K1

[February 1990]

WHEN I WAS YOUNG – er – YOUNGER

I'm pretty ancient – my beard keeps on getting entangled with the printer – so you'll have to make allowances if I sometimes reminisce, especially on joining an APA. The first (and only) APA of which I've been a member was OMPA – the OFF-TRAILS MAGAZINE PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION, which was only natural as I was a co-founder.

For years Ken Bulmer and I had discussed the possibility of starting a British APA. Ken was a former FAPA member which had been founded in the States before the War and which at that time (1954) had a waiting list of 25 or so. Could an APA work in this country? We made lists of active fans, and decided we might possibly get 15 or 16 to join.

"I suppose we'd better circulate every fan we know with details of a proposed Constitution and see what they think" I said. "Nonsense! We make up one based on FAPA, and present it to them – a fait accompli", said Ken. "This is no time for democracy, dear boy." (To this day Ken calls me "Dear Boy", presumably on the grounds of his being one year older.)

So, greatly daring, and making due allowance for future expansion, we set a membership level of 25, told intending members to submit 28 copies (3 spare,) and circulated everyone we knew. Ken was President, I was Association Editor, and as an afterthought, we told Chuch Harris that he would be Treasurer. No messing.

Soon parcels began arriving at 16WWW...and arriving...and arriving. Ten...fifteen....twenty. We were dumbcroggled. We knew exactly how Dr. Frankenstein felt as his monster stirred to life before his eyes.

Ken came around to 16WWW on Mailing Day, and we sorted out the mailings all over the front room carpet. As we were doing so, there came a knock at the front door. Another parcel, from Liverpool fan John Roles, who'd hesitated and hesitated, not believing the scheme would get off the ground. We made a swift count....28 different zines in, over 30 fans wanted to join, and then there was the Keeper of the Printed Books at the British Museum. The latter gentleman had taken to sending those fan-eds he could trace little cards reminding each one that According To Law the British Museum was entitled to a copy of all magazines, amateur or not, published in this country.

And we had only 28 piles of 'zines. We were terribly law-abiding in those days, and in any case it seemed a shame to deprive the Museum of a historical record of the first British APA, so we extracted each member's own 'zine from his parcel and made up 29 mailings. It seemed logical that each member would have kept his own copy, anyway. (I say 'his' for convenience – the first mailing included 3 of the opposite sex.) The other fans, who hadn't sent in 'zines, went on to a short waiting list.

We filled two large suitcases with the mailings, staggered down to the Post Office, posted them, shook hands with a sense of fulfilment, and put the membership limit up to 37.


FANDOM STILL AHEAD OF WORD PROCESSORS!

One thing I miss on the Amstrad 8256 – the ability that an ordinary typewriter has to make a 'quasi-quote' – a dash under a quotation mark using just one back-space, indicating that said quotation may not be strictly according to what was actually said, but conveys the sense. A very useful fannish invention. Oh, I know that it's possible to do it with about 16 extra key strokes, but......Anyone any ideas? You could go down in (fan) history!


SHELL WE DANCE?

Walking around Woolworths t'other day with a just-collected pension scorching my pocket, I came across some music cassettes in a 'Sale' basket. It'd been a long time since I bought some background music, audible wallpaper, and, old fart that I am, I picked a cassette with music by Johann Strauss II on it – 'The Blue Danube.' Taking it home, I played it once or twice and found it satisfactory, tho' I wished there was more than 61 minutes on it. But then I happened to dislodge the folded card in the cassette case which contains a description of the contents and a fancy cover, and spotting something inside, opened it up.

No, no, Chuck, it didn't contain Naughty Nineties pin-ups, or even an advert for a double-glazing firm. What it had were minute pictures of 30 different seashells, with a Key List giving the names, in Latin, of the shells ( No. 1 – Terebra maculata; No.2 – Janthina violacea etc.) After each one was a cassette catalogue number, the title and the composer. Unbelieving, I looked at the front of the card, the cover, and saw a large blue-ish shell pictured there which was noted as a Haliotis iris on the list.

This would be OK for a musical fisherman, I suppose, but it leaves me at a loss. It's a cultural step-up from boxes of matches with jokes on the back, or a stamp booklet with a tasteful illo for The Mikado on the cover, but the whole thing seems a bit bizarre. What next? Pictures of Ming Dynasty porcelain on the back of soap-powder boxes? Jeffrey Archer novels with supplements featuring classic stamps? 'Learn about Wagner' on a Kylie Minogue album cover?

COMMENTS ON JAN '90 MAILING

Ian has kindly sent me this, except for Jenny's 'zine – he didn't have enough – so:

SOMEWHERE B 4½: "Time has this volatile quality". Yes, yes, and never more so than when you intend to do some fanning ... and intend ... and intend. It's been even worse for me over the last few months. I started to feel that I hadn't got the energy to do anything. I'd been taking pills for high blood pressure, and had half-expected some changes, but this was worse than I imagined. But – both Walt Willis and John Brunner had suffered in the same way, and after arguments with their respective doctors had received a combination of pills that seemed to restore them. The trouble was a classic Catch-22 situation, though. I had to get up enough energy and determination to argue with the doctor in the first place.

But soon after Xmas I had my chance. She was heavily pregnant, and I don't know if it was motherly feelings or being too weak to dismiss me, but I came on heavy ("Are you thinking of – suicide?" she asked), and I got some action. Not, though, a change of pill. She sent me to a local hospital for a blood test. Two days later she rang me. "I have the result of your blood test" she said. "You're short of potassium."

"Potassium?"

"Yes, potassium. Call in at the surgery – I'm making out a prescription for some potassium pills for you."

Could I be suffering from a rather casual diet? I looked at the BUPA handbook (50p from a local charity shop). "Potassium. Essential to the diet. Can be found in avocados, bananas, apricots, potatoes and other foods." The book fell from my trembling fingers ... well, no, not really, but the mental effect was there. Could it be that my careless switching of my diet from potatoes to rice because the latter was easier be the trouble? I went out and bought the potassium tablets and 5lb. of potatoes.

Maybe it was psychological, but within 3 days I was feeling better than for months. One of the first things I did was to drop a card to Ian asking to join POE.

Thus the title of this fanzine. I owe it all to "K" – potassium.

LOLLYGAGGING 27: Sorry, Chuck, not too fond of your First Publisher Version 2 font; I think it's the way the ascenders don't match the descenders in size, and some of the letters (lower case 'x', 'v', 's', upper-case 'M') are horrible. Beautiful reproduction, tho', including the art-work, the celebrated wossname on the bacover, etc. Now I'm actually producing a 'zine again I may go in for the DTP outfit Microdesign 2 – been looking for an excuse.

Saw DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID, and thought it was clever and funny for the first 15 minutes. After that it was predictable. I suppose to me the most enjoyable film at Xmas was THIRD MAN, seen for the umpteenth time. I remember when it first came out I stayed away from the cinema – something so popular just couldn't be any good, I thought. Then I noticed that the 'For Sale' columns of EXCHANGE & MART were filling up with adverts for zithers, and, intrigued, caught the film on a return run in a suburban cinema. Instantly hooked.

Cons. In November I was having a long talk with Geri Sullivan, the American fan who helped organise their last CORFLU (a fanzine fan's Con., similar to our MEXICON) and we were in agreement that in this country we'd about reached the limit in the size of Cons. If you're going to have 1000+ at a general Con., it becomes disasterville – not enough large hotels around, organisers sweating over the programme instead of enjoying themselves, too many programme items in a frantic desire to please everyone, etc etc. Far better to have small Cons – 400 max. – on a single theme. We haven't got the massive hotels enjoyed Over There. And even then – I remember asking Ted White once how the fanzine fans lived in the midst of a US World Con. "Oh, we have our own small Con inside the bigger one" he replied. From which you may also gather that I'm – well, not exactly disenchanted, but not very enchanted with World Cons.

TOSCA: Interesting, Peter-Fred. You don't actually say how Christina got converted, as it were – was it conscious cultural uplift? – but it reminds me (here he goes again!) that at the age of 17 or so, a slack-jawed spotty-faced lad (we didn't have teen-agers in those distant times), I was happily listening to the pop of the day, humming the tunes (yes, shows you how far back it was – we had tunes) when twiddling the radio knobs I came across a proper orchestra. Suddenly it hit me. This was real music! I made a mental note when the announcer gave details at the end of the piece, and it was just as well I did, in a way, because I haven't heard it again for 50 years. I can't now remember the form, I think it was a concerto, but it was called Jerusalem by a Swiss composer of Jewish parentage named Bloch. (No, not related). A very minor composer, it appears – I had to get some of these facts from an encyclopedia. But it's weird that hearing it entirely changed my listening habits.

As for opera, I find it very hard to listen to one as a whole. The 'pop' arias, the set pieces, yes; I can sit entranced by Wagner, Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, Borodin and the rest – in short doses, but I really feel that the essential absurdity of the story lines get in the way of appreciation of opera as a rounded artistic experience. This is of course personal; Clive James, talking of opera in GLUED TO THE BOX says:

"Opera began as a democratic art. In Italy it still is: you can stand at the back of the gods during a production of Andrea Chenier and watch truck drivers all around you mouthing the words along with the singers. ((Don't know how he knew they were truck-drivers...spanners sticking out of their back pockets?)) The economic conditions of the pre-television twentieth century tended to put live opera out of reach of the wider public. Now television has democratised it again – which doesn't mean that all people will end up wanting it....."

I'll tell you some other time how I became obsessed by an operetta. Anyway, you're not alone – Harry Warner, the old-time US doyen of loccers, is a well-known opera nut. By the way, I'm not a strict classics man – on the cassette-player at this very moment is a ripe bit of N'Orleans jazz – Firehouse Five + Two.

FROST COG: I get a packet of Xmas labels from the Spastics Society every year. Unasked for and unwanted. It raises a sort of dull resentment, especially in these days of increasing postage costs, that they should send out thousands – hundreds of thousands? – of these, but I suppose some statistician has calculated that 'X' despatches get them 'Y' returns, and 'Y' is greater than 'X' by a sufficient amount.

That was an interesting tit-bit about the Imperial, Birmingham, being the last port of call for incompetent managers – sounds vaguely libellous too. I was thinking that it would be a good little point for Rob Hansen to pick up for his history of fandom, but on second thoughts......

BRINGING THE NEWS FROM NOWHERE: I always thought story-telling was for the benefit of illiterates, children too young to read, and the blind (or similar). But I remember seeing an increasing number of 'talking-book' type cassettes in the local stationers/ 'book' shop (I put it in inverted commas as I have more reading matter here at 16WWW than they do, but never mind), so I guess that there's a Trend. Does it Foreshadow The Abandonment of Reading? sez he: we and the US have 8% – 10% functionally illiterate ("Functionally illiterate people are unable to make their full contribution to society, or to join in wealth creation." – 'Don't Tax Reading'). I keep on thinking of that type of sf we used to call 'GALAXY'-type....a trend building into a massive social change (GRAVY PLANET, GLADIATOR-AT-LAW, SEARCH THE SKY, etc). Yesterday – Story telling.. Today – TV/Video. Tomorrow – She reads?

Your regret that the C.S. Lewis adaptions on TV didn't meet expectations was echoed by self recently, writing for a minuscule fanzine circulating in a local pub. My particular beef was cinema films – why did they never ever stick to the story? Amongst others I quoted from the Pohl's SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES IN FILM:

Harry Harrison, the author has said "Two people, Charles Heston and one other, for five years wanted to do Make Room, Make Room as a film. MGM said 'Aw no. What's important about overpopulation? No-one cares about overpopulation. That's not interesting. Can't do it.' So they got a screen writer and he said "The world doesn't care about overpopulation so, what we'll do, we'll bring in cannibalism. They'll eat that up, you know." So MGM did Soylent Green because they thought they were doing a cannibalism picture.

I also quoted John W, Campbell Jnr. talking of the original Thing From Another World – "maybe someday they'll try making my original story into a movie" and in general damned adaptions root and branch. Whereupon the editor of this little zine, a young neo with the milk of Star Trek hardly dry on his lips, said simply "What's good in a book isn't always good on film."

MARAUDER: I've already written direct as you know, Ken, not knowing the potassium would inspire me to join POE so soon, so I'll just remark that I feel passionately against the horrible school-teaching conditions you outline. "Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe." (Wells). In regard to decimalisation, I was actually behind a shop counter when it was introduced, and teaching the customers all about new pennies etc. made it easier.....for me. The units of measurement are more difficult – I still tend to think in thousandth's of an inch for small sizes, and confronted by, say, 10mm., I automatically think 3/8ths of an inch – but what really confuses me is celsius/centigrade. All my life I've thought of 80 degrees as being the temperature on a hot summer's day, and now to be told by Michael Fish and others that I'm experiencing 27 degrees or whatever confuses me. Makes me feel colder, too.

Fanzine stories into prozine publication: Two stories from the Willis SLANT were bought for US prozines and, if it counts, some critical reviews by Damon Knight in the Willis/Harris HYPHEN went into his IN SEARCH OF WONDER. There may be others, sez he vaguely.

"I would dearly like to get my hands on the OMPA files....(then) hand them over to Vince...." Thanks for the kind thought, but...files? There was an official OFF TRAILS magazine, giving membership details, Presidential messages and the like, and the fanzine library has a file of these stretching from Mailing 23 (March '60) to Mailing 76 (Jan. '75). These are in the library courtesy of POE's own Chuck, who had them from Terry Jeeves. I, too, would dearly love to get more OFF TRAILS at either end, tho' I do have a summary of the first five year's records.

But if you mean the actual mailings....one of the fan tragedies of my life is that at one time I had the first 5 years OMPA mailings packed away in an orange-box....and when I went to look for them on getting back into fandom ('81), they were missing – roughly 600 fanzines. ("An orange-box?") I have 4 or 5 complete mailings, but that's all. I know a person who reckons there are some years-worth stacked away at home, but I can't really press the individual when I'm actually asking for a sort of donation.

Thought the last page (advert) was very good – origin?

SINGULAR EVENTS etc: Through some administrative error (hi, Ian!), I had only 2 pages of this, but I saw some good writing and no whining. Maybe I had the wrong two pages? I don't see anything wrong ('self-indulgent whining') in taking a look at the dark side, as long as you remember that the bright side of the human race is still there, in spite of Ceausescu and US TV audiences. There's a greater awareness of the world, of moral issues, of sheer consciousness now than when I was your age (not long ago, historically speaking), and it's growing. This may be due to the spread of television; no one who saw it, for instance, can forget that lone figure defying the tanks in the Chinese uprising, a good deal more dramatic than reading of it in cold print. On the other hand, the 'discovery' of excesses in Roumania shows that even now one can be surprised by the finding of discreetly hidden government embarrassments, as we were in '45 when Allied troops found Nazi death-camps.

No.1 – Feb. '90 – Produced on an Amstrad 8256, LS2.16 'Modern' type, electrostencilled on a Roneo so old that it hasn't got a Mark number (so is perhaps Mark 1,) duplicated on a Gestetner 230. AVC

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Vince Clarke's APAzines
Contents

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Notes and Queries
K1
K2
K3
K4
K5
K6
K7
K8
K9
K10
K11
K12
K13
K14
K15
K16
K17
K18
K19
K20
K21
K22
K23
K24
K25
K26
K27
K28
K29
K30
K31
K32
K33
K34
K35
K36
K37
K38
K39
K40
K41
K42
K43
K44
K45
K46
K47
K48
K49
K50
K51
K52
K53
K54
K55
K56
K57
K58 to K69
K70
Books About SF Continued
From K??
Vincentian 1
Vincentian 2
Vincentian 3