ARGENTUS LoCs

Issue Two
Issue One Locs

Illo by Sheryl Birkhead

 Sheryl Birkhead
rich brown
Brad W. Foster 
E.B. Frohvet
Jukka Halme
Jerry Kaufman
Joseph T. Major
Lloyd Penney
Milt Stevens
 Henry L. Welch
Ted White 
WAHF 
'Zines in Trade

Editorial insertions in blue italics.  Other contributor comments in red italics.

Steven,

Thanks for Argentus 2.

Bart Kemper's article on the openness of fandom was interesting despite the somewhat confusing start. I've seen all sides of the issue. I know that when I migrated from the east coast to Milwaukee it was extremely difficult for me to even find fandom and once we found it it took considerable effort on my part to get integrated. A newcomer would likely never have found the group and not attempted to push. I think this type of experience is echoed in the article. On the other hand I've seen fannish groups (typically conventions) get totally overrun by those with no interest in SF. Both Boskone and to a lesser extent Minicon have had to deal with the large throngs of boors who just showed up for the all the beer you can swill for the price of admission with no care for the hosts or the hotel.

I certainly don't enjoy cons as much as I used to. I've noticed a change in the bid parties over the years so that I don't find them as interesting and I'm sure my perspective has shifted somewhat. I used to drink more than I do now, but I certainly did not drink to excess in a bad way. Part of it is that those I started in fandom with no longer attend the conventions I do and the other is the three kids in tow having its impact. 

I certainly hope that I've been open. When I ran the SF convention in college I got a large number of freshmen interested that persisted even after I'd walked away. I've had a tougher time with non-college cons, but I haven't put nearly the effort into networking and recruiting that I did in college. 

The game of Hell's Bridge sounds an awful lot like spades, but with a random trump suit.

I wish you the best of luck with your lower back. I've had exactly one day of lower back discomfort and don't care to repeat the experience. Unrelated to the back problems was some lung surgery I had. The first thing they did was give me a valium and after that I really didn't care what came next. Like you I found it nearly impossible to concentrate in the hospital room, but my roommate simply moaned until they came and gave him some pain medication. Why he didn't just ring the buzzer I'll never know.

I don't know if I'm up to hosting the first Midwest Con. I doubt Milwaukee fandom is up for it in isolation, but something combined between Chicago and Milwaukee might be doable. It all depends on the expectations and attendance. It does occur to me, though, that you have no idea of my con running credentials. I still don't know if I'll make Construction and may not know until the last minute.

BTW: In the zine listings you have me as "Harry".  [My apologies.]

Henry L. Welch
25 June 2002

Dear Steven,

Argentus #2 arrived in yesterday's mail and I settled down with it in between a variety of other tasks. My immediate reaction: much cleaner and more attractively designed and presented. You still seem to be caught between the formalism of a Nova Express and the looser informality of the more "fannish" fanzines, but I think the trend toward informality is a good one.  It comes with the realization that this fanzine is for you to have fun with -- it's not an amateur prozine. And generally if the editor is having fun with his fmz, so will the readers. 

"The Unwelcoming Face of Fandom" gets your pride of place, leading off the issue, and as such will probably draw most of the attention this time around. That leaves me with mixed feelings, because although this is a far more sensibly written piece than its title suggested it would be, it is still founded on some appalling ignorance. 

It starts with the first subheading: "AKICIF." Kemper says "True Fen not only recognize the acronym AKICIF as All Knowledge Is Contained In Fandom, they are likely to believe it." That's wrong. 

To begin with, the acronym does not stand for what Kemper says it does. It actually and originally was "All Knowledge Is Contained In Fanzines." [It definitely seems to be a term whose definition has changed in much general usage (see gafiate).  According to Stet 9:  The Old Fan's 2000 Almanac, AKICIF:  "All Knowledge is Contained in Fandom, a reference to fans' wide-ranging interests and penchant for collecting trivia.  The initials are used mainly in rasff, where they first appeared, and generally indicate that a poster is asking a question that has nothing to do with SF or fandom." (p.69, emphasis mine).  I asked Leah about this recently and she indicated that she was incorrect in Stet.  She also noted that the fan dictionary in Stet should not be taken as gospel, but was intended as a starting point for a discussion.  Unfortunately, too many people are taking it as a definitive source.] And while there is a (slim) measure of truth in that statement, it was originally uttered sarcastically, as an irony and a comment on the insurality of some fans half a century ago. The corruption this acronym has suffered over the years is a symptom of Kemper's larger problem: he doesn't know what fandom is and he has few clues about where it has been. He stands somewhere on the amorphous fringes of a large and diffuse "fandom" and he has no roadmap. 

Consequently, throughout his article Kemper responds to "fandom" as though it was and is comprised primarily of con-runners.  Although his piece was written for and published in a fanzine, he seems oblivious to the central role of fanzines in the history of fandom. 

Fandom was, historically, a community of fans. Anyone can -- and always could -- declare him or herself "a fan" of SF, but to be a member of fandom requires an awareness of that community and interaction with it. Traditionally fandom existed primarily via the mails -- fans being spread thinly over the world -- via correspondence and fanzines. In the late '30s some fans (mostly in the American northeast) began planning the get togethers which were our first conventions. For the first two decades there were very few conventions: the annual Worldcon, and three annual regional conventions, the Phillycon, the Midwestcon and the Westercon. Late in the '50s a fourth was added, Disclave (Washington, D.C.) It was in the '60s that DeepSouthCon, Boskone, and other regional cons joined the fray. And in the '70s the floodgates opened and local cons sprang up everywhere. Also with the '70s we had the phenomenon of for-profit conventions, which usually appealed as much for members outside the SF community as in it. Creationcon was one of the first of these comics/media/SF cons. 

The tail began to wag the dog. While once conventions were what brought us fans together to meet and socialize once or twice a year, now conventions have lives of their own and their own communities which are often localized and usually only tenuously connected with the greater fandom which still exists as an international community via fanzines and (now) the e-lists. 

So we have a situation in which "greater fandom" consists of one or two thousand people (at the most), most of them English-speaking, and most of them aware of each other (as you and I are of each other), many with long-lasting friendships which span decades. And against this backdrop exists a balkanized mosaic of local fandoms, clubs, con-running fandoms, etc., made up of 10,000 to 20,000 more people, few of whom are aware of those outside their own immediate circles (except for the con-running "SMOFS" who are more widely known). 

It is impossible to speak knowledgeably of "fandom" when discussing that balkanized mosaic of fandoms, since it is made up of large numbers of people with only fractional knowledge or awareness of fandom, about whom it is impossible to generalize. But that is precisely what Kemper is doing. 

When he mentions "Kathy Secor, who's [sic] fan name is 'Aiglet', would seem to fit the classic definition of Fan," I know immediately that she does not fit that classic definition. The concept of "fan name" is alien to classic fandom. Kemper quotes Secor: "I aspire to someday join the great community known as fandom. ... Unfortunately, I will forever be debarred from it by certain people because I participate in what are known as the dreaded 'fringe fandoms.'" 

Quite aside from her misuse of "debarred" (for "barred"), what stands out here is both ignorance and its twin, paranoia. Secor "aspires" to "join" "fandom." But she knows "certain people" will hold her at the door and deny her entrance. 

What neither Secor nor, apparently, Kemper, have yet figured out is that fandom has no door keepers. The only thing "debarring" Secor from joining fandom is her own reluctance. Fandom is not a closed organization. It is, at bottom, a hobby.  As such, it is a purely volunteer activity for all its members; gafia is always an option. 

Then we get to attitudes. "If you doubt that fandom can be hostile to 'normal' folk," Kemper quotes David Klecha saying, "just look at the word we use for them. 'Mundane.' It helps create an unwelcoming elite. The term says, 'You're not welcome unless you're one of us.'" What total balderdash! "Mundane" means what it says. And the implication is that fans are not mundane. 

Kemper lives in an era when SF is no longer despised by the literati and is widely accepted (as "sci-fi") by the general public.  But the public is as ignorant of what SF is now as it ever was (witness Steven Spielberg's claim that Minority Report is not "science fiction" because it's "future realism") -- and as more and more people decide they're "fans" and clog up the Worldcons, they import their mundane ignorance to fandom. 

All communities have ways of defining themselves and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The notion that it's somehow insulting or demeaning to call outsiders "mundanes" and that it makes us "unwelcoming" is absurd. (Nor do I see any reason for us to pull strangers in off the street. The urge to proselytize left me somewhere in the late '50s.) 

[Well, I know that my wife, who is not involved in fandom, finds the phrase "mundane" extremely offensive.]

Kemper must realize this on an unconscious level. Because he decries the loss of "adventurous" costumes at conventions -- by which he means women in costumes which expose more than they conceal. "It seems its [sic] not that the traditional conventions have changed because it has [sic] largely the same people who have changed over the years." No, what has happened is that the mundanes -- the 'normals' -- have moved in and brought with them all of their mundane baggage, including Political Correctness. 

More remarkable to me is Kemper's equation of "Sexuality, bleeding-edge technology, non-traditional beliefs and social practices, media-related SF, and activist social commentary." Which one of those concepts doesn't fit with the others? Right:  "media-related SF." "Media-related SF" means "sci-fi," or, as we mock it, "skiffy." It means Hollywood values, pap for the people, SF as furniture. It means Star Trek and Star Wars -- the devaluation of genuine SF. It also means for-profit conventions -- the kind set up to Soak The Sucker. 

In the end, what Kemper has written is the latest in a long run of Neofannish Paranoia pieces. Its assumption is that everyone has the right to be a fan. And it ignores what would occur if everyone did become a fan. But we can already get a glimpse of that awful dystopic future: more widespread ignorance and the total dissolution of any definition of fandom. 

"Hi. I'm your new neighbor down the street. We just moved in. Can you tell me where the local SF club meets, and when?  Are there any conventions coming up? Do you have the latest Star Wars DVD I could borrow?" 

Moving along to other parts of the zine, David Truesdale corrects me on pb magazines by mentioning Baen's Destinies. He's right; I forgot about it because I have always found Baen such a repellent editor. Why did it fail? 

But then David says, "Remember that digest magazines are very cheap to produce (cheaper than a paperback)." I doubt that very much. If you ignore fancy cover treatments on some pbs (mylar, embossing, die-cuts), the production costs should be about the same: same amount and type of paper, same binding. For most of the '70s Amazing and Fantastic were produced by a paperback printer, Dallas Paperbacks, of Dallas, PA. The same company printed both Galaxy and F&SF for a time. And I'm astonished he thinks subscriptions are SF magazines' salvation, for reasons clearly spelled out in my last letter.  Subscriptions are a delaying action which bring in no new readers, but attempt to hold onto the old. (But some people hate the way magazines arrive in the mail -- chewed up, with address-stickers plastered on covers, etc.) 

In the letters Milt Stevens refers to the "1952" "decision by American Newspaper Corporation, the distributor for most of the magazines in the United States, to stop distributing pulp magazines led to their demise, even though some of them hung on for another couple of years. Then in 1956-57 there was a flurry of new digest SF magazines." 

This is a confusion of the facts. In fact: a) there were two distribution outlets in most areas, American News and Independent News, the latter an aggregation of smaller independent distributors (Leader News, Acme, ID, others) set up in competition with American News. b) the pulps died in 1955-56, not 1952. c) American News was put out of business by the U.S. government in 1958, creating a monopoly situation for the "independent" distributors -- from which magazine distribution in this country has never recovered. I might add, d) in 1957 American News forced some of its digest magazines into the "bedsheet" format (Satellite SF), while forcing others (Infinity) out of business by returning their magazines undistributed. 

In 1970 ARA (a huge mob-controlled monoply in local distribution and food services) told us that they would cut Amazing and Fantastic's "draw" for the Washington D.C. area from 1,000 copies to 500 copies unless we kicked back a certain amount of money to them. Our national distributor (Hearst) refused, and we promptly lost half our potential sales (and more actual sales, due to spottier distribution) in that area. 

Distribution remains the sticking point for magazine publishers and the reason they are seeking subscriptions and any other workarounds they can find. 

Well, there was a lot more in this issue of Argentus, but I'll leave off here, in the interests of leaving something for others to comment on. 

All best,
Ted
25 June 2002

Dear Mr. Silver:

In consideration of your request for art, I enclose some of those "Celtic knot" things of which the late Ken Cheslin once sent me a bulging envelope full. Don't know that they have much to do with SF/fandom, but I find them useful for filling odd spaces. An apparently inexhaustible supply of unprinted Rotsler art is available from: Bill Warren. I observe no mention of Trinlay Khadro; send her an issue and she'll probably be happy to gift you with a stack of her small pieces.

Obviously I cannot be a True Fan as I failed to recognize the acronym cited by Bart Kemper; nor do I feel it necessarily reflects a true state of affairs. The fact that another article on this same theme just appeared (by Laura Seabrook in Quasiguote #4) suggests either the bad news that this is a common problem, or the good news that fandom is finally starting to pay attention to it. Or both...   At the risk of (Ghu forbid) defending "the establishment", I will wearily repeat: It's not that I myself am not interested in anime, gaming, or bad derivative Trekkie fiction. It's that people who are interested in these aspects tend to be only interested in these aspects. Trekdom has long since split off from "mainstream" or literary fandom to throw their own conventions; gaming and filking and costuming are more or less in process of doing so. I am receptive to people who want to costume as well as to read; costumers whose only link to fandom is costuming don't have much in common with me. On the other hand (my afflicting vice, being able to see both sides of the problem -- I would never succeed as a preacher), I was forcibly ejected from "true" (Corflu) fanzine fandom for the vice of not being one of the inner cult. Kathy Secor would be welcome at any con I was throwing. Of course, I'm not involved in con running any more, but it's the thought that counts. Or so they tell me...

As I have run off my mouth far too often elsewhere on the topic, I will note in response to Lloyd Penney's article on fannish awards only that he says, "Either you're agreeing with me, or I'm getting you angry." Will you accept Both of the Above, Lloyd?

I regret that TV game shows do not interest me much. The only one I find watchable is “Jeopardy,” in which you actually have to know something. On average I get about half the answers right, and could probably get a few more with more time.

Likewise, my interest in baseball as a game is minimal. Occasionally my interest in people overrides that. In reading a biography of Ty Cobb, arguably the most hated man in the history of the game, it was noted that Cobb was not a fan of Babe Ruth. He considered Ruth a sloppy and undisciplined hitter, and too fat and slow to be an effective fielder or base runner, all aspects of the game on which Cobb prided himself. He also was proud of his ability to hit a ball anywhere. Once while taking batting practice, some players bet Cobb $5 that he could not hit a pitch into the bullpen. Cobb promptly drilled the next pitch into the bullpen. And the next pitch, and the one after that. Of course, this was also a man who was ejected from a hotel for punching out a maid.

It's odd that Mike Glyer should bring up the HELL IS HERE episode from an Ian Fleming novel. I must have read it once long ago, before I graduated beyond comic books. The incident, even if fictional, stuck in my mind; but somehow I identified it with my favorite mystery writer, Dick Francis, and was frustrated at never being able to locate it in re-reading.

Interesting account of your medical adventures. I would guess that some of your pre-operative vagueness was due less to the absence of a clock, and more to the medical staff having given you a hearty tranquilizer, possibly Valium. I've heard that doctors often load patients up to the eyebrows with Valium prior to especially disgusting things like bronchoscopy, as it has the charming effect of wiping the short-term memory for the event. 

[Quite possibly it was drug induced.  Even without a clock I tend to have a very good sense of time.]

Sherry T.:  The best rejection letter I ever got "from" Marion Zimmer Bradley read, "We don't do stories set in bars!!!" Three exclamation points, sic. It was "signed" with Bradley's name, but not in her handwriting (I had a book previously autographed by her for comparison). At this late date, with MZB gone and the magazine folded, I think it's ample time to let go of the imaginative fantasy that MZB personally read every story.

I fear I can't comment on the 1973 Worldcon as I was not in fandom at that time.

If it's any help, I thought #2 was both more coherent, and displayed more personality, than your first issue. Though the need for more art is apparent, I thought the formatting was improved as well - I see you wisely took Ted White's advice to lose the running header across the top of each page. Interesting choice, to use three-column format in the lettercol but two columns elsewhere. Any particular  reason for that? You have already expressed that you do book reviews online but don't plan to include them in Argentus. Have  you given any thought to a fanzine review column, rather than the mere listing on p. 32, or is that also something you don't want to do on paper?

[The threecol letter col is to set the letters apart from the rest of the 'zine and also divide the more main zine from the mock section.  You don't say if you like the switch or not.  Re reviews, I've added a link from my Argentus page to my review page and also plan on posting zine reviews on the website.  These latter may also wind up in future issues of Argentus, but I haven't made up my mind yet.  Future issues will certainly include contact information for zines mentioned.]

E.B. Frohvet
26 June 2002

Dear Steven,

Read Bart Kemper's article, took a look at www.fantasm.org . I think it's just as well that Joe Mayhew didn't live to see this . . .

Joseph T. Major
25 June 2002

Greetings Steven-

Great to get issue two of ARGENTUS in the mailbox last week. Once a year is an excellent schedule, though if you should feel the urge to get out an issue more often now and then, I certainly won't complain!

I see you used three of the four pieces of art I sent last time, so I'm going to include three more with this letter, to keep the files full for you to select from.

Right off the bat this issue I've been reminded yet again that, after a couple of decades of playing around in fanzines, I am still very much the little neo in the corner. Or at least far from being one of the "True Fen", since I don't recall every even seeing the acronym AKICIF before! Here I am, not even caught up on my own sub-cultures acronyms, and now every other idiot who can whack at a keyboard insists on sprinkling odd letter combinations all over their emails as if I would know what they were talking about. Sigh .... words folks, just give me the words....

Ah, the joys of re-reading, and the evils of weeding out the bookshelves. I go through the shelves around here once a year or so, deciding what to keep and what to move on to free up a bit of much-needed space.

There are, of course, those books that I have no intention of ever re-reading, but carry such memories, or such touchstones for events, that simply running my fingers over the spine now and then as I walk down the hall can give me a rush. Those stay.

Then there are the books that I do, indeed, plan to re-read at some point. I have one hell of a horrible memory, and have found it helps to write things down for future reference. This ran be a pain sometime. However, it also means that I have a number of books that I have re-read once or twice with absolutely no recollection of the plots, just a subtle knowledge that I did indeed enjoy it. And so I can get that same enjoyment over and over. A blessing and a curse in one.

Then there are the books that I liked, but aren't something I feel I'd need as reference, or would feel the urge to re-read. I figure those might find new homes and give new enjoyment for others, and they go into the used book store pile.

Finally the easy ones, the books I read, or in some cases tried to read, and regretted having wasted the time. These also go into the used book store piles, with the hope that there must be someone out there other than the author and their editor who will find something of use in them,

So, shelf space is opened, and I can trade for a whole pile of new books to enjoy.

Woo, that image on page 8. Got to admit it's always a shock when I see one of my little fillos enlarged. Suddenly those lines look like I was drawing with a broad-point marker resting on my shoulder!

Oh, so YOU were the folks that the Insomniac show hit on! I came into that episode late, and didn't catch what convention it was. Hey, I watch and enjoy a lot of programs on Comedy Central (or did up until we had to cancel our cable connection this month to try and save some money), but I would never let them point a camera at me! I think you guys might actually have gotten off light.

Ack, it's getting dark and I can here rain starting, so better wrap this up ... always afraid the computer will get zapped during storms, so I'd better get out of here!

stay happy -                              

Brad W. Foster

Dear Steven

You know, it's kind of funny, but it occurred to me just a few weeks back that it was getting to be about time for another what's-wrong-with-the-way-we-treat-newcomers-in-fandom article--and here you have one leading off ARGENTUS #2.

I've seen at least one article like Bart Kemper's "The Unwelcoming Face of Fandom" every half dozen years or so since I wandered into the microcosm in late 1956. Nothing new even then: Walt Willis and Bob Shaw made allusions to the attitudes in THE ENCHANTED DUPLICATOR, which was first published in 1954.

(For on-line people who don't have [and/or may not want to buy] a copy, see:  http://www.fanac.org/fanzines/Enchanted_Duplicator/Enchanted-00.html )

 No doubt Bart will see this as proof of the pudding--I mean, with all that smoke, there has to be a major conflagration going on, right?

Well, actually, I think not--but it happens that I kind of agree with one of his points, so we might as well start there. In my opinion, anyway, the larger microcosm of fandom has been plagued with creeping ageism--but it's nothing new, either; I first noticed it sometime in the late '70s.  I was 13 when I started writing letters to the prozines, 14 when I began writing for and publishing fanzines, after which I went to my first LASFS meeting, and all of 16 when I attended my first convention, the Solacon, the 1958 worldcon in Los Angeles.  Nobody ever suggested to me that I was too young to participate.  Well, except for myself.  And thereby hangs a tale--and my first real opportunity to digress….

As I began to participate in fandom one of my correspondents, John W. Thiel, who was two years my junior, convinced me that because we were so young we would probably encounter a lot of resistance to our participation, and accordingly maybe the mature thing for us to do was to preempt criticism on that score by starting a couple of "junior" sf fan clubs.  We decided to form a kid's version of the National Fantasy Fan Federation, which we would call the Junior International Science Fiction Club (JISFC), and a kid's amateur press association, which we would call the Junior Amateur Science-Fantasy Association of Publishers (JAS-FAP). For the record, I don't believe JAS-FAP ever had a mailing but John did publish at least one issue of an Official Organ for JISFC. We were nearly universally laughed at since, unknown to us, the majority of the fans in the N3F and active participants in fanzine fandom at the time were between the ages of 14 and 22.  Fandom's Elder Statesmen were, for the most part, in their 30s and 40s.  Terry Carr, who was only two or three years my senior, writing as "Carl Brandon," did a satirical riff on the JISFC and JAS-FAP in his fannish satire "The Catcher of the Rye," which was appearing in INNUENDO, and to the best of my memory that was the only lasting mark these would-be organizations made on fandom.

While I subsequently encountered my share of fans who would criticize and/or disagree with what I said and did, it turned out that it had nothing to do with my age--in every single instance, it was absolutely issue-oriented. This "honest coin" was definitely a two-edge sword, however--if I wasn't disregarded because I was too young, neither was I cut any slack because I was Just A Kid.    

So, yeah, it does bother me to see Worldcons (and other conventions) setting up tracks of programming just for teenagers--as if they're not adult enough to mingle and converse with us Grown Up Folks. (Adult-oriented conventions in which people explore alternate sexualities probably need to exclude the younger folks for legal reasons, so to my mind it's the only acceptable exception.) Then too, while I don't know that much about what's happening these days at local sf clubs, ageism isn't limited to convention fandom--I've also seen younger fans being told, in the pages of some fanzines, that they shouldn't disagree with their "elders."  This is, not to put too fine a point on it, utter bullshit, and not the attitude of a fandom I wish to be associated with.

But that's pretty much where my agreement with Bart Kemper's piece ends, I'm afraid.  I hardly know where to begin expressing points of disagreement, however, so this seems as good a place as any to state my own theory of why so many articles on this theme have appeared in fanzines over the years.  Most people--and I include mundanes as well as fans in this generality (subject to the limitations of all generalities)--are a little nuts.  Neurotic, however, rather than psychotic.  I think everyone has their own psychotic tendency--that is, if we're ever going to wig out completely, it's probably going to be in the direction of our personal psychological bent.  And--here's the sticking point--I firmly believe that most fans have paranoia as their primary psychotic tendency.  Given their life experiences, it's not an unreasonable or illogical psychotic tendency for fans to have. 

So. What happens when these paranoid-tending people first come across fandom?  Well, these days, that's probably at a club or a convention.  Most of the fans they meet will have been there before, and hence are already acclimated, i.e., seemingly speaking in tongues and not inclined to change strong opinions or break off talking about mutual interests with friends just to make neos feel welcome.  If some well-meaning but misinformed individual has told the newer people to attend because the microcosm will "accept anyone," they're almost certain to see the use of fan language, the fact that not everyone indiscriminately likes everything labeled sf in any medium, not to mention the lack of people slapping them on the back in welcome, as part of the Plot to Exclude Them.  And, hey, if that's the case, it might even be a Conspiracy on the part of the Entrenched Establishment to Maintain the Status Quo. 

The earliest use of the term "SMOF" (Secret Master of Fandom) and allusions to the need to "know the Secret Handshake"--both of which are mentioned in Bart's article--were intended to poke fun at this rather silly notion. When fans whose major activities revolved around running conventions began calling themselves SMOFs, I came up with the SBOFs so that the older function might continue to be served: The Secret Bastards of Fandom, a.k.a. the Society of Boring Old Farts, holds "secret" meetings at various locations throughout the world, charts the course of fandom's future, keeps neofans intimidated so they Toe the Line and won't [shudder] Try Something New, and thunders out imperious orders which must be obeyed instantly and to the letter or result in immediate, total and lifelong expulsion from the "inner circle" of fandom.  Hey, I'm sure you all know how it is--it's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it, right? 

Seriously, though, since this notion apparently doesn't strike Bart, or others who've written similar articles, as silly, for once let's try an approach that acknowledges the seriousness of their intent.  I promise, if you'll bear with me a bit longer, I'll reward you all by telling the truth about the real secret handshake of fandom--the one guaranteed to get you "in" to any area of fandom where you desire to participate. Really and truly.

Before that, however, I need to provide a bit more in the way of background.

I think I have a pretty wide range of sf and fannish interests: I'm a long-time sf reader; indeed, written sf is my sf of preference, but I've also been known to discuss Georgette Heyer's regency romances and other writers' mysteries. I've sold a novel and a dozen or so stories in the sf genre. I've been published in hundreds if not thousands of fanzines, which area of the microcosm I've been involved in for most of my life. I've been a founder or a founding member of a couple of apas and a handful of sf clubs (other than JISFC and JAS-FAP); I've chaired a few small conventions and served in a major committee position on a Worldcon and I wrote the final installments of "The Club House" for AMAZING STORIES (which I believe is the last fanzine review column to appear in an sf prozine). I'm a publish fan historian. I also participate in a number of on-line sf groups, have played D&D and AD&D both on paper and as a computer game, have seen every episode of Star Trek and most ST spinoffs and full-length movies, even though I don't really consider myself a Star Trek fan. While I can't play or sing music, I have friends who've done a lot in the filk singing area, and although I don't care to get dressed up in costumes myself, I don't knock it as a fannish pastime. Within the sf community, I don't think my interests can be described as narrow.

Now, the big question here is whether fandom actually does (and/or believes it should) "accept anyone."  I think I have enough in my background to answer that question with a little authority.  

If we limit ourselves to a strictly yes-or-no answer, I'm afraid it would have to be No. Fandom doesn't accept anyone--and only a few segments of the microcosm believe we should.  But if you'll accept a bit of weasel-wording, with accompanying explanation, the full answer is more like, "Generally, yes, and yet sometimes no--since it really hinges on what you mean by 'accept'." 

I think we would all be better off if we made the more truthful claim that fandom tolerates and encourages a wide variety of independent thought--but not everyone in it needs to accept all points of view as equal.  The distinction is that while we don't always totally agree with each other, we respect the rights of others to hold opinions that do that agree with our own. We don't have to believe alternative opinions are right--we can even find them laughable. All we have to do is respect the right of others in the larger microcosm to hold opinions we may regard as foolish and/or wrong, including but not limited to liking sf in a form we may not care for ourselves. 

The worst religious wars, as you may know, are not between different religions but between different sects of the same religion; fandom's support for this level of toleration actually keeps our balkanized microcosm from tearing itself apart.   

Now, as a fan historian, I'm aware of only two cases of long-term total exclusion from fandom--and both were achieved by ignoring the individuals involved until they left us alone. It's important to keep in mind that although the two were probably certifiable nut-cases, both were at least tolerated until they moved beyond what even the most tolerant of fen considered acceptable behavior. 

Let me summarize them briefly: 

In the 1940s, fandom initially laughed at Claude Degler's notion that fans were slans (after A.E. van Vogt's novel "Slan"), a superior race of mutants destined to rule their mundane brethren--but he wasn't given the cold shoulder until he traveled around the country visiting various fan centers and paid for his continued travels by stealing from the very fans who'd been his hosts.  (As I get older, fatter and generally less attractive to the opposite sex, I tend to think we may have missed a bet when we rejected his notion of setting up "love camps" in the Ozarks, where we True Fen would have to go to do our part to breed the race that would rule the sevegram--but I'm digressing again, I see.)

More than a decade later, most fans disagreed with but nonetheless tolerated George Wetzel's outright bigotry; it was writing poison pen letters to the employees of liberal fans who disagreed with him that led the microcosm to ostracize him. This was, you understand, during the McCarthy era, and many fans worked for the government while Wetzel was saying they were actively involved in "Communist cells"--far from harmless stuff.

The sf microcosm is utopian--but it's not egalitarian. The Worldcon tries to be egalitarian within the fan community to the extent that it attempts to program for any interest even remotely associated with science fiction, but that's the extent of it. As a social organism, fandom is an anarchistic meritocracy; nobody really "runs" things (or not for very long, anyway) and any status the participants may derive comes from the merit of their chosen activities as perceived by those in fandom who are capable of appreciating that merit. 

Now, a given convention will be "run" by the people who make up its convention committee, a given fan club (including most amateur press associations) will have officers who will govern by the rules set up for that purpose and a given fanzine will have an editor who, being the one who foots the bills, will publish what s/he likes--you're not being "debarred" if they don't let you come into their territory and start running these things totally to your own liking. If you have ideas about how things should be done, however, you have more than one option: You can join in and "work your way up" until your opinion is respected and your way of doing things might then be tried--or you can start your own convention, club, apa and/or fanzine and do it totally your own way from the start.  No one in fandom has the power to keep you from making your own choice between these options.

As long as I'm "explaining" fandom, let me point out one more thing that is not really barring anyone from participation in 

the microcosm. It's perfectly acceptable (last I heard) for me to have all those sf- or fandom-related interests that I listed--but I have to accept as given that not everyone in fandom will share those interests with me, and in fact some fans who share an interest in area "a" not only may not have an interest in area "b" but they might even consider an interest in area "b" to be ridiculous.  They're neither ostracizing me nor trying to tell me I'm a terrible person when/if they do this.    

Let me see if I can get to the nub of what Bart, and many of the people he quotes in his piece, seem to be complaining about--and then see if I can deal with it. 

They see what implicitly seems to be a form of snobbishness being practiced in the microcosm--there are, you see, demonstrably and undeniably certain groups in core areas of fandom who get together almost exclusively with others who share their own limited, older, narrower interests in sf and in fandom, to the exclusion of hanging out with those who have certain other wider and newer interests.  Well, I'm sorry, but if spending time with those who share our narrow band of interests (and thereby effectively excluding those who don't) is snobbery, then that's an indictment of the entire microcosm, not just one small segment of it. It means all fans are snobs. Even fans like Bart, whose range of stfnal interests may well go off the charts, are implicitly expressing a preference, when they attend a fan club or convention or contribute to a fanzine, to be with others who like some mode of fandom and/or sf well enough to call themselves fans of it--which specifically excludes 99.999999999%+ of the world population.     

The Worldcon, as I said earlier, makes the attempt to program for all sorts of sf and fannish interests--including some that really are on the outer fringes, like the occasional Georgette Heyer Tea--but it doesn't force attendees to go to them all; indeed, it would be impossible to do so under the present setup, since there are often a dozen or more program items (usually appealing to different interest groups) going on at any one time. If we wanted to force everyone to go to them all without deleting anything, if we assume that would help achieve something more to Bart's liking, we'd have to hold the Worldcon over the course of a couple of months just to get them all in.  The option we've chosen over this forced egalitarianism is to let individuals choose their own options--and it can be a bit daunting if you have a variety of interests and a couple of things you might otherwise want to see are programmed opposite each other. But that's a separate matter.

What generally happens at most Worldcons is that the attendees go to the program items that interest them the most and they hang out there with people whose interests they share to the exclusion of those who don't.  This is not only true of hard core fans, but of all the fans whose major interests are those "fringe" fandoms Bart mentions--although it's generally just those hard core fans who are criticized for this behavior, in my experience.

When I start to think that we may be justified in losing our patience from time to time, I try to remind myself that maybe there's more to it than simple paranoia. We do talk about, rehash, study, even analyze fandom's past, present and possible future.  We may be overheard discussing just which fans are "real fans" and referring to ourselves as Trufandom, so I suppose it can sound like we think we're better than everyone else. (We are "better than everyone else"--but in a strictly subjective way.  Any interest group that reflects your individual interests is "better" for you than one that does not.  If you'd prefer to think that it's actually worse for you, and that any interest group that reflects interest other than your own is actually better, of course, that's your prerogative--as I indicated earlier, I'm perfectly willing to respect your right to hold opinions that I may regard as ridiculous or silly on their face.) 

As far as that core segment of the microcosm is concerned, we did lay claim to the term Trufandom a long time back--but those who understand it realize it's used somewhat tongue-in-cheek, just as they know that when the late Charles Burbee coined the phrase "all knowledge is contained in fanzines," he was being satirical. We generally acknowledge that anyone who claims to be a fan is a fan, and that it would indeed be presumptuous for anyone to set up a litmus test that people would have to pass to be allowed into any area of fandom. Fortunately, this isn't what's being done in our discussions: We're making distinctions between people who may just read or watch sf ("readers" or "watchers") and those who are somewhat active in the microcosm ("fans"). I really think it should be okay to make these distinctions since what may be true of the larger group might not be true of the smaller, and vice versa. It shouldn't be a Crime Against Humanity for us to discuss--and make it clear that we're discussing--that smaller group.  It should also be acceptable to talk about (and make it clear that we're talking about) groups within those groups, e.g., fanzine fans, convention fans, club fans, Star Trek fans, costuming fans, &c., even to make generalities about them (subject to the limitations of all generalities, of course) without constantly having to state the obvious fact that many fans participate in more than one of these areas.

There is one further caveat I'd like to toss out about fandom's tolerances, and that's to say that the generalities I've stated about them are also subject to the limitations of all generalities, namely: There are going to be exceptions.  If you pick your nose or your ass in public, if you stand so close to people you've just met that your b.o. or bad breath envelopes them in clouds, if you pontificate at length about your obscure knowledge of the mean annual rainfall in Zimbabwe during the Mesozoic Period, if you interrupt what everyone else is saying because it's interfering with your remaining the center of attention--among other possibilities--then you should be advised that one trait of many fans is the unwillingness to suffer fools gladly just to be what the mundane world may consider "polite," since it will otherwise come as an unpleasant surprise.    

That said, it remains only for me to fulfill that promise I made and give you the "secret handshake" that will allow the vast majority of you entry to virtually any area of the microcosm.  The secret handshake is this: Your election to participate in that area of the microcosm.  It's just that simple. I'm not guaranteeing that the fans participating there will agree with you or even like you--that's between you and them.  They will tolerate and accept your right to participation, even if they disagree and/or dislike you.

Subject to the limitations of all generalities.

Regards,

rich brown

Dear Steven

What a stuffed solid issue you have produced, and as fannish as all get out - from the "Unwelcoming Face of Fandom" to the WYGT on the back page. It's so stuffed with material that I might have to do letters, like I just did for Quasiquote. (I did a quickie, then thought of some other topics I had skimped or entirely forgotten.) 

As a True Fan (or as I like to think of myself, a fan), I recognize the acronym AKICIF as really standing for All Knowledge is Contained in Fanzines. I guess when one is posting to rassff, this had to change. I hope that I also take into account the irony, since "All Knowledge" is as likely to be wrong as right. 

Bart is right, though, as have been so many others who have written similar articles before him, both in US fanzines as those of Canada, the UK, Australia and so forth. I think I was much more open and accepting in my youth than I am now. I have a lot less energy for making new friends and welcoming new people, so I often won't make much of an effort unless I think the person is going to fit in with my interests and tendencies. (Though on the other hand, I've become a little more open to those mostly alien beings, convention runners.) 

In my first experiences in fandom, I found myself very welcomed by fanzine publishers, writers, and the general run of people at cons and clubs. However, they were my people, dedicated to writing in one way or another: actually doing it for fan or professional publication, publishing it, reading it, illustrating it, collecting it, debating and analyzing it. Watching it, dressing up like it, playing games derived from it, singing about it - were all very subsidiary to the reading and writing of it. 

After all these years, my primary focus is the same. Watching sf in movies or on tv has grown in my estimation and my time budget as more stuff has appeared in these media, but I still don't spend much energy on being a fan (in the fannish sense of taking an active part in relating to the subject), though I did appear on a Buffy Der Vampyre Slayer panel at Orycon. People who do spend fannish energy on these things? Fine folk, can be fun to know, but unless they share some other interest with me, they are not likely to be in my circle of friends. 

And that's my truth. 

I reread on rare occasions. Like Fred Lerner, I have reread Lord of the Rings several times, most recently last year to prepare for the movie version. (Yes, sometimes I feel a movie is worth "preparing" for.) But mostly I don't have the time to spare because I've got too many new things on the bookshelves. There's at least three years of reading waiting for me there. 

Thanks for the new Ghod - same as the old Ghods? Too many "g"s for my taste, almost Swedish in number, but otherwise pretty cute. 

Lloyd, of course the awards are all subjective. How can they not be? The Hugo votership is far far larger than the circulation of any fanzine, and for the last few years any zine with a web presence like Ansible has had a numerical advantage. In addition, many fans who do see a good selection of eligible zines don't join the Worldcon unless they're planing to attend, which I'm sure slews the nominating and voting results. 

As for the FAAN awards, they do get voted on my a more knowing selection, but even there - I voted the year before last, at the last minute, and forgetting entirely that the order in which I wrote down my nominations would weight them, even though the second or third thought I had actually seemed better writers or artists than the first name I wrote. So all these awards are very iffy and only indications rather than firmly defensible value judgments. 

There's many more interesting things here, including the Twincon stuff, but I'm going to have to get off the computer so Suzie can do some work. 

Keep them coming. 

Jerry Kaufman 

Steven

I’m afraid that I’m rather typical Finnish male when it comes to meeting new people. I’m somewhat shy, afraid to speak out in case I say something really stupid and make a fool out of myself, uncertain of the value on MY opinions etc. This can and usually does change somewhat after a few pints, I’m afraid. I think that I wasn’t too unwelcomed by the US-fans when I had the opportunity to meet ”you”. Like with the Prydonians of Prynceton who (especially Tom Beck) took a foreigner in with open arms and a friendly face. Another one who contributed a lot with assimilation into fandom was The Donewitz of the Lunarians who among all the myriad of little things, helped me to find a crashspace at Lunacon’02. Not to mention all the other kind souls there who made that particular con a very worthwhile experience. 

But I can see that people can have problems when meeting fandom for the first time. Why should group of old friends be interested what some stranger, possibly a lot younger and possibly even vastly different looking, comes along and says something surprisingly insipid? Why should I (or someone else care) whether Wings of Honneamise is superior to Urotsukidoji or not? (It is actually way superior and a great movie in general, though personally I don’t care that much about anime meself.) 

The Finnish meetings (or Mafia’s, as we call them) tend to be fairly homogenous bunch of old friends and acquaintances, into which a neophan has a real mountain to climb in order to be a productive and useful member of. When I started to come, after reading about these meetings from various fanzines, to restaurant Kannas, the first time someone asked anything from me (like Who the **** are you and What the (ahem!) are You doing here?) was after my third visit. But I liked the people (after I got to know them) and stayed. Perseverance is a good thing to have. And a friendly face now and then. Few years back when I glimpsed a new face in the crowd I used to go and chat for a while in order to try make the apparent newcomer more at home. Maybe I ought to start doing so again?

I haven’t been purchasing new books (nor CD’s) for some time now. Basically we’ve been just about making ends meet after we moved back from the States, especially when I haven’t found a new job yet. This has meant that I’ve been ”forced” to start excavating our existing bookshelves for something to read. Gosh, I thought the meaning was to collect those things, not to READ them. 

Ghughle sounds like a mighty Big One, but I’m afraid I’ll stick with my dualistic bhelief of both Herbie (one should always respect the One who can pluck thunderbolts from his nose) and Roscoe (mainly for the Promise of Bheer). 

Baseball isn’t really a sport, now is it? We don’t play the game (really) but a variation of it called ”pesäpallo” (straight translation is ”baseball”) and I’ve always thought that the games, whilst having somewhat different serving techniques and base-positions, gloves and bats etc., were basically very similar. Only after watching a whole game (Yankees vs. something or the other) I realised that truth was not out there. Baseball is… sort of slow, eh? 

But after a while I was hooked. The apparent slowness of the game, the almost hypnotic value of the pitching effort, the enigmatic scoresheet, hot dogs… Not bad. As we lived in New Jersey and didn’t have a team of our own, my choice of favourite team wasn’t as easy as with ice-hockey. I ’ve been following hockey and NHL for 20-odd years, but never really picked a favourite as such. Basically it tended to be the team of the year where most or the best Finnish players used to play, but when we moved to Princeton, I realised that this could be a solid reason for picking up a team ie. New Jersey Devils.

Baseball on the other hand… No NJ team, so what is it then? There’s New York, Philadelphia, but why settle for neighbours? How about then Dodgers or Mariners? However, the decision was actually pretty easy to make. I like what I  see, therefore it had to be a nearby team that was on the telly quite often. As I have grown up (from a youngster that basically looks up the last years champion or the current Big Thing) a bit, I have started to root for the underdog, hence – Mets. 

Sari wasn’t too impressed, but she did pick up a name and thus, when ever we’re playing a game of Trivial Pursuit (one of our three American Edition’s), a baseball question is answered with resounding: ”Mike Piazza!”. One correct answer so far. (Other regular one is "Jack Dempsey" in boxing.) Her favourite player is however Yogi Berra. Sari even made a small fanzine called "The Immortal Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra" for me as a present. You just got to love that woman.

Good to hear (well, read actually) that your operation went well. I’ve never had a major operation (he said, knocking his head), just a small thumb-surgery way back when I was teen and managed to get my hand stuck at my bicycle spokes. Amazing feat of athleticism, I agree. 

Your telling of the episode is lot of fun to read. I was actually looking forward to a ghastly tale of removal. I think I must have helped closer to 30-something of my friends to move their belongings, some of them more than once. On occasion we have had to penalize some with moving restrictions from 6 months to three years. Biggest single factor to the length of the penalty is usually the missing elevator and the subsequent number of stairs to climb. Maximum goes to whomever
moves to the top-floor. Most houses in Helsinki do (of course) have elevators, but some ancient (as in early 19th century) 4-to-5 –floored houses either don’t have them or the apparatus in question is the size of a shoebox.

The Mock section was very entertaining, with three best (funniest to me at least) bits first. There seemed to be some mistakes with the bold characters in Rich Horton’s list - or then I must be reading something very wrong here. 

A good zine. My only real quibble here is the positioning of the pictures in the middle of text, thus complicating the reading experience. It would be OK is there’d be two columns of text, but as such, this is really not very readable. Maybe something to think about?

[Well, it is two column in the print edition, which is readily available for the asking.  Still working to make the on-line version readable.  Of course, one of the complaints from the first issue .pdf version was that it was in two columns.]

Jukka Halme

Dear Steven,

You may have accomplished a first in Argentus #2. While there are a number of fanzines which appear about once a year,  don’t think I’ve ever seen one that states it is an annual.

Despite some of the quotes in Bart Kemper’s article, I doubt it is the unfriendly face of fandom that keeps most people from staying after their initial contact. As bad as it may be for our collective egos, I think most people don’t stay around fandom because they don’t find it interesting. I don’t think fandom is much different from other hobby groups or other social situations. You will always encounter a variety of opinions (except maybe in the Ku Klux Klan). It is always a good idea to consider other people’s opinions, but don’t necessarily accept them. If you always do accept the opinions of others, you will live your life as a yo-yo, and there is no help for you. If you absolutely have to have a welcoming environment, you can always join a nut cult. I understand they are quite welcoming in the manner a spider is welcoming to a fly.

Fandom began as a small group of hobbyists. Over the years, we have developed a much larger shell of hobby consumers. The difference between the two groups is active versus passive. Even reader-collectors can be pretty darned active. You can always recognize reader-collectors by their distinctive sniffing which comes from years of inhaling the little bits of paper from old pulp magazines. While sniffing through the huckster room for new acquisitions, two reader-collectors may run snout to snout into each other. This is one way of meeting people at a con. 

Hobbyists still show up at cons to interact with each other. If you sit quietly and don’t do anything, the hobbyists may mistake you for part of the hotel furniture and ignore you. They know you aren’t good to eat. If you actively annoy the hobbyists, they may revise their opinion about you being good to eat. 

The sole purpose of fandom is the amusement of the people who participate in fandom. Fandom has no divine mission to amuse the entire world. Some suggest we should add more features at cons to increase our body count. I feel that would be counterproductive, since body count is a quantitative issue, and I am more interested in qualitative issues. I would rather attend a 150 person Midwestcon than a 15,000 person Dragoncon. Obviously, there are those people who will go for the big body count, and that is why Dragoncons exist.

Not everyone who wanders into a con will be a desirable addition to fandom. I might mention the Subway Crowd that eventually drove the Lunacons out of New York City and the punks who try to infest the Baycons. While I’m not exactly sure what fans look like, I’m absolutely certain they don’t look like punks wandering around giving everyone hate looks. 

Again, it’s a qualitative issue. 

David Truesdale lists a number of current publications which I’ve never encountered. Of the publications he lists, I consider Analog, Asimov’s, F & SF, and Realms of Fantasy as prozines. Where I have heard of the other publications he lists, I would tend to regard them as semi-pro based on irregular publishing schedules, very small circulations, and probably no newsstand circulation. The last point is the most dubious, since I have trouble even finding newsstands anymore. I have no real opinion of e-publications. I’m not in search of more reading matter, so there isn’t any reason for me to look at them. 

It appears from Truesdale’s list that 3¢ per word is now the minimum payment in the field. That’s about three times what it was 50 years ago. Analog is paying 5 to 8¢ a word which is about twice what Astounding was paying 50 years ago.  Prozines today are ten times as expensive as they were 50 years ago, and the rest of the economy has inflated by about the same degree. Comparatively, writers selling short fiction today are not making nearly as much as the writers of 50 years ago. Of course, writing fiction never was a reliable way of making a fortune. 

Yours truly, 

Milt Stevens

Dear Steven:

Many thanks for issue 2 of Argentus. I often find that the first issue of a zine is more introductory, the second issue is where the tone of discussion is set. As I leaf through this issue, it sure looks good. Time to dive in and dogpaddle.

I would like to think that Bart Kemper is wrong, that we're always welcoming to the new person, and looking for new blood, talent and energy. Unfortunately, I think he's exactly right. We're not very welcoming at all; some of us are downright hostile, to neo or fellow fan alike. My very first foray into fandom was on the west coast with a Star Trek club. I'd ready about media fandom and lit fandom, and this club was the first opportunity that presented itself. They were welcoming, and I had a marvelous time. Then, I moved east, and found more welcoming media fans. And, a handful of snarky litfans (some of whom were fanzine fans) who immediately tagged me as one of Those Damned Media Fans. I was fortunate in that not all lit fans were snarky and distant, and when I showed some interest in their activities, there were many who welcomed me and showed me the ropes. This got me into costuming, convention management, apas and fanzines. I've been one of the lucky ones. I've dabbled in what might be called fringe fandoms, and in mainstream fan interests as well. I am media and literary, and enjoy aspects of both. I think you have to have a slightly thicker skin than normal to not let as said above, snarky litfans, chase you away, and you can find those who share your own interests.

I think there has been some jealousy, and some anger, at how what are considered media SF interests attract so many more than do literary SF events. This year's animé and Star Trek conventions in Toronto attracted 3500 and 3200 attendees respectively. The local SF literary convention got about 750. All the committees work hard, but animé and Star Trek seem to be more easily consumed, so to speak, than SF literature. Fandom is like any other social group; it takes time to be accepted, but we have our own anger, jealousy, covetousness and other insecurities to deal with.

All hail Ghugle!, the fannish god of online fandom. There's a lot to admire in the current fannish pantheon, and Ghu and Roscoe be praised. Ghugle Himself would know that even though there is much knowledge on the Internet, there are myriad times more opinions, error and just plain nonsense, not counting all the porn sites. Ghugle will also know that in the quest for true knowledge, not all fans are gifted with all pure knowledge, as slannish as they think they are. The word of Ghugle is to educate others gently without screaming in person or online, "Get it right!!!" We must follow the example of the patience of Ghugle, without being nasty about it.

I'd be interested to hear about any response to my article on fan funds. Just recently, I wrote an article on American response to 9/11 for Earl Kemp's e-zine eI. To my surprise, it got no response, partially because the whole zine got no response. I'm hoping for better here. I know what most people think of the Fan Hugos, but I think that any award with some history behind it is a good one. How did you feel about being Hugo nominee, Steven? You know the feeling yourself.

It's good to see David Truesdale's article on short fiction markets...many years ago, I tried my hand at trying to get my short stories published, only to fail miserably. There was only four or five markets I knew of them, and all had a handout you could write for, with details of exactly what they were wanting, and how to get it to them for depositing on the slush pile. I would hope there's a page on the SF(F)WA website to similar information on each publication's site.  

A fanzine is the last place I expected to find an article about le Club de Baseball, les Expos. I've been in Montréal plenty, but always for conventions. I've never been to an Expos game. Hell, I've only been to a couple of Blue Jays games.  I wouldn't call Olympic Stadium in Montréal a domed stadium...more doomed than domed. The retractable covering isn't very retractable, and pieces seem to be falling off the stadium on a regular basis. I'd heard rumour that the government was going to tear it down and rebuild a decent stadium, and then I heard the stadium was coming down, with no replacement, and then I heard that nothing would be done at all. With this in mind, most Canadian ball fans are expecting that the Expos will become the reborn Washington Senators next year. (Bill, around Toronto, a flashing green traffic light usually means an advance left turn.) 

Good to hear that Torontonians are welcome to go to Midwest Construction, and if I were as involved with conventions as I used to be, I would definitely consider going. However, most of the people who do run conventions locally are very much out of the loop, and probably have no awareness that this convention exists. Usually, the only convention they go to is their own, and have no connections to fandom outside of Toronto. 

The idea of a roving midwestern regional convention is a good one...the name MidWestCon is already taken, but I'm sure
those who are interested will take a shot at it. 

Minneapolis in '73...alternate history, maybe, but look at all the parties we would have missed out on! Torcon 2 was just a little before my time, and I'm looking forward to enjoying Torcon 3. I think we'll be working with the LA in '06 bid on site, but beyond that, we'll be having Worldcon in our own backyard. Chicago fandom may be used to that, but this is new for me. 

And that's about all for now. Two pages of loc is pretty good, given the fact I'm awfully tired, and work bores me to tears. I guess this is the mental stimulation I'm missing in the workplace. Take care, let me know any reaction to my article, and I'll look for another issue next year.  

Yours, Lloyd Penney.

(Sorry it took so long to post.  I received this in early July and it promptly got buried in a pile of papers.  I excavated it finally, in September, and am now getting it on-line.)

Dear Steven,

Argentus looks niiccee.  You made a lot of changes!  Aha-an annual!!

(Minor creet-the ToC sorta runs into the editorial-I expected :Enough people provided" to run right into "From the Mine"-which, of course, it doesn't.)

The Harvia 'toon on pg 1 is wunderfilled!

A bit tardy,-but another congrats on the fan writer nomination!

I'd hope that fen are more accepting of others-but (partly-mainly??) I did not feel welcomed many years ago and for a long time I kept butting my head against the same brick wall-my idea of fun is just not the same as the majority of people/fans and I'm not pushy enough to make contact with those I'd like to meet.  Misery may love company, but it rarely does-each is miserable alone.

I have found that (for me at least), the warmest, friendliest of times were accidental...that moment just people watching when a well known pro asks if that seat is taken...and sits-asking how you like the con-just a short, light discussion-then is gone (to paraphrase-only the memory lingers).  It can happen.

But, I hasten to add that as non-confrontational as I am-and as shy as I am in fan groups I have had very poor experiences with some pros with sharp (no not wit) comments. Um, I may forgive, but I don't forget and there are two pros I don't want to be around.  One of them-I've not heard any other comments about-the other, I've only heard "nice" comments-not my experience (so I gave a second chance-same type of sharp comments-so, no thank you).

Ah-Kurt Erichson...Stu...Brad...Sue-you sir, must rate! Don't know if I rate, but I do ask.

Lloyd-the currency (or perhaps lifeblood?) of fandom should be egoboo since we all are fans.  Heck, as currency goes, egoboo is cheap, in fact, it's free!!!  So, it's surprising there isn't more of it around.

I’ve come to the conclusion that in the best case, the amount of egoboo a fan receives is equal to the amount of criticism the fan receives, although the egoboo tends to arrive in more concentrated packets while the criticism is spread out over a longer period of time.  Unfortunately, the criticism tends to last longer and feeds itself, while egoboo is notoriously insecure and needs constant reaffirmation.

What was the actual diagnosis?  Herniation?

Yes.  A herniated disk between the L4 and L5 (vertebra, not Lagrange points).

It is always nice to see a list of zines which include some I don't get.  Your list includes 8/18 which I haven't seen.  I erred and cut the contact information for the zines, for which I apologize.  Future issues of Argentus will include that critical information.  Fosfax is currently "in limbo" (on sabbatical?)-not sure of the right term.  Other faneds will have to pick up the wordage load!

I don't spend much time on the internet and the e-mail notification of making the Hugo ballot (while great) was a bit of a let down.  No phone call!!

Let me know what repro you are using.  Xerox machine.  The two fillos I've put in here are very simple.  I've done some more detailed (etc.) bits, only to have the repro turn all the gradients (etc., again) into almost solid black splotches.  Simple is safer, but...

I've tried (obviously, it didn't work) to transmit a file to a faned today, and article with several illos.  I simply cannot figure out how to send a file from my DTP software.  Sending the illos from my drawing software is easy.  The disappointment is that I did the illos in color on the computer (never really done this, since I don't have a color printer) but if it doesn't get sent electronically, anything else is a bit less.  Ah, technology.

Keep on pubbing.  Interesting to see how Argentus is evolving.

Again, let me know if I can help.

Sheryl Birkhead

WAHF

Michael A. Burstein, Steve Green, Lee Hoffman, Rodney Leighton

 

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