I'm sure Dr. Farber realized.
In the letters column, Harry Warner,
Jr. is absolutely right that Clarion can be harsh and ruin a writer before he or
she begins. But as I always tell people who ask me for advice on workshops,
Clarion is most certainly not for everyone. I agree with Harry's assessment, that
I was tough enough to withstand the workshop, and I believe that it did improve my
writing tremendously. But I'm only one test case. There are many people who came
through Clarion and hated it, and found it unhelpful, and, as the rabbi put it in
the old joke, "They're right too." Or, to paraphrase Tom Lehrer, Clarion is like a
sewer -- what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
Also, I am so glad Rachel Russell
enjoyed my Clarion article. I know exactly what her husband means when he says
that no wife of his is going to go to Clarion. And I'm glad she elaborated on my
description of Howard Waldrop; I think she brought him to life twice as much as I
did.
- - - - - - - - - -
Steven desJardins, Washington, D.C.
I was surprised that nobody
responded to Michael Burstein's article with Clarion reminiscences of their own.
It seems that every year must have their own set of stories to tell. One of my
favorites is the time that Geoff Landis's teddy bear was kidnapped. He learned of
it when he opened a box containing a pasted-up ransom note and the bear's severed
ear. He later received a photo showing the bear with a ketchup-stained bandage
wrapped around its head holding a copy of that day's newspaper.
My own Clarion experience had
plenty of stress-related silliness, but not much in the way of practical jokes.
One hoax grew out of a discussion of whether Harlan Ellison had really
denounced a story as worthless garbage and set the manuscript on fire. Graham
Collins decided to recreate the incident at a new teacher's first workshop session.
After a round of mostly positive critiques, Graham said that he completely disagreed
with everyone, that this was the same old tired story the author had been turning
in every week, that instead of showing improvement her work was actually getting
worse and worse, and the only thing to do with this manuscript was to destroy it,
at which point he pulled out a cigarette lighter and set the manuscript on fire.
Or, at least, he tried to. He had never actually used a cigarette lighter before
and couldn't get it to work. The entire workshop -- or at least those of us who
were in on the joke -- collapsed in helpless laughter.
But even though I don't have many
stories of my own to share, I do appreciate reading the ones presented in
Mimosa. Roxanne Smith-Graham's article was a delightful look at a youth in
fandom, and the Forry Ackerman anecdote was wonderfully funny. I also liked Fred
Lerner's account of the 227th meeting maneuver, a stunt that seems perfectly
natural after witnessing a couple of Worldcon business meetings. Somehow I doubt
that parliamentary pedantry is quite as amusing anywhere outside fandom.
The attitude in Kev McVeigh's "Some
Of My Best Friends Are Pros" is one I share. I was in awe of professional writers
right up until my first week at Clarion, when James Patrick Kelly came to teach.
There's something about being chased around the courtyard by a man with a water
pistol that makes it impossible to take him too seriously.
In fact, one of the greatest things
about science fiction fandom is the way that pros interact with the fan community
on equal terms. A few years ago I was surprised to see Jim Kelly at ConFrancisco,
since he wasn't on the list of program participants. It turned out he decided to
attend too late to get on programming, but came anyway. I wish every pro who
attended worldcons had that attitude.
Ken Lake, Thornton Heath, United Kingdom
As a dedicated admirer of Sharon
Farber, I have to admit she's right: her in-house jokes are just not funny. Mind
you, I had to get translations of 'internist' (physician) and 'intern' (resident
assistant surgeon or physician) before I had any idea what she was talking about
anyway.
Steve Stiles was even more
enigmatic with 'Reggie to my Archie', 'E.C.', and 'slipping the meat'. Similarly,
Roxanne Smith-Graham was pigeonholed as 'too American'; we really are two
peoples separated by a single language and culture.
Half an hour before reading Dave
Kyle's article, I was doing the same thing for an apacontrib: trying to figure out
just how, and why, I came to SF as a small child. My encounter was with H.G. Wells,
at age 7, in 1938, but we were a long way behind the U.S. Then the War virtually
stopped comic and paperback production; my first prozine encounters were BREs --
British Reprint Editions of Astounding, Planet Stories, Thrilling
Wonder Stories, and the wonderful Unknown Worlds. These were abbreviated
versions, reset on cheap pulp without the editorial features and lettercols,
appearing irregularly every few months, and read and re-read till our eyes wore
the ink off the pages.
- - - - - - - - - -
Elizabeth Osborne, Lima, Ohio
The front cover looks like many
scenes that I have witnessed in many airports. I had fun trying to decipher the
direction symbols displayed on either side. The amount of detail work is just
wonderful, and I really loved the little touches, like the alien getting his pocket
picked, the fish inside the robot outfit, Elvis, the golf balls rolling around the
floor, and the zine's title and number displayed on the flight board. Ian Gunn is
a very talented person.
The best thing in the issue, though,
was Richard Brandt's story about the filming of Manos: The Hands of Fate
{{"The Hand That Time Forgot" }}. I never knew
that it existed until I saw MST3K do it. It took a few tries but I finally
was able to sit through the whole thing. It's as bad as you could imagine, but I am
impressed at the sheer guts of anyone who would try and make a motion picture on a
tiny budget. I also have a real interest in auteur filmmaking, even if it results
in nothing more than watching the 'finished product'.
- - - - - - - - - -
Todd Mason, Fairfax Station, Virginia
The articles in M18 I
expected to find (such as the Kyle and Ackerman memoirs) were as good as I expected,
and to get more from Steve Stiles was an extra coup (to say nothing of the charming
piece by Les Cole...didn't he have a twin brother, ho ho), but the piece that blew
my mind was the Manos: The Hands of Fate cast/crew interview. My goodness,
to actually seek these people out is a brilliant idea that flatly never occurred to
me (which is perhaps why I'm not Michael Wheldon or Tim Lucas, or at least one of
their competitors). Kudos to you for running this piece, and to Richard Brandt for
not selling it to Film Threat, instead (which he probably should do,
now!).
Jerry Kaufman, Seattle, Washington
I really enjoyed the Ian Gunn cover,
especially because it rewarded repeated examinations with more and more weird and
fiddly bits of humor and incident. I also liked the way some things, like the
octopoidish creature's long arm, stretched through the center of the drawing to tie
the whole thing together.
The two pieces that I enjoyed the
most in Mimosa were the two least concerned with fannish memory and anecdote:
Steve Stiles on "Art School" and Richard Brandt on "The Hand that Time Forgot."
Steve's memories of Bochco are particularly arresting. In addition, I laughed out
loud at several of Sharon Farber's jokes, and so did Suzle.
I also particularly liked Kurt
Erichsen's cartoons for Roxanne Smith-Graham's "Born That Way," Joe Mayhew's for
the Stiles piece and everything else (I think Mayhew is one of the less appreciated
fanartists), and Charlie Williams. As for the ubiquitous Teddy Harvia, his heading
for Vincent Clarke's piece is sneaky and pretty funny once I realized what was
going on. It played well with the article.
- - - - - - - - - -
Dave Rowe, Franklin, Indiana
Ian Gunn's cover was just amazingly
creative. It's not so much his style (which is good) but all the small details
that make it so hilarious. Did you notice Elvis's luggage? The Dalek on the
balcony? The 'Baby On Board' sticker? And his use of analogic aliens... the
Moonie, the pickpocket, and the Judge Dredd security guards, not to mention his own
touches of total originality such as the fish in a bowl operating a biped walker.
Lovely stuff.
{{We're not aware if Ian has decided to make the
M18 cover available as a poster print. But he should! }}
On the other hand, sorry to say it,
Fred Lerner, Kev McVeigh, and yourself, Richard, gave Mimosa 18 a bit of a
slow start. The writings weren't engaging or vigorous, so they came across as
little more than lists. Compare Kev's to Roxanne Smith-Graham's article (whose
subject matter was pretty much the same as Kev's). Roxanne took three small
incidents and built them up with an impish attitude and some good humorous writing
into three warm and funny stories. Also, Kev's piece was not helped by Kip
Williams's heading illo, which was very pedestrian. Pity, as Kip's off-beat strip
in New Pals is wonderfully original. Too bad he didn't bring more of that
left-field style to bear.
{{
We're probably asking our artists to go above and beyond the call of duty to do
illustrations for the articles and essays we run in Mimosa. They not only
have to come up with ideas for these articles and essays, they have to do them to
fit available space at specific places that are dictated by the layout. Then they
have to put up with us pestering them (good-naturedly, of course!) about us needing
the artwork on real short notice. In spite of all this, we never hear
complaints; fan artists seem to be a hardy breed. At any rate, we're very grateful
for all the fine art contributions we publish each issue.}}
Walt Willis's remembrance of Arthur
Thomson brought to mind how truly phenomenal that quiet, unobtrusive man was. At
one party years ago, someone got out a large drawing pad and said, "Let's have an
artists' duel between ATom and Dave." This was like a duel between an elephant and
an ant. Arthur could draw quickly, seemingly without even thinking about it, and
each piece was good enough for professional print. My efforts were little better
than scribble, and took ten times as long to draw. At one point, I had drawn two
cartoons on a sheet of paper, of totally separate subjects. Arthur looked at them
for two seconds, and immediately drew a cartoon connecting the two! Like I said,
he was phenomenal.
At any rate, having earlier made
several downer remarks, I can at least say in all honesty that you finished with
your two best articles. Les Cole's and Richard Brandt's were both full of laughs,
well-written, and really enjoyable.
Martin Morse Wooster, Silver Spring, Maryland
I don't think being a second
generation fan is that unusual. I'm a decade older than Roxanne Smith-Graham, but
I grew up with plenty of copies of Astounding and Analog in the house.
My father began reading sf in 1934, when he discovered a copy of Amazing Stories
Quarterly in the trash and took it to high school with him. While he was never
active in fandom, my father was an active sf reader until John W. Campbell's death,
and it was thanks to him that I attended my first Washington Science Fiction
Association meeting, in 1961, when I was three. My father had co-written a letter
to Science with Robert A. Heinlein on why 'xenobiology' was a more correct
term than 'exobiology', and WSFA invited my father and his family to be guests of
honor at the WSFA Fourth of July picnic. Striving to contribute to the history of
fandom of the 1960s, I proceeded to "get losted" in the woods, and it took several
fire engine companies to find me. I would have been the lead story in the
Washington newspapers that day had it not been for a pesky Soviet cosmonaut named
Yuri Gagarin. As my first memory is of this event and my second is of being scared
by a Superman episode, I have been involved with sf as long as I can
remember.
In the letters column, it may well
be, as Kristin Thorrud argues, that the Norwegians, Finns, and Danes are as fannish
as the Swedes are. But Sweden is the only nation I know of that exported its fan
feuds to America and conducted them in English. They've also been producing
fannish zines for a long time; I bet in the fanhistory of the 1960s, Sweden will be
the only non-English speaking nation given extensive space.
{{
Not quite. There will also be 'extensive space' (as you put it) given to Japanese
and German fandoms (though much more information is presently needed about the
latter). Swedish fandom is fascinating, though, and we'll probably continue to
publish articles about it. }}
- - - - - - - - - -
Michael Walsh, Baltimore, Maryland
I just now got around to looking at
Mimosa #18 and saw Lloyd Penney's letter about banquets. His comment
about the the ConStellation crab feast banquet is greatly appreciated {{Mike was Chairman of 1983's worldcon, ConStellation }},
but there is a significant error that needs to be corrected, i.e.: "The con lost
its collective shirt on this banquet."
Actually we made money off of the
banquet.
The vendor we were required to deal
with quoted a set price for the particular banquet we wanted. To cover Guests of
Honor food, administrative overhead, etc., the cost to each banquet attendee was
adjusted accordingly. If anyone lost money it was the vendor, but I kind of doubt
it. With the right food and/or setting, a banquet can actually turn a tidy surplus
back to the con.
Oh, the sound of 1,000+ crab
mallets banging away at the same time was a sound to hear...
- - - - - - - - - -
We Also Heard From...
Harry Andruschak, Martha Beck, John Berry, John D. Berry, Mark Blackman, Pamela
Boal, William Breiding, Dennis Caswell, David Clark, Les Cole, Chester Cuthbert,
Rich Dengrove, Carolyn Doyle, Cathy Doyle, Kurt Erichsen, Sharon Farber, Tom Feller,
Jan Howard Finder, Steve Green, Deborah Hartle, Sam Helm, Dave Hicks, Irwin Hirsh,
Ben Indick, Ben Jason, Terry Jeeves, Steve Jeffery, Robert Kennedy, Dave Langford,
Roy Lavender, Mark Loney, Adrienne Losin, Sam Long, Heidi Lyshol, Murray Moore,
Julia Morgan-Scott, Pär Nilsson, Marc Ortlieb, Darroll Pardoe, Galen Peoples,
Lloyd Penney, Robert Peterson, Derek Pickles, Yvonne Rousseau, Tom Sadler, Leland
Sapiro, Julius Schwartz, Michael Shannon, Noreen Shaw, Roger Sims, Robert Whitaker
Sirignano, Roxanne Smith-Graham, Steve Sneyd, Elise Somers, Alan J. Sullivan,
Kristin Thorrud, Dorothy Tompkins, Taral Wayne, Henry Welch, Kevin Welch, Walt
Willis, Taras Wolanski, and Joe Zeff. Thanks to one and all!
Title illustration by Julia Morgan-Scott
Other illustrations by Gilliland & Rotsler, Joe Mayhew, Brad Foster,
Wiliam Rotsler, and Ray Allard
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