K48

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K18 – An APAzine for Pieces of Eight, November 1994, from A. Vincent Clarke, 16 Wendover Way, Welling, Kent, DA16 2BN

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UPDATE

Life has been fairly strenuous lately – I gave up painting the exterior of the house when I came to a not-too-bad section at the back, and went into garden-clearing instead. Some idea of the necessity of this you can gather from my discovering 3 six-feet/two metre apple-trees growing amongst the brambles, which I didn't know were there. Had a marvellous time in the Indian Summer, but now the weather's turned have added interior DIY to Jobs To Be Done as well.

Hardly touched any new fan or SF stuff during the last 2/3 months, even renewed the dates on library books and still read only one of 'em. Feels funny out here on the mundane fringe.

The one book I did read was Bob Shaw's Warren Peace, which is a sequel to Who Goes Here? Very very funny, more slapstick than the Pratchett books, but what makes it special to me were the fannish references. Even the dedication is To Charlotte and the rest of the Alabama branch of the Jophan family. On p.10 the hero invents a new acronym. 'Gafia', there's fan names, (mostly old-timers, Jeeves, Shorrock, etc.), and even an address which alludes to that of the late George Charters, an Irish fan – he edited THE SCARR, the title being an anagram of his surname. George used to live at No.3 Lancaster Avenue, but the road was so short that he could (and did) put 'No. 333333' as a return address and still get his mail.

Anyway, away with these senile mumblings on fandom past, let's get down to some comment.

PIECES OF EIGHT – Paul Kincaid

Thanks & farewell – you did well in especially difficult circumstances. Astonished you had in effect 4 volunteers to take over.

OMNIFORMIS 3 – Tanya Brown

These twitches must be very worrying – sincerely hope something useful will emerge from your CAT scan and EEG. Meanwhile, congratulations on the easy style and the good ear for dialogue – or is it a perfect memory?

PM ROUTINE BLUES – Andy Butler

Yep, it's chancy meeting old friends – people change as well as language (cf. your later dalliance with the word 'gay'). Tho' when I came back to fandom after 20 years away, there was only one former friend who disappointed me; the rest soon fell into the old routines, as you say.

Re 'gay', it's only in the last few years that the sexual connotation has come to the fore (eg. line of a popular song lyric of the past "Our hearts were young and gay", which was also a humorous book title), but as you say its other use stretches back to the 19th. century, when it seems to have been associated with female sexuality (eg. 'turn gay' – become a prostitute) rather than homo-sexuality. Interesting.

Ta for note on abridgeness (?) of the PB Tristram Shandy. I guess compression would also depend on the size of type used, in original and the PB.

COLD IRON – Roz Calverley

Interesting to read the dissection of comics, (and Mike Goulds), but no particular viewpoint to put forward.

STRANGE DEBRIS – Chris Carne

When you've got your life sorted out, happily employed etc., remind me to lend you some puns from the Master, Bob Shaw. All Northern Irish fans were punsters, Bob the best. Or perhaps the worst, eg. one quoted by Walt Willis: "While staying with friends Bob asked where the salt was, and they told him it was in a jar on the shelf. When he looked the jar had fallen over and the salt spilled out. This was it. The chance of a lifetime! "The salt, dear Brutus," he said, "lies not in the jar but on our shelves."

Walt also quotes Forry Ackerman, about an artist who kept defaulting on his obligation to produce a cover: "He's got ain'ts in his paints."

MARAUDER 55 – Ken Cheslin

Truly marvellous cover, amalgamation reigns supreme.

RYCT me: yes, it was Dave Langford who wrote An Account of a Meeting with Denizens of Another World

Yes, I should have made mention of Ron Bennett's Fan Directories. It must seem indescribably weird these days to think that you could list all SF fans in the country in one duplicated booklet. Things change.

But it wouldn't be an impossible task, even now, to list fanzine fans. A quick check on Pickersgill's RASTUS JOHNSON'S CAKEWALK, a supremely fanzine-orientated effort, shows just 100 readers for the issue, mostly British. Incidentally, PoE members make up 10% of this readership, just under half of us being named, and there's several ex-crew also.

As usual an interesting read, Ken, and very very hard to disagree with anything you write.

DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN – Jenny Glover

Marvellous piece of writing on a not-very-promising subject. Cool, clear, direct .... Yes, it's a good sign that you can be objective about Chesterton, even tho' his religiosity sticks in the craw. I recently bought a Complete Verse of Rudyard Kipling, and same considerations apply – difficult to accept that the hand that wrote Recessional also wrote The Female of the Species. But Kipling's rhythms are compelling, ie. I'd love to use them myself.

SILVER PENNIES – Helen Gould

Good writing (natch) but not much to inspire comment (there's caves at Chislehurst, about 6 miles from here, and I don't remember ever visiting them), except the stray mention of Peter Pinto, who produced some weird fanzines in the late '70s/early '80s – impeccably copiered hand-written stuff.

Bit awe-struck at this fierce determination to bear a child. As ever, wish you good fortune.

FRAGMENTS – Mike Gould

RYCT me – yes, I've been in Trafalgar Square at dusk, and the birds have been perching in their thousands on surrounding buildings, but I thought it odd in a dormitory suburb.

ROPE OF SAND – Brian Jordan

RYCT me: Thanks for thoughts on foxes. I had to clear that part of the garden, as it's the only safe place to have bonfires. As it happened, although the holes were big (and the spoil from them made a miniature Lunar landscape of that end of the garden), neighbours assured me that they were only hidey holes where the foxes could rest sometimes, not proper dens. Next door, they'd tunnelled under a garden shed!

Nope – not disturbed about rabies, as there's the whole width of Kent between 16WWW and the Chunnel. In any case, see that there's a scheme afoot in France (or maybe that should be 'in the air') whereby they're dropping from planes food impregnated with an anti-rabies serum onto parts where the foxes live. It's not the wild animals that one should beware of in this country, it's the damn fools who may smuggle pets through.

Thanks for news on old friends Shorrock and of course Terry Jeeves, tho' it took an effort to read even parts of the last two pages. Frankly, an awful font to use on an extended text.

RYCT Ken on diffidence in submitting story writing to a class, I suppose you could try a postal course? Friend Terry Hill (not now an active fan tho' he hangs on to his prozine collection) has a wife who's doing it by mail, and it turned out that the assessor was Syd Bounds, whom Terry recognised as a pre-war fan and author of many (regrettably) mediocre published SF stories.

Re. E-mail, Rob Hansen tells me that all four volumes of THEN have been put on E-mail by Dave Langford, tho' he doesn't know the access code. Marvellous idea, E-mail, but not for pensioners or the unemployed.

ANDMOREAGAIN – Paul Kincaid

Interesting account of the rush for REM, tho' your note that they (or it) sounds muddy and murky unless played LOUD is a bit odd. Re. waiting for the second day of release in future, wouldn't you then run the risk of it having been sold out?

Must be interesting to have a cartoonist in the family. Strangely grey reproduction. Duplicating by Roneo?

ARE YOU NOW... Kev McVeigh

A horrible experience eloquently told. Hope this essay will help relieve the trauma. Surprised, tho', that you've grown up without knowing that certain people are utterly stupid, and sometimes compound this with stupid aggressiveness. Hope this incident will fade away soon – telling it like it was may help.

ALL AT SEA – Pauline Plant

Interesting travelogue fragment, but you raise some searching questions with the para that ends the piece: It is strange how you wake up in your own bed and it was as if the holiday never happened. It fades so swiftly, like a dream, and all those tales are just scribbled words..... This puts into better words than I could the sort of philosophic outlook that's grown on me. Why bother to go on holiday when you can visit anywhere in books?

THE ARACHNO FILE – John D. Rickett

I dunno, doesn't seem natural to read only 3 pages of ARACHNO. Nice to see the excursion with Ken, tho' is there really a drink (beer?) called Old Tennis Shoes?

RYCT me: yes, I've read Yardley's American Black Chamber, knew of the Poker book but no interest in the subject, having better ways of disposing of spare cash.

Ta for the note on the London meeting. Is it quieter than the standard first Thursday meeting?

THE STRUTHIAN PERSPECTIVE – Theo Ross

Re. the wistful desire to do a Struthian Retrospective, I've always thought that it'd be a Good Idea to construct an anthology of PoE writing, not just for general egoboo but to hand out to prospective crew. Maybe the new Cap'n will take some steps in that direction?

RYCT me: Yes, I was less than fair to Houseman as you say – I've also had my wrist slapped by Dave Langford to whom I sent that particular 'K' because it mentioned him. Shows you I'm short of a classical or even literate education.

Yes, I too follow the bought-if-seen policy of book collecting, leading to shelves sagging with unread volumes, tho' am trying to break myself of the habit. But I'm running a bit short of humour & fantasy examples for the little essays. There are some books, such as Gullible's Travels by W. Hodgson Burnet (or Burnett – book-cover gives one version, title-page the other), a satire on 'Little-Brit' politics c.1918 (nowhere explicitly stated), which I wouldn't recommend to anyone, as well as the probable impossibility of obtaining it. Nothing seems so un-funny as out-of-date politics.

I may go on to books which are not meant to be funny – but are – such as Through The Sun In An Airship. Or The Perfect Planet, which starts with the heroes becoming lost in underground workings in Britain and emerging at the bottom of an Australian mineshaft 5 years later.

By the way, for the benefit of you and other book-orientated PoEans, I've at long last made contact with Ned Brook, an American who is One Of Us. He produces a fanzine, IT GOES ON THE SHELF, which is full of book reviews of old and odd books. How about Honk If You Are Jesus, an Australian book "about a lady doctor's involvement in a project to clone Jesus Christ from tissue fragments left on one of the nails from the True Cross" ? Ken Cheslin is the only other PoEan I know of who gets IGOTS... will lend a copy if you're interested.

Re 'clean' futures, of course they spawned the exact opposite – dirty alleys full of computer junk etc. in cybernetic-punk SF, and such films as Bladerunner. Don't think things will improve in the future unless human nature is educated to be tidy, caring of the environment, etc. That'll be the day.

By the way – Broken Arrow was a 1950 film, just right to give an extra shine to those rose-tinted spectacles.

PENINSULA WITH MINUTE APERTURES – Maureen K. Speller

I suppose the title has no reference to Hol(e)y Island?

Interesting reviews. Reincarnation is a fascinating concept – I know several people I'd like to see 'come back' as beetles or wood-lice – but I'd love to hear of a new-born baby that could speak. But maybe that's too coarse a view – maybe it's just the spiritual potential that's passed on? And of course, in that case it's just a matter of Faith if you believe the attitude is in-built or acquired.

Interesting cuttings – like Theo, I don't get newspapers, tho' bit of a news-freak. But even that's subject to change; a new London radio station gives news every ten minutes. I find that even I can get super-saturated. And they have a habit of repeating small breaks, equivalent to newspaper columns, I suppose, every two or three hours for a period.

TRICHINOPOLY – Barry Traish

You did very well with the help for your grandmother. I don't think at even about three times your age I'd fancy putting up brick walls. I shouldn't be too downcast about the 'time it has taken out of my life' – experience is invaluable.

Enlightened views on Christianity – suggest that some time you check publications of the Rationalist Free Press. I seem to remember I rather dubiously accepted the Christian creed until I read H.G. Wells at about 10 or 11 years of age.

I see The Hacker Crackdown you mention has been remaindered. Lost the reference, but it was in a remainder catalogue. Doesn't mean anything derogatory – maybe the publishers wanted to issue a PB edition.

Been a lot of muttering locally – we've got pavements being torn up by cable layers, and tree roots are being destroyed all over. As it happens the Tory group which was running the Council was overthrown by a combined LibLab combination (after ghod knows how many years), and there may be changes, tho' I'd guess legal contracts have been exchanged and can't be revoked.

CD-ROM a marvellous idea, but not for pensioners and unemployed!

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AFTERTHOUGHT

Re. the 'Lost the reference' above.... Not the sort of thing I usually do (with 7000 fanzines, hundreds of books, etc., must keep some kind of system), but had a bright idea t'other day. Was gloomily contemplating putting up more shelves to hold – in the main – unsorted letters, books, general rubbish, when one of the local supermarkets offered some cheap large plastic boxes, with the added virtue of their being stackable.

So I had this brilliant idea – buy lots of boxes (ended up at twenty-quids worth) and shove everything in them until the rest of the house gets sorted out.

Which is why I'm now looking at a box (one of a dozen) in which there's mixed a dozen copies of IT GOES ON THE SHELF, price News from the local ASDA super market, a local free newspaper cutting I'm passing on, a price list of books – theme: wit and humour – from someone in Somerset, price lists from Ferret Fantasy and Fantasy Centre, TRAPDOOR, Making Book, by Teresa Nielsen Hayden borrowed from Chuch Harris (reprinted from various fanzines), The Rose Expert, borrowed from next-door (got to make decisions about roses in the garden strangled by creepers).....no, I won't inflict the whole contents of the box on you but believe me this was the least filled box, just stuff swept up from word-processor desk, settee, etc.

Was it a good idea to buy stacking boxes instead of putting up staid 'n' steady ol' bookshelves? You can lose stuff in the accumulations.

Ask me after the coming winter, when I hope to sort through a few boxes. But it'll be handy if I get fed up with the whole bunch and tip them into a bonfire.

Anyone else had experience of boxing instead of shelving?

VINCE