K30

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K30, an APAzine for PIECES OF EIGHT, Dec. '92, from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN."I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library" – Jorge Luis Borges.

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UPDATE

Any eagle-eyed perfectionists please note – the number of the November 'K' should have been '29', not '28'. I realised this when I came back from the post box. Talk about esprit de l'escalier...

COMMENTS ON NOV. MAILING

COTTAGE PIE No.6 – Ian Bambro

Ummm...interesting in how you wrote it – which was excellent – but less so in new insights, aspects and general "this is a picture of the Grand Bazaar" detail. Also a little obscure about the transition from Gatwick to the ship. Presume this will be covered if you get around to writing the thing in full detail. But welcome, welcome, welcome back, anyway. We missed you.

The use of 17 cpi. type makes me wonder if I could get away with it, especially in a double column. Might try it later in this 'K' if I find space short.

STRANGE DEBRIS 8 – Chris Carne

I feel like a rough and ignorant barbarian when I read Foucalt's thoughts on discourse. I think, perhaps, of starting a conversation or discourse in the atmosphere of a fan meeting at the Hamilton. Is this the institution (?) that 'solemnises beginnings' (is clearing the throat and saying "er" OK?), 'surrounds them with a circle of attention and silence' (in the Hamilton a scream at the top of your voice might be heard 3 metres away), 'imposes ritualised forms on them' ( after I've spoken someone answers?), 'as if to make them more easily recognisable at a distance' (someone at the other side of the room sees me turning purple and frothing?)?.

Walks away with a thud of hobnailed boots.

RYCT Sue – "Are the practices that produce gendered writing the same...practices that produce gendered bodies?". I think the ritualised response would be "Would you care to rephrase that question?"

Desert Island Movies? The Third Man (Carol Reed); Singin' In the Rain (Kelly/Donen); Fantasia (Disney); Tales of Hoffman (Powell/Pressburger); Genevieve (Henry Cornelius); Top Hat (Mark Sandrich); Guys and Dolls (Mankiewicz); Rhapsody in Blue (Irving Rapper); King Kong (Merriam C. Cooper); and another I can't remember the title of at the moment, but was an up-to-date adaption of the old humorous book Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House

"But these are all frivolous!"

Sure. You don't think I want a lot of heavy sombre thought-provoking stuff about the human condition on a desert island, do you?

"And no science fiction"?

Pardon?

Love the new lightbulb jokes. How many APA members does it take to change a lightbulb? One, but the rest comment on it for the next three months.

MARAUDER No.11 and astonishing assorted paperwork – Ken Cheslin

RYCT me: What did we do in OMPA? Sometime when I have a few days to spare I'll dissect a whole mailing for you. But I, for one, notice the difference. Through OMPA's early years there was lots going on in fandom at large that was commented upon. Paul Kincaid's account of the HastiCon would be a good example – and something I admired. Nowadays we write mostly personal stuff. I like to let other people's mailing comments provoke my own. I need that spur sometimes.

I used the word 'memorabilia' to describe the London Bridge sale (which I haven't been to since) because although it could be described as 'junk' it was specialised junk, as distinct from the boot fair stuff. Things that people collect – postcards, stamps, war items, etc. You could just as easily call the items in a museum 'junk'.

I was chatting on the phone to Rob Hansen on this subject, both agreeing that people (ie. us) who collected sf would also probably collect other things at some time – eg., we both had remnants of fossil collections, simple ammonites and suchlike, for instance. The talk drifted to book collecting, and neither of us could imagine being the sort of person who didn't. And yet – in the house where I was struggling towards adolescence there weren't more than a dozen books. But one of them was Thea Von Harbou's METROPOLIS, which I struggled through at very early age. Wonder if that was the initial spark?

RYCT Dop: Saw Top of The Pops with your son in it. As usual, wondered what modern youngsters saw in the stuff. I sometimes listen with what I'm sure must be an air of disbelief as contestants on a quiz show rattle off names of records and groups. How can they tell the difference?

RYCT Jenny: One of the saddest sights on central London streets is to see cyclists wearing smog masks. I confine my own cycling to the suburbs, which is not quite so bad.

'Heather & TGF' ran along well in spite of the lack of action this instalment.

The calendars are very good, tho' I might query the wisdom of you doing two in one year – haven't you ever heard of the Conservation of Energy? Alan Hunter's style is extraordinary – almost Finlayesque at times eg. July. Some of the pictures have a dream-like quality, illustrations for fantasies which were never written. He and Borges would have got on well.

And Olaf continues to range across time and space. Thanks, Ken.

K28 (but should be 29) – self

My life has been moving with, as I remember some American simile putting it, the speed of molasses through Reykavik, (Perelman?),so nothing to add except that the Hamilton seems to be the resting place of London fandom at present. It's at the Broad St. entrance to Liverpool St. station. But it's a weird feeling to be in a minority in a pub (us and Them) when for so many years we more-or-less took over for a night.

I JUST ROLLED BACK THE SHEETS etc. – Dop

Where the hell do you find time for all these activities – University, books, CDs, radio, Net-News, etc.? Your comments entertaining.

Re. "visual distress" caused by Escher illos. on T-shirts, had you any in mind? I'm thinking not so much of his tricky hallucinatory stuff, but, for instance, the creepy Moebius Band II, insects crawling around a lattice-work Moebius strip.

DAY FOR NIGHT – Paul Kincaid

JDR speaks for us all – so sorry to hear of your Mother's passing and the distress caused. It's astonishing that you can write of the event as you do. A born author.

RYCT Ken: I believe both you and Maureen are still using a duplicator? If so, then I can do any illos that you want to reproduce on electronic stencils – just paste (well, gum) them into 'wax' stencils.

RYCT me: Forgetability of Aldiss stories; I've always thought that I was alone in shuddering a little when I ran across BA in an anthology. I put this down to the metafictional aspect – author intrusion, if not specifically then the atmosphere of "I'm being clever and funny so just read me spinning a story for you". To me his best work was the editing of SCIENCE FICTION ART and the authorship of HOTHOUSE, a yarn where his characters came alive even in the fantastic environment. I might also add that his very first yarn, non-sf, called THE BRIGHTFOUNT DIARIES, autobiography of a bookshop assistant, is also free of the artificiality that crops up in his later stuff.

RYCT Sue: re. Sign – yes, one would have thought that it would have been a universal language more extensive than Esperanto, Volapuk and others. Yet we have American Sign and British Sign and both countries allegedly speak the same language. Would like to hear more from Darroll.

GALANTY 6 – Derek Pickles

And I didn't even show Derek such London sights as Forbidden Planet, the South Bank complex or the Fantasy Book Centre....

RYCT JDR – Ahah – I hadn't thought about the ease of reading banks of clock-face dials. Yes, they'd definitely score there.

RYCT Maureen: I'll be interested to read other (and younger!) folk's reactions to your paddling pool 'diatribe', because I agree with every word of it. Even in this quiet suburb you get morons vandalising public utilities. There's a near-by hill where, some years ago, a wooden seat was installed half-way up for the convenience of the elderly. It was smashed within a very short time, and no one has had the heart to replace it.

Re. the explanation of BAFF, etc., it occurred to me to wonder if there was an opening for more abbreviations/acronyms in APAs. We have Re Your Comment To, also Read And Enjoyed But No Comment, but are there others? AWEYSSNC? Agree With Everything You Say So No Comment? FTBBPIJM? Found This Boring But Probably Its Just Me? WORE? Worthy of Reprinting Elsewhere? WDYFTTTDIK? Where Do You Find The Time To Do It Ken? IDMTBUB – I Don't Mean To Be Unfriendly But....?

Would be interested to see imports from other APAs – I'm sure they have their own acronyms. No reason why they shouldn't be used as long as everyone understood them. We might find it necessary to print a small exegesis in TTST each month.

THE ARACHNO FILE No.24 – J.D. Rickett

So you too have had a vulpine visitation. Marvellous how they've spread – tho' thinking about my own back garden where foxes bark until 2am. on summer's nights I suppose I should keep my mouth shut. (I wonder if that will ever go in the Double Glazing Salesman's Manual – "And of course, Madam, you won't hear cars and foxes – if you keep your windows closed...")

RYCT me on Vonnegut. Never did get around to reading Player Piano and no, no, said he hastily, it's too late now. And the negativism's reinforced when you say it was published in the '50's as SF. My italics so keep your hands off.

But not really inspired by Vonnegut, I wonder if there's any mileage in remembering the worst stuff? I ask because I just bought a Digit Book (yes, same publisher as your butterfly opus and they also published A.P. Herbert, Edgar Wallace, Leslie Charteris and Dashiel Hammett) published in '63 called THE NIGHT OF THE DEATH RAIN by one Luan Ranzetta, described as 'Horror Science Fiction'. It certainly is, and how it escaped Dave Langford's excursions into the truly awful I don't know. I doubt that my stomach would allow me to re-read it, but as an appropriate example, thinking of spiders:

'Dick frowned. "What do you mean, Dupont? We haven't landed in a foreign country or something?" He laughed to reassure the others but Colin remained grave.

"It could be just that!" He pointed eastwards. "See those steel angles sticking up into the sky? They're all over the place. I've been trying to figure out what they can be, but I'm completely baffled. They look like spiders reaching out, probing like our biggest radar-grids. I've never seen anything like them!"

"Maybe someone else has been experimenting, and we haven't been let in on the secret. It's possible."

Actually, they've been transported from Earth to a satellite of Jupiter.... 'A chance in a million had guided the glass globe to the satellite, and the speed of the machine must have deteriorated so much that it almost glided on to the surface of the satellite's ground, preventing any severe shock to the passengers....'

Anyway, back to reality (of a sort). So we all know what Coade Stone is now, though I'd have liked to have learnt more about Mrs. Coade, who in that era (18th. cent.) must have been a formidable lady. But when you say you had the information from 'Brewer', can you specify? Is it the Dictionary of Phrase & Fable?

Liked the penultimate page cartoon, but note no artist's name given. Tush.

THE STRUTHIAN PERSPECTIVE – Theo Ross

Very very interesting on your early years – what a good memory you have, and the power to re-create people and places in writing. I really enjoyed the account of the meeting with Naomi Mitchison (a lady I've never read), even with the touch of mysticism. But it's odd that you hadn't seen a picture of her on a book-jacket, for instance, and could thus recognise her.

RYCT John: I thought I had a fairly good sense of history, but I just thought :"240 pence to the pound". And you know, it sounds absurd. But re. the Americans and kilometres, isn't the common contraction 'klicks'?

You forgot to mention that Prince Albert the Good appears to have been responsible for the current wave of Christmas trees and festive good cheer – something not easy to forgive.

Lovely cartoon with the cat – marvellous economy of line.

RYCT Dop: I have 19 minute radio interview with Tom Lehrer on audio-cassete – I knew of him from about '58 (US fan connections)but this is about 15 years old (I think), given when his show Tom Foolery opened in London. I'll dub a copy to anyone who sends a cassette.

RYCT Maureen: I didn't jump on Maureen over that comment about WW2 being 'remote in its own time' because, as far as I could interpret a rather oddly-phrased thought, it rang true. However much the consequences of events affect one, anything that happened before you were born is History. I was born four years after World War One, and it might just as well been four hundred years; it was outside my personal experience.

RYCT Kev and the value of Protest Marches. I'm afraid that it all boils down to the simple fact that 'it seems right at the time'. As you infer in the brief mention of Serbia, we can throw away money and lives for causes which history ultimately renders meaningless, but who's to know the future? Certainly not sf readers.

TRAVELS IN HYPER-REALITY – Maureen Speller

Who was it said that relatives were wished upon you but friends you picked yourself, or words to that effect? As a person without siblings I've often wondered what it must be like. Reports from other people seem to be very mixed.

Nice one about the restaurant person asking if you were a witch and your reply.

Thanks for you research into the butterfly problem. Seems to be solved. Er – next?

Don't think I have The Stars and Under, but sounds like a good anthology, and, yes, there weren't many female sf writers around until after STAR TREK started, Sept. '66. Draw your own wild theories from this.

Doesn't seem to be so many comment hooks as usual in TIH-R, but doubtless someone will prove me wrong. Smooth writing.

THE LOG OF THE GREAT SKUA – Speller & Kincaid

Yes, that's precisely what drives me from my cocoon – food, boredom, the imperative need for stamps. Nicely put. I thought I could get away with scores of 6p stamps (4 for 1st. class, 6 for next class up, etc.) but it doesn't work in the higher categories.

RYCT Theo: Snap! Bought Twentieth Century Poets only recently. There's an impressive tribute to Eliot from Anthony Burgess in Urgent Copy: When the news of Eliot's death came through, commercial television had just presented an abridgement of Middleton's The Changeling. Watching it, I thought that this could never have happened if Eliot hadn't opened our eyes to the greatness of the Jacobeans. Spike Milligan, on a comic TV show, could say 'Not with a banger but a wimpy' and most of the audience caught the reference. Weather forecasters would joke about April being the cruellest month...."

Re. your ref. to The Warren. Can you still walk along and pick ammonites out of the cliff face or have they all been bagged? Used to do it 20 years ago or more. I've always had the vague hope that someday more of the cliff would collapse and reveal a brontosaurus or something similar.

RYCT me on 'square bashing'. Yes, it used to bother the hell out of me too – the opposing forces of discipline versus the glorious solo initiative which gained you medals.

Re. further comment on pins, yes I was probably thinking of brooches instead of actual safety pins, but I can't see how pins, naked point and all, could hold clothing together except temporarily . As for pin-cushions, I thought these were for hat pins? (Wish I hadn't started this – I don't give a hole in one's pocket for fashion or dress in general).

The whole canal boat saga interesting, tho' it would have been improved by a map or two. You two write well together.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR – Brian Stovold

Post 74?

Nice light stuff, but an old-stay-in-cocoon (thanks, Maureen) like me could do with a map of what appears to be most of Northern England. I see that if these accounts of canal-travel and excursions by road carry on I shall have to pick up a 2nd.-hand AA book of maps somewhere. I envy all that surplus energy too. You haven't left many comment hooks, tho' I wish you good luck with the kitten – trust you will get it any vaccinations needed, and have an anti-tetanus one yourself.

MS. SELENEOUS – Sue Thomason

This was one of the most interesting bits in the mailing – it was marvellous to see the gradual transformation of self-doubt in the first few paragraphs to the musician triumphant in the last couple. And you've no idea how much I envy the musical ability. We had a piano in the house when I was young as my mother could play after a fashion, but she was incapable of teaching me and with other things intervening I just put it off for a few years...and a few years. And now , it seems, for ever.

But on the other hand I've managed to acquire an overall liking for all types of music (except the dreariest pop) and count myself lucky (tho' I jib a bit at Stockhausen and the grittier Bartok).

As for cleaning the kitchen floor, don't let it weigh on your mind – if you can't scatter newspaper around, then use the time you're washing it to think about suitable replies to Paul Kincaid. Also, I would recommend THE COMPLETE BOOK OF ABSOLUTELY PERFECT HOUSEKEEPING by Elinor Goulding Smith (American '56, but still largely relevant) which you may be able to pick up from the library or your local charity shop. It has all sorts of answers for the frustrated house-person, and, as you may guess from the title, it's largely humorous.

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[[SPACE FOR ARTWORK]]

Just so this won't be an unillustrated 'K', above is the 'creepy' Escher mentioned previously. It's in shades of reddish-brown.

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